Chapter 11

I know, of course, that Alexandra is oblivious to how that night changed me, though she’s certainly aware of the fact that we were never close from that point forward. Her need to see me the next morning, to share details on her recovery fuck, was expected and understandable, even. But also expected was her ability to look in my eyes and ~know~ one night had changed me. She’d have asked questions I didn’t want to answer. Exactly why I never let them happen, despite the awkwardness that ensued and lingered until I took the FBI job. And right now, with Alexandra looking at me and me looking at her, I’m experiencing that awkwardness all over again. That very special kind of Saturday-night-drunk-and-pretending-not-to-be-bad kind of awkward.

She stands up, and reading her intentions to come to me, I quickly stand as well, immediately walking in her direction, because no way in hell am I going to get trapped at my table with her overstaying the welcome that doesn’t exist. Unfortunately, she charges forward, rather than hesitating or waiting on me, her navy heels, which match her navy suit dress, clicking on the tiled floor as she continues her approach.

“I heard you were here,” she says, meeting me in the center of the diner with a number of guests sprinkled at various tables that are thankfully out of hearing range.

“After that press conference this morning,” I say, “I’m pretty sure that even Jane Wise’s pet cow knows I’m here.”

“She still has that cow,” Alexandra tells me with a strangled kind of laugh. “Lucy is her name. And she’s famous, you know. That cow—”

“Was on ~Farmland~,” I say of the now-defunct kids’ show. “I know. And she also handled her fame better than most of the human residents in this town.”

“Of that, you will get no disagreement from me,” she assures me, swiftly changing the topic. “Have you seen Kane?”

The question doesn’t surprise me. If anyone other than Kane knows how inseparable we once were, it’s my ex–best friend. “He showed up at the crime scene last night.”

“And?” she asks, lowering her voice, as if this is some big secret. It’s not.

“And I had a dead body on my mind.”

“A dead body,” she repeats. “Not his hot body?”

“Dead and hot are not two words I often use together.”

“Not often, but sometimes?”

“Yes,” I agree, thinking of one particular serial killer whose good looks got him into six dead girls’ pants before he brutally murdered them. “Sometimes.”

“This would be one of those times we’d get drunk and you’d explain what the hell you are talking about.” ~Once upon a time,~ I think. But not now, and she must see that in my eyes, because she clears her throat and adds, “What’s the word on that murder last night? Are you handing me a killer to convict, or what?”

“That’s a question my brother, the police chief, can answer.”

“Oh come on, Lilah. You’re FBI and you showed up with a dead body.”

“The only body I showed up with is my own, which I assure you is not dead.”

“You went to the crime scene,” she points out.

“I was here and I did what I do for many law enforcement agencies. I went. I evaluated and I shared my evaluation with the real man in charge: my brother.”

“If you didn’t come for that case, which I guess is obvious, since it was waiting on you when you arrived, then why are you here?”

“Personal business,” I reply, and when she reaches up and swipes her chin-length, blunt-cut brown hair behind her ear, the ring on her finger tells me she’s now married and I don’t know for how long or to whom.

Her dress starts ringing and she shoves a hand in her pocket. “I just need—”

“Take the call,” I say, giving her my back and returning to my seat, her eyes heavy on me, but my waitress and my coffee save me on my return to my table.

I claim my seat, chat a minute with Rose while doctoring my coffee with lots of cream and Splenda. I’m aware of the exact moment that Alexandra has claimed her seat, which is the same time that Beth chooses to make her appearance.

She enters the diner, and I watch her approach, sizing her up the way I do everyone old and new in my life, every observation one I might draw on in comparison with another person in an investigation one day. In Beth’s case, she’s tall, thin, and alert as she scans the diner before spotting me, lifting a hand, and heading in my direction. Her black, pinstriped pants she’s paired with a matching jacket are definitively masculine, while the black, silk, long-sleeved blouse she wears softens her. This tells me she feels her femininity works against her for some reason, but she’s also not willing to completely emasculate her womanhood either. I get it. Thus my loose use of the F-word that I wear as easily as I do my pink lipstick.

She closes the remainder of the space between us with long strides, the confidence I’ve always admired in her still alive and well, unlike the naked woman who’d become our shared specimen the night before. That Beth manages to detach herself from death as readily as I do perhaps says a lot about why we connect. This probably makes her the closest thing to a friend I will ever have, and since I haven’t talked to Beth in years, ~friend~ can’t be placed in the context of literal any more than the claim that chocolate is better than sex. At least, not good sex.

Beth slides into the seat across from me and sets her oversize Gucci bag beside her, the expensive brand name a reminder that she, like most around here, comes from a family of money. In her case, real estate investors who’d rather she play with decorations than with dead bodies.

Rose stops beside us, eyeing Beth, a pot in her hand. “Coffee?”

“The whole pot, please,” she says, turning over her cup. “But I’ll start with this.”

Rose fills her cup and looks between us. “Something to eat?”

Beth and I shake our heads, and the minute Rose is gone, Beth lowers her voice and leans in closer. “What the hell is going on?”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I’m here in East Hampton,” she says, as if that explains everything.

“You live here,” I say, and a light bulb goes off. “But . . . the medical examiner’s facility is in Hauppauge, and you just said you finished the autopsy this morning. There can’t be proper facilities here for that.”

“I’d call the facility I used early this morning acceptable at best.”

“Then why do it here?”

“Exactly what I said when I got the request, and I insisted that it be done in Hauppauge. Thirty minutes later, my boss—”

“As in the Suffolk County medical examiner director,” I confirm.

“Yes. Bridget Johnson. She called me and told me she was keeping this off the books for forty-eight hours. I needed to do the autopsy here.”

“I’m not even sure that’s legal.”

“You and me both.”

“Why do this?”

“She said Hauppauge is heavily staffed and filled with people who might talk too much. That point was made after she reminded me that East Hampton was filled with powerful people who don’t want to end up with news crews in their front yards.”

“My father did a press conference today. I think she’s misguided. The news is out.”

“A news conference in which he all but inferred there was a suicide, not a murder, last night.”

“Fuck me. Tell me he didn’t do that.”

“I wish I could.”

I slide my coffee cup aside. “What the hell is he thinking? He’s going to look like a liar.”

“He’ll say he was misinformed.”

“By you,” I supply, the quickness of her answer making me wonder whether this is a repeat offense.

“I do believe I’m the likely fall guy, especially since your brother backed him up.”

“Did you confront them?”

“I never got the chance. They made sure of it.”

“What’s the endgame here?”

“Rivera came to me this morning, hovering until I completed the autopsy report.”

“Which told you what?”

“Aside from what you and I both surmised from the crime scene, distance and height of the shooter, and the normal, random data you’d expect. No DNA. No trace evidence. No sign of struggle.”

“Tattoo?”

“No.” She frowns. “And you asked about that last night. What’s with you and the tattoo? Is there a connection you’re looking for?”

“I’ve found body markings tend to tell a story,” I say without missing a beat. “I look for them.”

“Well. None in this case to help you out. Frankly, this is as clean as it gets. Unless there’s a witness, the body isn’t telling us this story.”

And yet, it is, and she is. Clean. Professional. Planned. These things tell me about our killer. “Is there any way this can be twisted into a suicide?”

“One does not put a bullet through one’s eyes at a full foot away, which is what forensic evidence supports. Nor do you do so and have the gun disappear.”

“In other words, they were trying to calm everyone the fuck down to get some distance from this thing.”

“You’re here. You’re FBI. And you were at the crime scene.”

“Is there a question?”

“It’s the same observation the public was making before that press conference, which is exactly why they inferred suicide. To calm everyone down.”

“Are you saying you now support them misleading people?”

“I don’t support it, but I understand it. Let’s face it, Lilah. You being here in time to make that crime scene leads to the conclusion that you were tipped off to this murder.” She gives a brittle laugh and adds, “Or you were in on the murder.”

I don’t laugh. I sure as hell don’t tell her I think she might be closer to the truth than not. “Again,” I say. “Is there a question?”

“The same one I asked when I sat down. What the hell is going on?”

“I told you—”

“Tell me,” comes a male voice. Rivera’s voice.

He appears beside us, already setting a chair at the end of the table before joining us. That he’s managed to sneak up on us when I have a clear view of the door, something that doesn’t happen to me, makes me think he was hovering somewhere close, possibly listening to our conversation. “What the hell is going on?”

“~You~ tell ~me~,” I say. Noting the scar on his right jawline that wasn’t there when I left, I turn the tables on him. “Start with that knife wound on your face. Who cut you?”

“Start with why you’re here,” he counters.

“I like the coffee,” I reply.

“You know,” he says dryly. “People who are smart-asses hide behind a bad attitude. That, and the few thousand miles you’ve kept between you and this place, really makes me wonder what you’re hiding.”

He’s hit a little too close to home for comfort, and it’s my turn to counter. “People who change the subject and redirect when asked about a knife wound usually didn’t get it honorably.”

His lips quirk. “Let’s not play games, Lilah.”

“But then you wouldn’t be you and I wouldn’t be me, and what kind of homecoming would that be?”

He leans in toward me, ignoring Beth, his plump finger jagging on the counter in front of me, his voice low, tight. “If you want to meet with my medical examiner, you come through me.”

“~Your~ medical examiner?” Beth objects. “I don’t work for you.”

“For a big man,” I say, still focused on him, since he’s in my fucking face, “you’ve always operated with little-man syndrome. I’d be careful about that. It really makes a girl doubt what’s under the hood. But hey. If you want to be a part of this conversation, of course I’ll fill you in.”

He lingers close to me, his breath brushing my cheek, and I’m pretty sure he’s not buying my easy compliance any more than I am. In fact, I’ve just pulled my foot back, with his shin as the target to prove that point, when he settles into his seat again and orders, “Talk.” Like I’ve ever been one to do as told, especially by him.

“Sure,” I say. “I’ll bring you up to speed on what you missed. So here we go. My best friend in the agency is gay. And hot. So fucking hot. I’ve been trying to turn him but I’m failing miserably. From a male perspective, can it be done?”

His face turns a Christmassy shade of red that is my new favorite color. “I know you’re here on agency business.”

“You know what they say about assumptions,” I reply. “They make an ass—”

“Your brother told me.”

I quickly decide that a conversation with Andrew, in which I call him an idiot to his face, is not a bad idea after all. “What is the point of this powwow, Eddie?” I demand, having no choice but to assume Andrew repeated every word I shared with him last night. “Cut to the chase.”

“Whatever you’re after, it isn’t here,” he says. “I have a suspect in last night’s case. I expect to bring him in in the next few hours.”

“Who?” Beth asks.

“Kevin Woods,” he states, still looking at me, not her. “A man with a violent history who dated the deceased.”

Eddie cuts Beth a sharp look. “Your job is to examine dead bodies,” he snips. “Mine is to make sure we don’t have any more. You do your job. I’ll do mine.” He returns his gaze to me. “Cut to the chase, you said. Here it is. This isn’t your case. We have our man. Go back to Cali and enjoy La-La Land. We don’t need you here.” He stands and starts walking. I watch him cross the diner, my gaze catching on the empty table where Alexandra was a minute ago before lifting and following him to the exit. He disappears, leaving me with one thought: this isn’t a simple turf war. There’s more going on.

“I thought this wasn’t official business, Lilah?” Beth demands, pulling my attention back to her.

“It’s complicated,” I reply.

“Clearly,” she states, holding up her cell phone and indicating her text screen. “I’ve been ordered back to the main office. I’m to return immediately, which I suspect has something to do with Eddie showing up here. Just as I was supposed to stay here and say nothing to anyone about this case.”

That the locals want to keep this quiet doesn’t surprise me. That her boss, in the vastly larger Suffolk County, is involved, on a non-election year, feels worthy of investigation to me. “When you said you were asked to stay here and do the autopsy, but you originally declined that request,” I say. “Who asked?”

“Your brother.”

“My brother,” I repeat, his connection to Samantha Young’s corruption returning to the front of my mind.

“Yes. And I know he is your brother, but if he lets Kevin Woods take the blame for this—”

“Who is this Kevin Woods person?”

“He’s Ciara Matthews’s boy toy. And by ~boy toy~, I mean he’s twenty years younger than her and runs a construction company that’s doing work here locally.”

“Not only did Ciara do several movies with my mother, they were close friends, and my father knows her husband, John, well. A woman with a boy toy doesn’t process to me as accurate.”

“Oh honey, you’ve missed so much. John started drinking and was violent. Ciara let her boy toy Kevin lick her wounds. John found out and it was bad. They fought. Boy toy held a gun on him.”

“Let me guess,” I say. “Between the eyes.”

“Yes.”

“And what happened?”

“Rumor is he was let off, paid off, and left the city.”

“You said he wasn’t a killer. Explain what brings you to that conclusion.”

“He didn’t pull the trigger. He’s not a killer.” She grabs her bag. “I have to go.”

“Wait. You know as well as I do, just because someone doesn’t kill someone the first time they think about it doesn’t mean they aren’t building confidence and working up to it.”

“I do know this. But I’ve looked into that man’s eyes and I’m telling you. He’s not a killer.”

“So you know him?”

“I met him once.”

“How?”

“A party, and while it was brief, when you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you get to know people. You see things in their eyes.”

She’s right. You do, but those who are master killers only let you see what they want you to see. She should know this. She has to know this.

Her phone buzzes again and she glances at her screen, then at me. “I need to go. Call me if you need me.”

I give a nod and she slides out of the booth. I follow her progress as I had Eddie’s, wondering how anyone in the business this long, as she’d noted, could make a statement as wrong as the one she just made. I know from experience that just because you don’t pull the trigger the first time doesn’t mean you won’t pull it the next. Kevin Woods interests me. Her defense of him interests me. But Eddie’s desire to make him the catalyst that gets me out of town interests me the most. Too bad for him, and me both, that I have reasons to stay. My potentially corrupt family. Junior. And the fact that no one who masterfully killed four people without a trace of evidence would implicate themselves in a personal scandal that connects them to murder. Kevin Woods is not the killer I’m hunting. And the idea that my family would let an innocent man take the fall for a crime for political or personal reasons doesn’t even sound like my family. Maybe I don’t know them any more than they know me. But I will before I leave. Of that, I am certain.