Bloody Vows

by Lisa Renee Jones

  DD, as I decide to call the supermodel medical examiner, kneels across from me and she’s still talking about all the wrong things. “Modeling was a college thing. It paid for my tuition. And you’re pretty too, you know? And from what I hear, I might see dead people, but you see killers, very, very clearly.”

  My gaze lifts sharply to hers, with what feels like some sort of Society-driven insider information. As if she knows I’ve killed. They know I’ve killed. They sent my first kill to me. The man who raped me and meant to kill me, but Kane got back into town early. He saved me, pulled him off me. No. I saved me. I killed that monster. And then Kane buried the body or whatever he did with it. I open my mouth to ask her if Pocher placed her in my path, but bite back an attack. Sometimes I do like to play it smooth. “Don’t hit on me. I’m not into girls, but more power to you and all.” For me, that’s smooth.

  She laughs nervously. I’m good at making people nervous. It works for me, especially if I think they’re linked to the Society. Nerves make people ramble. It makes them tell me things they don’t mean to tell me. “Neither am I,” she says, “but Jesus, you really are intense.”

  I don’t comment. I’m back to looking for the source of the blood, which seems to be some sort of eruption in the woman’s throat. “Poison?” I glance at DD again. “Or an aneurysm in her neck?”

  “I won’t know until I get her back to the lab, but I’ve never seen anything like this.” She waves a gloved finger above the rupture. “This doesn’t read like poison or an aneurysm doing this. It’s almost as if she had a sharp object explode from the inside out.”

  My brows dip. “An explosion from the inside?” I glance at the water bottle and back to her. “Like she swallowed needles or something along that line?”

  “A pin wouldn’t cause this kind of rupture. A razor would be too big to swallow. Like I said, I need to get back to the lab and see what I find.”

  “When will you do the autopsy?”

  “Friday.”

  “I want to be there.” I reach in my bag at my hip and snap up a card that I hand to her. “Text me the time and details.”

  “Of course.” She reaches in her jacket and hands me her card. I snap a photo. “Keep it,” I say, already keying her number in my phone with a contact that reads: DD the Model.

  “Special Agent Love.”

  I glance behind me to find a uniform standing under the archway. “Kane Mendez is asking for you.”

  I don’t react. I’m not shocked. I doubt anyone on this island is shocked that Kane is here or anywhere he wants to be. He all but owns the island and most people attribute that to the cartel that his father, and now his uncle, thankfully still runs. At one point, he went MIA and the cartel was immediately in turmoil and on Kane’s doorstep. Not good, when law enforcement wants to prove Kane runs it, not his uncle. Until recently, that included my brother. I’m pretty sure burying a body with Kane ended that part of our family drama.

  And yet, Kane respects my badge, sometimes more than I do, which means if this wasn’t urgent, he’d wait for me to come home. He knows something I need to know.

  “I’ll be right there,” I tell the uniform and a niggle in my mind has me turning back to the body. I study the victim, the woman who can no longer speak to me, but yet, she is. The dress is bothering me. It’s loose, too big, as if it’s not zipped up in the back. I walk around the body and kneel to find it is in fact zipped up.

  North walks back into the room and I glance up at him. “Either that dress is not hers, or it’s not been altered yet,” I say, standing again. “Find out which.” I don’t give him time to reply. I walk past him and head for the exit, fully intending to leave him behind.

  CHAPTER SIX

  North is going south fast.

  My booties and gloves go in the trash by the door, and I jog down the steps, the snow gone for now, but the cold bitingly present. So is North. He catches up with me. He just won’t go away, and says, “Good catch on the wedding dress.”

  “It’s not a good catch unless it is a catch. It might be her dress.” I stop and face him. “Do you know what they say about little bitches?”

  He blinks. “What? What are you talking about, Special Agent Love?”

  “Sometimes little bitches dress up like officers and talk in circles because they’re afraid to just get to the point. Say what you want to say.”

  His jaw flexes. “Why is Kane Mendez at my crime scene?”

  My lips quirked. “Intimidated?”

  “Oh no. I’m not intimidated at all. If that’s what he intends—”

  “You are not even on his radar, North. I’d say try harder and maybe you could be, but that would give you false hope. Find out if it’s her dress.” I dismiss him with a turn of my shoulder and step downward. I start walking. He calls out, “He’s not immune to the law because you wear that rock on your hand. And you’re not immune to the law because of your badge.”

  I don’t reply. That would send the message that his threats are worthy of my concern. They’re not. He’s got an endgame and I’m not yet sure if it’s what it seems: to get me to go away. I pass the end of the stairway and duck under more yellow tape.

  I find Kane, leaning on the hood of his black Taycan Porsche, seemingly oblivious to the cold. But then Kane is all about armor, the kind the likes of North can’t touch. I hurry toward him and huddle into my trench coat. He motions to the car to offer me shelter and I shake my head. “I need to get back. What do you have? And please tell me you don’t own the property or employ the victim. We’ve been there, done that once before.”

  He reaches in his coat and holds up an envelope. “What is it?”

  “A wedding invitation addressed to you and me.”

  “To you and me? Together?”

  “That’s right.”

  Considering we’ve been engaged all of a week and we’ve kept it low profile, I ask, “When did it come?”

  “Two days ago.”

  “Do you know the bride or groom?”

  “Know of, yes. I know everyone in East Hampton, but know them? No.”

  “Did you know her ex-husband? Gibson Wells?”

  “Same. I don’t have any connection or personal involvement with him.”

  “Then why did we get an invitation?”

  “That is the question,” he concurs.

  “It feels like a message. Or a threat.”

  “It could be,” he agrees cautiously. “Or not.”

  “Or not,” I repeat and the not is what sticks with me. “I need to walk the crime scene.” I turn away and he catches my arm.

  What strikes me in that moment is not the possessiveness of his touch that is so Kane Mendez. It’s my zero resistance to his touch, my willingness to allow him to turn me back to him, and just outside a crime scene. Never in our turbulent relationship have I just been with Kane, really with him. He notices, too, I see it in the narrowing of his eyes, the warmth there, and his soft whisper of, “Lilah.”

  Tension crackles between us, but this isn’t about sex as some might assume. It’s about trust. It’s about enemies, so damn many enemies that make that trust with anyone else impossible. “There’s a new officer named North. He’s in from New York. He suggested you’re here because you’re involved in the murder.”

  “And you said what?”

  “That he’s attention-grabbing and he’d have to try a lot harder to get on your radar.”

  Kane’s eyes narrow slightly. “They will always call me a criminal, Lilah. You knew that wouldn’t change when you put that ring on your finger.”

  “You’re right. I did. So, what’s the point? And before you answer, I wanted to get rid of my badge. I was tired of the bullshit it comes with, but you thought we both needed the restraint it creates.”

  “I said you and your badge keep me on the right side of things, Lilah. You are that badge. You’d bleed blue if I’d ever let that happen.”

  I�
�m not so sure of that anymore, but I don’t correct him. I get back to business. “I’m not sure what I think of North,” I say, “but there’s a new medical examiner. Danica Day. She made a comment about me being a killer that hit me wrong.”

  “Like she knew something she wasn’t supposed to know?”

  “Exactly.”

  His hand falls away and as Kane does nothing without purpose, there’s a message there, a prelude to what comes next. “There’s a reason Murphy doesn’t even deny wanting us together. He believes together we’re dangerous to the Society. So does the Society.”

  I think of my father’s political career, backed by the Society, and how easily Kane has proven to be a thorn in their sides. He’s right. Together we can be dangerous to the Society and they know it. “And I fucking love it and so do you,” I say.

  His lips quirk and I back away. “I have to go,” I say but I offer a reminder on my departure. “Officer North and Danica Day.”

  I don’t have to say more. He gets it. He’ll look into them his way. And I’ll look into them my way. Two sides of one coin. And for now, I have a murder to solve rather than commit, but if this case really is about me and Kane, that might change.

  And I might be okay with that.

  Maybe normal is overrated.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I could focus on me. In a city that is all about ego, me is always the easiest answer. But I’m alive and the victim is dead. Someone chose her to die this night and she’s the star of this show. She’s earned that role the hard way.

  For this reason, when I step just inside the foyer, I tune out the forensic team milling about, forcing myself to slip into my Otherland, that place where there is nothing but me and the case. I glance toward the den that leads to the kitchen. It isn’t a short trip from the upstairs area, which is where a master bedroom would typically be located. Why would a woman in her precious, to be protected, wedding dress, walk downstairs in that dress just to get a bottle of water?

  Medication.

  She must have taken some sort of medication. It’s at least one logical answer. And perhaps she was giddy with joy and couldn’t bring herself to take it off. Or it wasn’t her actual wedding dress. Maybe it was a gift, a kinky game, and she was expecting her killer for sex, not death. Or perhaps she put it on downstairs. Perhaps it was just delivered and she just couldn’t wait to try it on.

  I flag down a CSI guy. “Have we found the clothes she was wearing before she put on the dress?”

  “Not down here,” he says. “Maybe upstairs,” he adds. “That’s another team.”

  In other words, with no clothes downstairs, our victim would have had to walk down the stairs naked and put on the dress downstairs. That means that either someone took her clothes, which isn’t so unlike a case I saw last year, or she left them upstairs. I head upstairs and find the bedroom to the right at the end of the hall. I enter the room where a CSI photographer is shooting photos. I flash my badge. “I need the room.”

  He grimaces, but he doesn’t fight me. He gets lost. I get to work.

  In the center of a mighty bed with towering bedposts is an open white box with a red ribbon pooled on the white comforter. I walk to the side of the bed and inspect the box more closely. There’s no address to be found, which indicates it wasn’t delivered by standard courier, but that doesn’t rule out a special delivery. There’s no card either. I’d assume the dress was inside the box—it’s the right size—but I never like to be an assuming asshole. Assuming assholes are dumb assholes. I know I’m a bitch, but a bitch who uses my attitude to trip people up, to get them to say and do things they might not otherwise say or do. What I’m not, is a dumb asshole planned or unplanned. Whatever the case, I’m back to the dress that might not have been inside that box, but it got in the house somehow and it’s large enough it should be visible on the security feed.

  For now, I’m still hunting for the victim’s clothes, and a survey of my surroundings has me walking through a hallway encased in mirrors and stepping inside a bathroom. I find a garden tub, double sinks, and a bathroom stall, all immaculately clean. There are no clothes. I backtrack to the mirrors that are actually closet doors. I slide the one to my right open and—Jesus. The immaculate cleaner saves her mess for here. The floor is carpeted in clothes and there is no way to know if any of them are what the victim was wearing before the dress. I open the second closet and find it much the same. I’m back to needing a look at the security footage.

  I step into the hallway where various members of the investigative team bustle about and flag Jack, a sixty-year-old officer who worked under my father, and now my brother, his entire career. “Lilah,” he greets, all teeth. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Jack is one of the few people who call me Lilah, but then, he’s known me since I was in diapers. These are the territories of my roots, and those roots run deep with law enforcement. “Andrew called me in,” I say. “I need to find out if we have camera footage for the house.”

  “I know we do,” he assures me. “I heard them talking about it downstairs.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t know anything else, but I can go find out.”

  “I need to see the last twelve hours ASAP and then get a full review copy.”

  “I’m on it.” He steps right and then pauses to eye me again. “I’m proud of you kids. Who knew you’d grow up to be a law enforcement dynamic duo, but you sure did.” He winks and hurries down the stairs.

  I blink at his departing back. He’s proud of me? I’m confused. I didn’t know he knew much about the adult version of me, and I’m not exactly a person people compliment. I don’t handle it well. It makes me and others uncomfortable. And now, I’m the one who’s uncomfortable, but Jack isn’t, bless that old bastard’s heart.

  I re-enter the bedroom and remove my mini camera from my bag. Yes, CSI takes photos, but I like to take my own for easier, quicker access. As I begin to shoot, I make observations. The room is tidy, the bed made. She wasn’t hanging out in here. Still, someone else might have and I ensure my images capture every part of the room.

  I glance in drawers, scanning the notepad I find by the one near the bed, but it holds nothing except a grocery list. And proof that I get along better with dead people. She liked anchovies to the extent they made her list. Setting aside that disgusting habit, I continue to hunt for clues to her death. Eventually, I end up back in the closets and the bathroom. Once that search is complete, I exit the bedroom to the hallway with the intent to search the extra rooms, but pause at the steps as I find North standing at the bottom of the stairs, seemingly waiting on me.

  I bite, and start walking down the stairs—not literally bite, not yet, but that could happen. I never rule out anything. Apparently eager to talk to me, he meets me on the bottom step.

  “I spoke to her mother,” he says. “You were right. That’s not Emma Wells’ wedding dress.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Paranoid people get on my nerves almost as much as stupid people. Some people, even smart people, become paranoid after doing a bad thing, say getting rid of a dead body. Andrew is paranoid right now. He’ll see this as proof that this case is about me and Kane.

  I, on the other hand, am not ready to read too much into the engagement ring on my finger and the wedding dress on the bride-to-be. Even if it’s not her actual wedding dress.

  “Then we need to know where the hell it came from. I’ve asked to see the security system feed.”

  “About that,” he says, “her security system is down. The security feed is knocked out.”

  “Of course it is,” I reply dryly. “Where is the mother now?”

  “At her house a few miles down the coastline. She’s going to meet me at the station in an hour. I suppose you want to sit in.”

  “I believe in you, North. You handle it.” I step around him and deeper into the foyer, planting my feet right there, imagining the victim answering the d
oor and accepting the box that ended up on the bed. She would have opened the box and then put on the dress. We think. We really don’t even know what was in that box. And why put on a wedding dress that isn’t yours?

  I’m back to some sort of kinky game because what the fuck else could it be?

  Outside of someone forcing her to put the dress on, of course, but that doesn’t fit the walk to the kitchen for a bottle of water. I’m back to her having a visitor. I turn to find North standing just behind me, hands on his hips. “Did we find her phone?”

  “We didn’t. It’s not on the body or anywhere on the lower level. We’re still looking and I’ve started the process to retrieve her phone records.”

  “Her phone and clothes are missing and the security system is off,” I comment, processing out loud for my benefit, not his.

  He replies anyway, adding, “And with the property lines wide and fancy, we have no camera feed from anywhere else. Someone covered their ass.”

  Maybe, I think, but what I say is, “Do we have her phone number?”

  “Actually, I do. I just called it in for the phone records. Why?”

  I remove my phone from my field bag. “I thought I’d call her and ask her what happened,” I say, just blinking at him as I do.

  “Right,” he says dryly. “Obviously that was a stupid question. No better way to find it than to call it.” He grabs his phone and reads the number off to me.

  I’ve just keyed it into my phone when someone calls his name from somewhere I prefer him to be myself—outside. He grimaces, cursing under his breath, and steps around me. Bye-bye, birdie, I think. Fly far, far away.

  Not about to wait for his return, I follow my gut and charge up the stairs again. I’m already at the mirrored doors of the closets when I punch in the number. Bingo yet again. Her cellphone starts ringing. I open the door to my left and squat down. Her phone is in the pocket of a dress. Locating it, I remove it and of course it’s locked. I try 1-1-1-1 and fail. I try 1-2-3-4 and fail. I go through a series of numbers and 9-9-9-9 wins.