The Ghost Assassin (Lilah Love Book 9)

LILAH

I’m as comfortable with death as I am my usage of the word “fuck.”

In fact, me and death have an affinity for one another, and a whole lot in common.

We both get along better with the dead than we do the living. We both scare people. We do a lot of showing up without an invitation. And neither of us is forgiving.

I stare down at Murphy’s dead, lifeless body, a clean, professionally placed bullet hole right between his eyes, and digest what has happened with a cold spot inside me.

Emotion is a lot like dark chocolate—it exists, and some say it’s good for you. I say it’s a bitter, messy, poor excuse of an answer to anything.

If I’d let emotion rule me, Murphy would have been dead days ago when I found out he was following my mother the day she died. If I discover Murphy killed my mother, I will forever mourn the fact that someone else beat me to killing him.

So, do I care that Murphy is dead?

Yes. It’s inconvenient.

Do I care who killed Murphy and why?

Yes, of course, I care.

Because this asshole killed him before he could tell me the truth to replace his mountain of lies.

I’m also concerned that the assassin closest to me, via Kane, and therefore closest to my boss, is Ghost. A single bullet between the eyes is one of his specialties, but it’s a common assassination technique as well. He might not be our guy, but he’s in the forefront of my mind.

A short man in a suit steps out of one of the adjoining rooms. “Agent Love-Mendez, you’re too close to this case. We’re going to have to ask you to remove yourself from the investigation.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Special Agent-in-charge, Larry Allen. This is my case.”

I don’t know him, which, in and of itself, is strange, since I know everyone in this city working for the bureau. But I don’t want to know him either, so that works for me. He was likely brought in from a nearby region to lead an impartial investigation, as if those really exist. “You’re not in charge,” I say.

“Yes, I am,” he bristles, his cheeks puffing out. “I’m in charge.”

If he was certain he was in charge, he wouldn’t need to argue that point.

It would simply be true. He’d know it. I’d know it. Neither of us knows it, right now.

“Of your house,” I say. “Maybe.” I eye the ring on his finger. “Big, big maybe. But either way, I’m not saying I’m in charge. I’m saying you are not.”

“This is not your case,” good ol’ Larry insists. “You need to evacuate the premises.”

Obviously, someone forgot to tell him Homeland Security escorted me here, and Homeland Security, in this situation, trumps FBI. Of course, my general opinion of Homeland Security is that they are idiots, and this assessment comes from my experience with two agents. One, on a task force I was on early in my career, who was so stupid I thought he was pretending. Turns out, he was not. The other, on yet another task force, was a jerk who thought a woman couldn’t possibly know what she was doing, but he was happy to hit on me. He found out I hit, too. With my fist. I enjoyed it, too.

Bottom line, two for two was all it took to convince me Homeland Security has a staff of stupid, but then I’m unforgiving.

I don’t pretend otherwise.

Stupid is what stupid does, which is piss me off.

I motion to Murphy. “This man was a director of the FBI. That makes the lead on this case the President of the United States. When he tells me to leave, I’ll leave.”

His cellphone rings and his lips twist. “Maybe that’s the President now.”

“Hate to break it to you, Larry, ol’ boy, but it’s more likely to be your mama or partner—or wife—whatever you have, checking to see if you’ve been taking your vitamins, than it is the President. Have you? Taken your vitamins?”

He scrunches his face up, and it’s not a pretty sight. “Aren’t you funny.”

“I am, thank you, very much. If I’m honest, very few people really recognize that obvious fact. I’ll remember that you do.”

He grimaces and answers the call. I reach into my field bag and pull out a pair of gloves before kneeling next to Murphy. “Not only did you lie to me, now I have to catch your killer. But you know what they say, a dick in life, a dick in death.” I pat him down, searching for his phone and come up dry, which is strange. This was a professional hit, and a pro knows we’ll just pull the records, but there could have been the hope there was sensitive information to retrieve. Or maybe there was a text message someone didn’t want seen. Or there could have been more than one phone, a burner and his actual registered line.

At this point, Larry has stepped out of the room.

Considering I worked with Murphy, me getting kicked off the case is inevitable, which means I have too little time and too much to discover.

Murphy needs to be a dead man talking.

That means I need to read the scene he’s left for me.

I start with how long he’s been dead. Based on rigor mortis, at least half a day. What he’s wearing—a collared shirt and casual pants, which isn’t work attire, but it’s not sit-at-home-alone attire either. He was meeting someone or doing something. The question is, who and what? I check his pants and find one of his business cards in his rear, hard-to-reach pocket, that an assassin in a rush might easily miss. There’s a Nashville number scribbled in messy writing on the back. I know it’s Nashville because I consulted on a case there a few years back, not long before Kane and I got back together. I grab my own phone and snap a photo of the number before I bag the evidence. For reasons I can’t explain, my gut tells me to conceal that number. How very un-FBI of me, or how very FBI of me, depending on who you ask.

As of late, I’m not sure there is any government-run operation I consider untarnished or impenetrable by the Society.

I decide the card is going with me.

I stuff it in my field bag, and just in time. That’s when Larry returns.

I push to my feet, noting his scrunched-up face has transformed into a bulldog face. I like me a cute bulldog—I like animals more than people—and Larry fits the lost puppy image to a T right now. “What’s wrong, Larry? Did Mom get really, really mad at you?”

He glares at me. “I always heard you were a bitch.”

“Well, it’s interesting to know I’m talked about, and while I prefer to be known as witty and funny, bitch works, too. I’m in charge of the crime scene,” I assume, because he’s as easy to read as a book with large print.

He grits his teeth. “You’re in charge of the crime scene.”

Interesting, I think of this unexpected twist, but I don’t ask who told him to hand over the reins. It might have been Homeland Security, but I’m not sure why they know who I am. Okay, a drug cartel is a national security risk, so I do, in fact, know how they know me. Even if it was the President himself who put me in charge, ~I wouldn’t care. ~

I’m here because I want answers that only Murphy can give me, and since he’s dead, that means convincing him to talk to me from the other side. He was too smart to leave anything important where it could be easily found, which means I’m not going to find answers here or at his homes in LA or Washington. From what I understand, he has all of the above.

But I have to go through the motions. That’s how good investigative work gets done.

No one will search those places like me, but until I can get to both, I need to get people I trust to his homes, and now. That’s when a realization slithers through me, and it’s a snake with a lethal bite. I already know why Murphy’s dead. Obviously to anyone, he crossed the wrong person, but the odds that it relates to the Society are almost one hundred percent. This was a professional hit. What if it’s not the only one?

What if the Society—Pocher, in particular—decided to get rid of anyone that’s a threat to his power? In this scenario, Murphy wasn’t their friend, he was ours. Is that possible? Maybe. Which leads me to anyone else who represents a threat to the Society. Kane and me. I think of the chopper attack on Kane gone wrong and eye the bullet hole between Murphy’s eyes. A professional wouldn’t screw up. I grab my phone from my pocket. I don’t care if Kane’s handling cartel business, I need to talk to him now.