Page 42 of Murder Notes

“No man likes to be turned down.”

But this one doesn’t take no for an answer and lashes out when rebuked. Except that Kane, whose family ties are to a drug cartel, scares the shit out of most sane people, which apparently includes Pocher. “What political agenda are you working with my father?”

He laughs. “I heard you were direct. I see it’s true. Your father and I have been friends since I bought a house down the road a few years ago now. Right before you left for LA, I believe.”

My family just keeps on giving and giving with the surprises. “And your political agenda with my father?”

“To support any agenda he might have himself,” he assures me. “He’s a good man. We need more like him.” He redirects the conversation. “How long are you in town for, Lilah?”

“Until I’m ready to leave.”

His eyes narrow ever so slightly. “Please tell me your visit doesn’t represent a township-safety crisis.”

“My father and brother are in charge of township safety, and they’re quite capable, as you know.”

“And yet you’re here.”

“I wasn’t aware my visiting home was cause to call out the National Guard,” I say dryly.

“Of course not,” he agrees, and after studying me a beat too long to suit me, he adds, “I’m headed to the city for the next few days. If you get out that way, call my office and I’ll take you out for a meal.”

When pigs fly, I think, as an old man I’d tried, and failed, to interview a few months ago had said, but I keep that thought to myself, choosing to instead back up and allow him to exit. His lips quirk, eyes alight with interest, not irritation. “I take it you won’t be calling me for that meal,” he comments.

“No, I will not,” I confirm.

“You can change your mind at any time. It’s an open invitation.” He walks past me and heads down the stairs. “Have a nice visit, Lilah,” he calls out.

I step into the doorway and watch him leave, wanting him to feel the weight of my stare, to know that I am not intimidated by his money or reputation. To know he is in my family circle and I have eyes on him. His presence in this house tells me that Kane was right. My father has dived into waters not meant for the likes of an honest man.

Pocher never turns. He keeps walking and I stand my ground until I see that fancy-ass, attention-grabbing Jaguar drive away. Pocher is trouble and I don’t like the fact that he’s involved with my family at a time when they seem to be willing to cover up a murder. Murder, I mentally repeat, a thought hitting me. I step back onto the porch and shut the door, removing my phone from my pocket and texting Tic Tac: Look for a connection between the victims, Woods, and Ted Pocher.

Tic Tac replies instantly. The Ted Pocher?

I respond with: The one and only.

I shove my phone back into my pocket and think, who better to hire a hit man than one of the richest men on the planet? A man who was just in my family home.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It’s time to find out how close my father is to drowning in trouble, and maybe my brother right along with him. I enter the house, stepping into the half-moon-shaped foyer. The stairwell directly in front of me is made of the same gray wood that is beneath my feet and leads upstairs to a cluster of rooms, one of which is the bedroom I’d once called my own. The glistening teardrop lights of a chandelier dangle from the ceiling high above me, another of my mother’s personal touches to the house, proving she still dwells within these walls. But there is more than my mother here right now. Pocher is gone, but not absent.

Shutting the door firmly behind me, I slip off my coat and hang it on the steel coatrack designed to look like the Eiffel Tower. To my left is an archway revealing the library. To the right, sealed white double doors leading to my father’s office, where I am certain he would have met with Pocher, and I resist the urge to charge in there and make demands. As much as I like demands and often find that they shock people into reactions that tell more than their words, they have to be properly timed. In other words, bitch that it is when I’m feeling as impatient for answers as I am tonight, I’ll start the night out with observation and restraint. Not quite as exciting as the alternative, but in this case, necessary.

I head toward my father’s office, the doors opening as I approach. He joins me in the foyer, his black slacks and white shirt fitted, expensive, and endearingly rumpled. And as most fathers would, be they good or bad at parenting, he reacts to my presence, his blue eyes alight as they fall on me. “Lilah,” he greets me, closing the small space between us and pulling me close, his big arms wrapping around me.

This, I think, as he hugs me tight and I hug him as well, is a good-parenting moment, and I find myself transported back, at least momentarily, to a gentler place and time, to my youth when I’d thought him able of saving me from the monsters in the closet. But now I know those monsters are not dragons and trolls but serial killers and rapists. And no one can save me but me.

Done with fairy tales, pretty much now and forever, I pull back, but my father doesn’t let me escape, his hands settling on my upper arms the way my brother’s had last night, while he, as Andrew had, gives me a fast once-over. “You look good, baby girl,” he declares.

The thing about my father is that he’s charming, a perfect politician, even before he held office. Everyone looks beautiful to him, even if they aren’t. Even when they look too thin, as everyone has told me that I do. “Thank you, Dad,” I say, despite the certainty he doesn’t mean the compliment, and moving past that, I stroke the hair at my temple to indicate his hairline. “I do believe you’re going gray by your ears.”

“Indeed I am,” he says, releasing me to touch the offending areas with his fingertips. “I’m getting old,” he adds, the laugh that follows low, warm, as inviting as always, and part of the reason people like him so damn much.

“You’re fifty-seven, Dad,” I say. “That’s not old. And you look great.” I pat my flat belly. “Fit and trim. Not even a beer belly for me to tease you about.” And digging for what influences are in his life now, I wiggle a brow. “Does that mean there’s a lady friend about?”

“No one worthy of my daughter,” he assures me, dodging that question, but with as much charm as I expect from him, of course.

“He means no one that can handle his daughter.”