Page 50 of Murder Notes

“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.