Chapter 16

If you want to get answers from a man like Kane Mendez, a smart girl takes him somewhere she knows she won’t end up naked and silly-stupid. Somewhere that still tells him we’re connected. He’s protected. For me, that place is the Cove.

On the surface, a good twenty minutes from town, the Cove seems to be a hidden treasure few on Long Island know about and one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. The water is bluer than blue, and the waves break to salty-white perfection, like angel wings floating in the sea. And in the early morning, no less than a dozen seagulls dance above those angel wings, fishing for their breakfast. It’s a peaceful seclusion, an escape I’ve often welcomed. It seems to be romantic, even. A perfect place for lovers. It’s a big-ass façade, and perhaps that’s why I love it so much. It’s not what it seems any more than I am what I seem to be.

Beneath the surface, though, and after dark like now, the Cove is a different place. Even on a night like tonight when the stars are bright and the full moon brighter, the mile-long dirt road leading to the water is shrouded in shadows. The steep drops on either side are riddled with rocks and who knows what kind of animals. When the stars and moon are hiding, it’s hauntingly desolate, and as pitch black as you might imagine hell to be if it weren’t for the fire. Those are the nights I once craved here. The ones that made me face my fears. The ones that assured me that no one sane would dare come here. So if I’d run into anyone, they were probably someone I’d count on shooting. Coming here alone had become a kind of a rush.

No. An addiction. Perhaps a sick one, but no one, not even Kane, thinks to judge me. It’s not a place for lovers. I mean, if you were with a man, screwing your brains out, you’d want your gun in your hand. And a back seat where you could actually lie down and not roll down a rocky cliff.

I don’t do back seats. Neither does Kane.

I watch my rearview mirror for signs of his approach, hating the way my damn heart is racing. Telling myself it’s about what Kane may tell me tonight, not about the man himself. If I’m honest with myself, though, that’s not the real reason. Of course, I like to think that I’m honest with myself, not just about—or with—everyone else. I’m pretty simple. I’m fucked up and resolved to stay that way. It works for me. It works for my job. Keeping with that fucked-up theme, my heart isn’t racing because of what Kane might tell me. It’s because it’s him I’m meeting. He’s trouble for me and as every criminal I’ve ever arrested knows, the problem with trouble is that it can be so damn seductive.

I clear the bank of shadows and refocus on the here and now. The beachfront, an inky silhouette of rocks and boulders, comes into view, with Kane’s car already parked in the small gravelly circle where my path ends. The racing of my heart accelerates, but I don’t question my decision to ask Kane to come here just because I’m affected by him. Half-assing my way through things and avoiding the man who knows this land like no other isn’t going to solve these murders. Nor is it going to stop an innocent man, which I suspect Woods to be, from taking a fall. Or ending up dead. I’m going to solve these murders and save Woods. And my family. I think I might have to save my family, and that’s worth at least a small deal with the devil himself, aka Kane.

I near his car, and while his windows are tinted, there are no lights, no hint of movement. Wherever he is, he’s not in the car, but wherever he is, he knows I’m here. There’s simply no way for anyone to arrive here without being seen. It’s a perfect hideaway. Even the cell service out here is hit-or-miss, adding to how perfect the location is for a private conversation. Or illicit activity. Or murder. It’s a good place for murder. The kind that’s never supposed to be discovered. Of course, the killer I’m hunting, be that person a serial killer or an assassin, wants his victims to be found. But he, or she, leaves a clean crime scene that speaks of an intent to remain anonymous. This killer would not confess. If things heated up, he or she would disappear the way a body would disappear down into the water in this very cove. If, of course, the body was properly prepared. And, there you go—the reason I have no friends. These are the kind of thoughts that do not make good supper talk, and so I simply have nothing else to talk about.

Killing my engine, I scan for Kane, finding him exactly where I suspected he would be. At our spot, standing a good twenty feet away, on top of one of two connected giant boulders we’ve often favored. He’s facing the water, towering above a steep incline, his back to me, his long black trench coat lifting in the wind. Looking like some sort of dark fucking knight. ~Dark is right,~ I think. ~Dark and dangerous.~

~I’m not my father.~ How many times has he said those words to me? And he’s right every time. He’s not like his father. He’s smarter, more refined. More diverse. He’s not his father. He’s something I cannot define, but I do believe that it’s far more lethal than Kane wants me to believe it is. He is. Or maybe it’s me that still doesn’t want to believe it.

Popping my door open, I grab my coat, then stand to shrug into it. The wind catches my hair, its icy fingers wrapping my neck. A warning of what is to come, perhaps? Maybe, but I’m pretty sure the only chill Kane is capable of giving me comes by way of news I might not like. But I don’t allow myself to think about how intense every moment is with Kane or how easily that could turn against me. It won’t. I am taking control. Resolved to make it so, I slam the door and start walking, the dirt silent beneath my feet. The heavy weight of my gun at my ankle, reminding me I have a friend ready to assist with a problem. Not that I believe I need that friend. Kane might be trouble for me, but not that kind of trouble.

He doesn’t turn to watch my approach, though without question, he knows I’m here. I’m also certain that he’s aware the instant I reach the eight feet of jagged rocks I have to maneuver across to reach him. It would be a good moment to turn back, but I don’t even consider a pause. I’m here. I’m doing this. I’m ready. And this is the place where we said things to each other that we said no other place. No matter how dirty, dark, or downright murderous it might be.

Reaching the makeshift stone stairs lining the boulders, I start the climb upward, and smart man that Kane is, he doesn’t turn and offer help. The man does get me. He knows it would piss me off. I help me, and anyone who gets in the way gets a big ol’ punch to the chops. Or the balls, depending on the circumstances. I reach the top of the boulders, and my spot on the second of the two, next to Kane, leaves a good several feet between us by design. I don’t face him, nor he me. I stare out at the inky black of the water stretching before us, the waves crashing fiercely, almost angrily, into the rocks below, the cold, salty air brushing my lips.

“What’s said in the Cove,” he says.

“Stays in the Cove,” I finish, and we turn to face each other, moonlight illuminating more than his face and eyes. In one blink to the next, every kiss, touch, and word we’ve ever spoken, good or bad, is in the spotlight. Including that night. Our secret. “We confessed our sins here.”

“Is that why we’re here? To confess our sins?”

“We’re here because this place reminds us both that we share a secret that could destroy us both, and my family with us.”

“Forced loyalty is not what I want from you. Not in the past. Not now.”

“You didn’t force loyalty on me, Kane. You trusted me. It was my choice to deserve that trust. And that happened long before that night. This place is where you told me—”

“What a bastard my father was,” he supplies quickly, as if he’s traveled to the same memory at the same time.

“Yes.”

“And the things he’d done,” he adds.

“Yes,” I agree. “And all the things you said you’d never do.” I tell myself not to ask, but the way this man haunts me, the way we really are connected, I go off course and I dare to do just that. “Have you?” I ask. “Done them?”

“I’m no saint, but I’m still not my father.”

“You need a new reply to that question. It’s getting used and abused and you’re more interesting than that. Basically, you’ve done some of those things.”

“I only do what I’m forced to do and only what is absolutely necessary.”

“Do you think he started out saying that?”

“No,” he says instantly. “He embraced it from day one. He enjoyed it. I do not.”

“But you still do it.”

“Lilah—”

“Don’t.” I hold up a hand. “I’m not with you anymore. It’s not my place to question why you are, or are not, involved in that part of your father’s world. And I didn’t even mean to go there.”

“And where did you want to go?”

“Your father. The whole point was your father.”

“My dead father is why we met here tonight?”

“Yes, because he influences who you are now.”

“I told you—”

“You’re not him. Yeah. I know. You keep telling me. Bottom line. He had rules and I know that whatever your role in your new empire or his old one, you respect those rules. Your home is a sanctuary and that means this town. You didn’t kill that woman last night or order her death. Who did?”

“Apparently Kevin Woods. Or so we’re being pushed to believe.”

“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.