Page 38 of Murder Notes

“I know how you work. Again. Give me until bedtime. My bedtime, Lilah. I’m still on LA time even though you’re in New York, and I have a meeting I’m headed into.”

“Find me a connection between these victims that isn’t Woods, and I swear I’ll bring you doughnuts every day of the rest of your life, even when you’re in a retirement home, forgotten by everyone but me.”

“Oh, well, now I’m motivated.” He snorts and hangs up, and I immediately begin scribbling notes.

—KEVIN WOODS: FALL GUY—MEANT TO KEEP THE FEDS OUT OF TOWN OR SOMETHING BIGGER?

—EDDIE WANTS ME OUT OF TOWN. EDDIE WANTS TO ARREST WOODS. IS HE JUNIOR?

—WHERE WAS EDDIE LAST NIGHT AND THEN TODAY WHEN NOTES WERE LEFT FOR ME?

—WHY IS KANE SO DAMN ADAMANT I DON’T ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT THAT TATTOO?

—WHY DID I LET HIM GET AWAY WITH NOT TELLING ME?

—KANE CAN’T BE THE MAN BEHIND JUNIOR, AND YET, I’M THINKING IT AGAIN, OR I WOULDN’T BE WRITING THIS DOWN.

—BUT EDDIE. EDDIE. EDDIE. AND KEVIN.

My list grows into a complicated thinking process, and I down another cup of coffee to rev me up, adding a side of greasy, perfect French fries with lots of ketchup to the mix as well. I have a cheeseburger with those fries and then order one of the diner’s famous whole strawberry pies that, despite winter’s fast approach, Rose swears is amazing and famous. Since this place really isn’t even on East Hampton’s society map, I’m not sure who it’s famous with, but hey, I did see Jack Leroy here. And since he’s all about his star shining brightly, maybe this spot is hotter now than I remember, and if Rose says the pie is famous, I believe her. A choice I make because a love for strawberries is one of the only fetishes I have that reads a bit like that of a normal person. And every once in a while, a ten-minute window in which I shovel food in my face and play that game is the difference between acceptable insanity and cutting-myself-or-someone-else insanity. Fortunately, I’ve never cut myself. Someone else? Well, yes. I have cut someone else, but that was because I didn’t have a gun to shoot the bastard. I leave the diner and decide this afternoon needs to be about planning. And food. I need groceries. First things first, though. I need to set a trap for Junior.

It’s a strategy that takes me fifteen minutes up the beachfront to an all-glass contemporary house, where I will find a long-dormant favor owed to me, one that I plan to collect on now. I park in the driveway and walk to the door, aware that like most things in this town, the lax security is a façade. I’m setting off alarms of some sort at this very minute. An assumption that’s proven true when I reach for the doorbell only to have the door fly open, and Lucas Davenport stands in the doorway, his six-foot-four frame filling the archway.

“Why don’t you return phone calls?” he demands.

“How can you still look like a preppy Tarzan?” I demand in turn, ignoring his question. “No wonder you’re still single.”

“How do you know I’m still single? You don’t return phone calls.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

“Well then, my advice to you is this: grow some manly hair on your pretty-boy face and put on something other than one of about a hundred pairs of khaki pants you own.”

“You know,” he says. “I was certain I missed you until this moment.”

“Well then, see? We’ve already had a productive visit. Now you know that you didn’t, in fact, miss me.” I push past him and walk down the white tiled hallway. Everything in this place is white. The walls. The curtains. The light fixtures. He calls it elegant. I call it sterile. I turn into the kitchen where there are white counters and cabinets, walking to the white-paneled stainless steel fridge and opening it.

“You do know women are quite impressed with my khaki pants and my clean-shaven face. No razor burn. Lots of pleasure.”

I grab a bottle of water and find him on the opposite side of the bar that, much like mine, divides the kitchen from the living area. “I see you’re still not lacking in the arrogance department,” I say, walking to the counter directly in front of him.

“Arrogance?” he snorts. “I’m defending myself. You basically just told me I’m not worthy of a woman, and since the one time I tried anything with you, you put an elbow in my gut, I’m not beyond believing you mean it.”

“I’m pretty sure that was Kane who put the elbow in your gut.”

“He wasn’t there. I’m not that stupid.”

“He has eyes everywhere. He was there and I did what he would have.”

“Are you telling me I had a chance otherwise?”

“No. My God, we’re cousins.”

“Your father is my father’s stepbrother, Lilah. We are not cousins.”

“We are. And I need something, cuz.”