CHAPTER SIXTEEN #2
“How do you know about Woods?” He arches a brow and I skip the question. “Right,” I say. “Your territory. What do you know about him?”
“There’s very little about Woods that would interest me or anyone else. No living family. No one to fight for him. No one to care if he’s dead or on death row.”
“A perfect fall guy,” I supply. “Which brings me back to where my mind was when I called you. We are connected. What is the likelihood—”
“That my employee being murdered the night you came into town is a coincidence? Next to none.”
“It was a cover-up. Something someone thought I’d discover when I came here.” My mind goes to the tattoo, to him shutting me down over it, and that night. “What’s really going on here, Kane?”
“I don’t know. But I assure you, I will and soon.”
I stare at him, thinking about how angry he was at me in his office.
Thinking about Junior and who might want me out of town.
I’ve ruled him out as a suspect for Junior, based on the note-writing scenario simply not fitting what I know of him, but should I have?
“I assume that murder happened when it did to keep me from stopping it and to keep her from revealing something someone didn’t want revealed. ”
“That is my assumption as well.”
“Or,” I continue, “it was a threat. Was someone telling you I’m next, Kane?”
“No one would be that foolish, Lilah.”
“I’m the one hand you’ve shown. You have to consider that.” And not for the first time I wonder if that night was all about him. About me being used against him. “You made it known you care about me.”
“No one would be that foolish,” he repeats.
“Again, Kane,” I say, because I have to keep trying. “What is really going on?”
“Again,” he repeats. “I don’t know yet.”
“Have there been other people close to you or any of your operations that have died?”
“I know about the other murders. They have no connection to me. You can look. You won’t find any.”
But they do, I think, just like they do to me.
That tattoo, but I don’t say that. Not after he erupted on me in his office over its mention.
He’s hiding something he doesn’t want me to find, and I’m not giving him a chance to bury it.
“I won’t ask how you know about the murders.
They were assassinations, weren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“If someone powerful like you wanted to hire an assassin, who would they go to?”
“I don’t hire people outside my circle.”
“Who would someone else go to?”
“Someone like my father.”
“But not you.”
“I don’t do other people’s dirty work, but he did.”
“And who would he have used?”
“His own men.”
“Damn it, Kane. Stop making me chase this. If he were to go outside his circle?”
“There are dozens of people who would carry out an assassination for the right money.”
“But how many are good enough that he’d have hired them?” That you’d hire them, I add silently, knowing he’s still in that world.
“Very few.”
“How many of those ‘very few’ kill the way your employee was killed last night?” I say, assuming at this point he knows that detail as well.
“There are numerous for-hire killers that take requests. Only one that puts a bullet between the eyes as a trademark kill.”
“I need the name of that assassin. The one with the trademark kill.”
“All you’ll do is drive him underground, and you don’t call this man or find him. He finds you after you go through the appropriate channels.”
“I need a name.”
“You will drive him underground,” he bites out. “You will let me handle this, and I swear to God, Lilah, if you start digging on this, I will tie you to my bed where I want you and keep you there until this is over.”
“Let me be clear with you, Kane Mendez. This might be the Cove and we might share a past and a secret, but I am still an FBI agent with a badge. And a gun that I will use before you ever get me to that bed. And in case you think, ‘She fucked me ten million times; she won’t kill me,’ you’re right—I won’t.
But I damn sure will make you bleed. This is my case to solve.
You will not enact your own vengeance. And you will get me the name of this assassin in the next twenty-four hours or something I can use that is equal to that name. ”
“Or else what?”
“The next time I ask won’t be in the Cove. People are dead, Kane. More might die. I will take you in for formal questioning. And we both know that will start the tongues wagging about you and your father all over again.”
He inhales and lets it out, his energy sharp-edged and lethal. “I don’t like being held captive, Agent Love.”
“Neither do I,” I say.
Our eyes lock, a war of wills raging between us before he finally says, “I’ll need forty-eight hours.”
“Fine. Forty-eight. Not forty-nine.”
“Understood, Agent Love.”
He reaches into his pocket and holds up a flash drive. “I expedited the security footage you wanted from my home and office.”
I take a step toward him, and he to me, the boulders connecting in the middle, and I make a quick swipe for the drive, only to have him close his hand around mine.
“No one dresses in a hoodie and unisex clothes to put a note on a car window, and then disappears in the woods, who isn’t up to no good.
Who put the note on your car today at my office? ”
“Who blew you last night?”
“Who put the note on your car?”
“I’m about ten seconds from sticking my knee in your groin. I suggest you let me go.”
He inhales again and then releases me. “What did the note say?”
“It said, Kane’s an asshole.” I head for the steps and call out, “Twenty-four hours.”
“Forty-nine,” he calls back.
“Twenty-three it is,” I say, and jump to the ground, hurrying away, and I don’t stop until I’m in the car again.
I crank the engine and glance forward to find Kane is still standing on that boulder, but this time he’s looking at me, watching me.
He’s definitely not Junior—not that I thought he was in the first place.
But he is definitely hiding something from me, and I’m not leaving until I find out what.