Chapter 34 – Lily #4
I fight a smile, and he nuzzles my nose victoriously, then gives me a quick peck.
He releases his hold, turning towards his desk, and I shake off the annoyance and lust he so recently mentioned.
Aster grabs a piece of blank paper and jots something before slapping it to the board.
It’s a self-drawn skull with the words “Murder Art?” scribbled across it.
“This city just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
“I fear we don’t know the half of it.”
“But how does the murder art tie in with the Kodak Killer?”
“Maybe they’re using him to get the victims?”
“When I asked Vetrel about the skull, he said it meant, ‘Don’t fuck with the Vetrel family.’”
“Maybe it’s the skull of someone who wronged him?” he suggests.
“I guess that could make sense. Kodak gets the victims, and the Westerfords dispose of the bodies.” A sickening thought settles inside. “Do we think Jude could be the Kodak Killer?”
Aster shakes his head. “There’s no way that wimpy-ass pretty boy is intelligent enough.”
“Intelligent?”
“Kodak has been around for years and never been caught. Never so much as a lead. They’re meticulous and careful. Jude is just… a prick.”
“Do you think people in your life would believe that the pretty boy journalist moonlights as a serial killer?”
He grins. “I should add that to my dating profile.”
An unfamiliar flicker of jealousy trickles through me. “You have one?”
“Of course.” He laughs, and my jaw clenches. “My bio says, ‘Hi, I’m Aster Blake. Capricorn. Journalist. Local Hero.’”
“Local serial killer,” I correct, and he waves me off.
“I like long walks through the woods, painting garden gnomes, and disposing of corpses.”
I realize he’s clearly kidding, and oxygen returns to my lungs. “My kind of man.” Do I even have the right to be jealous?
He grins, returning his attention to the board. “Jude can stay up there, but…” He pauses, writing on something, then slaps it on Jude’s picture. “He’s low on the list.”
I snort a laugh at the sticky note of a smiley face with x’s for eyes, devil horns, and its tongue sticking out. “Maybe he’s pulling the strings?”
“That I would believe. Rich guy having someone else do his dirty work? Classic.”
“But why would he have Kodak target Violet?”
“Is there anything you can think of, anything at all, for why someone would have wanted her killed?”
I laugh, a full belly laugh. Because that thought is ridiculous. “Not unless you count taking the last parking spot at Trader Joe’s.” She almost lost an eye for that one.
“Is it…” He trails off, and I can tell he’s trying to use kid gloves, which piss me off more than they make me calm.
“You can speak freely,” I assure him. “You didn’t know Violet, but I did. It’s fair of you to wonder.”
“Is it possible you didn’t know her as well as you think you did?”
“We’d been best friends since we were seven. Grew up together. Shared clothes, boyfriends, just about anything you could think of. If she was hiding something from me”—a pit settles in my stomach—“I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“What did she do for work?”
I want to slap myself in the head for not thinking of this sooner. “She was an arts and antiquities dealer.”
Aster’s eyes widen. “So an art dealer is dead and a creepy art-making family is a suspect?” A pit twists in my stomach at how related those two things feel. I’ve focused so much on her death, not considering any clues from her life. Was she their broker? “Did she ever mention them?”
“Not that I can remember.” Guilt settles inside. I never paid much attention to her clients or work stuff. She never offered information, and I never asked. I figured it’s how she wanted it.
“Did you ever meet any of her clients?”
I drag a hand through my hair, blinking to suppress the moisture welling in my eyes. “No, she always went to their houses.”
Saying it out loud, I know how sketchy that sounds. I suppose it’s not if she knew them, but showing up at people’s houses, some who you may not have met before?
Sketchy.
Her murder has made me much more cynical.
“Would she have kept a client list anywhere?”
Shaking my head, I mumble, “I don’t know.”
“Maybe it was an art deal gone wrong?”
Oxygen eludes me with every question I don’t have the answer to. “I mean, I suppose it’s possible. Or maybe a case of wrong place, horrible timing? Maybe she overheard something?” My chest aches. Violet, fuck, I should have paid more attention.
“Do you still have any of her belongings?” Aster asks, eyes meeting mine.
No more waiting, Lily. Time to decide. Do you trust this man?
“Yes,” I finally reply. “The house I live in was hers. Her room is”—a mausoleum—“untouched.”
“That’s where we should start.”
“We?”
“It could help to have a fresh, unbiased pair of eyes.”
My mind spins. I promised Liam I wouldn’t keep digging into the Kodak Killer, but I am so desperate for answers, my chest aches. “Okay, but we have to do it when Liam’s at work.”
He huffs. “Fine by me.”
“L works the night shift tomorrow, so why don’t you come over?”
A wicked grin spreads across his face as he reaches for my hip and pulls me in. “It’s a date.”
“This is the weirdest courtship I’ve ever experienced.”
He stifles my laugh with a searing kiss. “Baby, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”