Page 28 of Murder Notes

“Because I didn’t call.” He leans in closer. “You want to know why I didn’t call?”

“Because I told you not to call.”

“Do you think that would stop me from calling you? Or coming for you if that’s what I wanted?”

The words are a blow that hurt more than they should and also prove that I’m a fucking fool every moment that this man touches my life. “We’re done here.”

“We are never done, Lilah, and if you think my silence was about us being done, you’ll soon discover that’s not true. Do not ask questions neither of us can come back from.” He pushes off the door, and for several long beats we stare at each other, the charge between us a weird mix of sexual tension, anger, challenge, and something I can’t name. I turn away from him and exit the office, and now, now I’m in my Otherworld, my safe zone, my disconnected place, where I feel nothing. Where Kane and the past cannot reach me. I walk down the stairs, slow and easy, and through the lobby. I exit the building into a gust of wind off the ocean at my back, and I weave through cars until I’m standing next to my rental, where I find an envelope with a red ribbon attached. I inhale, certain this is from Junior.

Still in my Otherworld, I walk to the car, cover the handle with my sleeve, and open it before retrieving a rubber glove from my bag. Returning to the window, I pick up the note and climb into the car. Pulling on a second glove, I remove the note that reads:

T is for TRUST.

You TRUSTED him.

F is for FOOL.

That’s YOU.

CHAPTER TEN

I’m not one to linger and fret over things. In fact, people who spend time fretting get on my nerves. If something bothers you, do something about it. Grow some balls and grab someone else’s. And that’s exactly why, knowing Samantha runs her clothing-design business from her home rather than from her family business located in New York City, I drive to her mansion a few miles from Kane’s offices. I don’t expect her to be there, of course, since she was just putting a note on my window, and her mansion is the only place I would know to look for her, but I want her to know I came for her.

I don’t get past the gate. The staff she keeps on the property simply refuse to allow me to pass. I’m about to back up and depart when a silver BMW I know to be Samantha’s pulls up behind me, blocking my exit. A power play perhaps, but it’s also the move to keep me outside her private space that I find really fucking interesting.

I place the car in Park and then give Junior’s note in the passenger seat a glance. Intentionally leaving it there, visible should Samantha join me, I exit the vehicle as Samantha does the same, her long, blonde hair a sleek, beautiful reminder that I’m the only brunette in Kane’s life. I’m not even the man’s type. She’s also wearing black slacks and a black turtleneck, giving off the illusion of being prim and proper. Oh, come on. We all have a superpower: baking muffins, drawing pictures, listening to dead bodies speak to you. Hers is fucking men senseless. She’s not prim and proper. She’s exactly what I said last night. A ho, bitch, or whatever the fuck I called her. We walk toward each other, meeting at the trunk of my car, as she places her brand-name sunglasses over her face. A little trick we in law enforcement know is to hide the lies about to be spoken.

“Lilah Love,” she says, greeting me.

“Agent Love,” I state, indicating my badge, which she may or may not give a glance to, since I can’t see her fucking eyes. “I’m sure, since you’re fucking my brother, you know there was a murder last night.”

“The whole of the Hamptons knows.” She hugs herself. “It’s unnerving.”

Like her doing dirty deeds with my brother. And Kane, damn it. “Where were you last night?”

“Last night? Why in the world would it matter where I was? I wasn’t at that woman’s house.”

“Where were you, Samantha?”

“With your brother.”

“Really?” I ask, imitating Kane’s classic and highly arrogant arch of one single brow. “That isn’t what I was told.”

She removes her glasses and looks at me, her stare unblinking. “Ask him,” she says, and with no acknowledgement of my comment about her whereabouts, she adds, “I was with your brother.”

“From what time to what time?” I ask, since Andrew was in Southampton when I got into town, the idea that she was with Kane and Andrew the same night turns my stomach.

“I don’t know. I was here, working, and then I was at his place. I don’t know the time.”

I’ve found that two “I don’t knows” in one sentence means a person knows and doesn’t want to say. “Perhaps your staff can help us with that,” I suggest. “Or the log on your security cameras?”

“I . . . perhaps.”

“Good,” I approve. “Let’s go talk to your staff.”

“I’ll get you the security log, but talk to your brother.”

“I will. And your staff.”