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“Of course, you did,” I say dryly. “Because you’re as much a schoolteacher as I am delicate. Everyone in this vehicle should remember that.”
Jay doesn’t dare turn his ass around at that.
I remove my phone from my pocket and grimace to find my messages have blown up since I last checked. Kane, of course, just now. Tic Tac, Chief Houston, the mayor, and more Tic Tac. Interestingly, nothing more from Murphy, though that may mean nothing. Murphy, as a high-ranking member of the FBI, respects how in the moment I have to be to work. Those who are in the moment with me, don’t.
Except for Kane.
I send the badge number to Tic Tac, scan his notes, and decide they are all for Purgatory. As for the chief, he’s calling because the mayor is on his ass. I group text the two of them:No to a press conference in the morning. That’s an FBI directive. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to talk. You don’t need to talk. The end. That from the only one of the three of us who was in that horror show tonight, including the ME who ran away from it.
I forward the message to Rollins and say:Let’s meet at the ME’s office. Text me when you know when the autopsy will take place. I’ll bring the coffee, you bring the booze.
He replies instantly with:As long as that coffee has booze. And fuck the mayor.
Fuck them all, I think.
I slide my phone back into my purse, aware that it’s already pinging me with a new message I have no intention of answering. Feeling the heat of Kane’s stare, my gaze lifts, only to find him watching me intently with unreadable eyes.
But I know what he’s thinking.
The same thing I am.
Nothing has ever rattled me but “that” night. So why now? Why this? Of course, unless Jay ran his mouth, he doesn’t even know what “this” is but it wouldn’t matter. He’d be of the same opinion. I once worked a crime scene where a dead man sat in a chair with his decapitated head in his lap. Andrew was there that night and he didn’t understand how that didn’t fuck with me and I didn’t really have an answer for him then or now. I just don’t freak out over gore and brutal or even gore and brutality with obviously intended showmanship. Except for the river, and not even Kane knows that about me.
My ex did. Rich knew because he was there when I found out I had this issue.
I’m transported back there now, to LA, not long after I’d left Kane in Long Island. And yes, I’d been running. From him. From me. I squeeze my eyes shut reliving that day.
Detective Smith greets me with a command. “Hood and mask on. And good luck.” He steps aside and clears a path that leads me to a tarp walling off an investigative area and another apartment. I start moving again, and there is a clawing sense of dread in my belly that is always there just before I see a body, those moments before death whispers my name. And it does. Every day and every night. Blood rushes in my ears. Adrenaline pours through me. I pause and pull my hood and mask into place. Another few steps and I barely register the moment I pass through the opening in the tarp or the moment when I see the plastic sheets on the floor covered in bloody footsteps that warn of what is waiting on me at the actual murder scene. Or even the cop by the door who mouths, “Good luck,” before motioning me forward.
I step into the room, liquid sloshing at my feet. Everything slows down then, and my tunnel vision forms. My feet are plopping into a pool of red, so much red. My gaze swims past my feet to search for the body that isn’t there, catching on another person in a suit that points upward. I look to the ceiling, and my throat goes dry. There is a body anchored there, and it’s not in one piece. The limbs are detached and reconnected in odd places—the legs where the arms should be. The hands where the feet should be. The arms where the legs should be.
My gaze jerks back down to the blood that has started to congeal around my boots, and suddenly the room is spinning and my stomach is knotted. I rush for the door and exit, walking as fast as the tarp allows, and then turning and leaning against the walled area behind it. My knees go weak and I sink low, pulling away the face mask I’m wearing and gasping for air, my lashes lowering.
“You okay?”
I blink and open my eyes to find a man squatting in front of me. “Fine,” I say. “I’m fine. I’m going back in.”
“Everyone who’s gone in has come out just like this,” he promises. “Take a minute to catch your breath.”
“I will. Thank you.”
“I’m Rich,” he says, giving me this Ken-doll smile that reaches his pretty-boy blue eyes. “I’m here if you need me.” He’s coddling me. I do not need to be coddled.
“Yeah, well, fuck you,” I say, pushing to my feet. “I don’t need to breathe, and I don’t need you.” I pull my mask back into place and charge for the door.
“Lilah,” Kane says softly, and I blink him into view, aware that I’m swimming in the bowels of hell and there is no way Kane doesn’t know it.
And yet, I still deflect, not from the truth of my struggle, not with him, but with an audience. “Do we know what’s happening with my father?” I ask.
“He’s home and secure,” Kane informs me. “Enrique got him home and will remain his acting bodyguard until I say otherwise.”
“And Pocher?”
“Staying with him out of professed concern.”
“More like his own fear of becoming irrelevant,” I say. “Tell me they didn’t speak to the press about the murder.”
“Enrique said he made him aware of the murder but left his press contact to statements about his attempted assassination.”
