“Look up the Reddit forums?” he asks, “I already did.” He taps his phone screen. “Apparently, I’m a handsome, dangerous, Latin Stallone.” His eyes twinkle. “I do believe I like this forum.”
I grab his phone from his hand to scan the forum, and read a thread titled “Dexter tendencies?” and it’s not about Roger, but rather about me. I hand him the phone back. “The fact that you don’t see this as a problem makes me question your present state of mind. You better enjoy your Latin Stallone status while you can. I’m going to get Lucas to wipe it away.”
Kane’s jaw flexes. “If that would do any good at all, I’d have my team take appropriate action, not your cousin. But doing so will get more attention than just leaving it alone, and another forum will pop up with more activity than the first.”
Apparently, my husband still doesn’t like my cousin by marriage, and still thinks he wants in my pants. He’s probably not wrong on Lucas, or the forum. We’ll discuss both later, when we’re alone, and probably loudly. But never in front of his men. For this reason, I press my lips together and immediately dial my tech guru, who we all call Tic Tac for no known reason.
“Lilah,” he greets. “Let me guess. You need—”
“Stuff,” I supply.
He laughs. “Yes. You always need stuff. Welcome back. How’s married life?”
“Bloody, apparently. I need to know about a couple of murders. Three to be precise. Two were killed while having sex. Stabbed with a hatchet from under the bed. Another stabbed with a butcher knife.”
“This is a joke, right? Because you just described the killing methods of Jason from Friday the 13th and Michael from Halloween.”
“Right. See what you can find. And I need to know all there is to know about Jack Cox. He’s in forensics with the NYPD. I’m headed to a related crime scene now. And tell Murphy what’s going on. Because if you talk to him, I don’t have to and the world is a better place for it right now.”
“I guess the honeymoon is over.”
“The minute I hit the ground,” I say and disconnect.
After doing so, I sit there a moment, bothered by a specific statement I made to Tic Tac: The minute I hit the ground. The murder and Jack’s call both seemed to be timed perfectly for my arrival. Almost as if the killer, and Jack, knew when to expect me. Which is a pompous way of thinking, considering it assumes this is all about me, and it’s not.
In other words, these murders are not about me, but if making them about me is what it takes to turn the killer’s attention to me and not a bunch of innocent people, then I’ll find a way to make that happen. I really hate losers who prey on the weak and innocent, and in general, people in their twenties and thirties can be that and more. They’re living life, enjoying the last of their blissful youth, some before their careers and the demands of family and monthly bills take over. They’re still free from the bitterness of knowing how cold the world can be.
They’re still ignorant to the dangers of the real world. I don’t hate them for that. I envy them.
“Lilah,” Kane says softly. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“You up for a horror movie marathon?”
“You don’t like horror movies.”
“No,” I agree. “I don’t, but it appears we may have a horror movie copycat killer or so Jack Cox thinks.”
“Cox?” he inquires. “That’s a powerful name.”
“So he told me. And yet, he doesn’t have enough influence at the NYPD to get them to listen to what he’s got to say.”
“Which means what to you?”
“Maybe I just talked to a serial killer.”
Chapter Four
If Kane and I were anywhere near normal-ish, my last statement would have exhumed an attitude from him as dramatically as the DA can a dead body, but it does not. “He’s not the killer. That would be too easy.”
Already we are doing what we do, batting back and forth on my casework. “Why do you say that?”
“How many people has he killed?”
“At least four.”
“And he’s gotten away with it.” It’s not a question, but rather a statement of fact.
“Your point?”
“I know killers about as well as you do. Killers want to live to kill again, at least until they’re done killing. He knows who I am. He knows you’re my wife. He knows what is assumed about me. He wants to live, not die. He would not tempt fate and get close enough for me to kill him.”
“Why can’t I be the one who kills him?”
“You’re a closet killer, bella. I’m an assumed mass murderer. Unless you wish to allow another killer to have ammunition to use against you, and I know you don’t, he knows only my reputation.”