I know he did this.
My cellphone starts ringing and I snap it up from my lap to find Jay on the caller ID. I consider ignoring him, but he’s one of Kane’s men and still my personal bodyguard, despite me saving him from the Umbrella Man, instead of the opposite, a few weeks back. He risks his life for me, and to me that means, I owe him respect. And besides, he could have news about Kane.
“What?” I answer.
“Stop now, Lilah. Do not go after Pocher and we both know that’s exactly what you’re doing.”
“Give me a reason to stop.”
“It’s what Kane would want,” he argues.
“You know very little about what Kane would want.”
“I know damn sure he doesn’t want you in jail.”
“I’m not going to jail.”
“Tell me how walking into Pocher’s house and shooting him doesn’t land you in jail?”
I hang up on him and his logic. Logic is not what I need right now.
He calls back, but this time, I ignore him. I dial Kit, the person I would call Kane’s bodyguard and confidant. He doesn’t answer. I don’t even try to call Kane. His phone isn’t pinging. I know this from Tic Tac, my tech guy. He wouldn’t get this wrong, not something this big. Kane won’t answer if I call. I glance in my rearview and it’s all clear. I took Jay by surprise when I left the airport. By the time he would have gotten into his vehicle, it would have been too late for him to stop me from leaving. He won’t catch up with me.
Five minutes later, I’m on the main highway. In another ten minutes, I turn onto Pocher’s street. As for how I’m going to kill Pocher and not go to jail, it’s not a question I have to answer today. Because my fucking brother is parked across from Pocher’s drive. He’s also standing outside in the cold-ass weather, leaning against his driver’s side door, one booted foot over the other. Cocky bastard in his puke tan uniform and jacket. I want to pull right up on top of him and scare the cocky right out of him, but I decide to save the good stuff for Pocher. I park close but not too close, and get out of the vehicle, rounding the hood to step in front of him.
It’s colder now in all kinds of ways, an icy feel to the air, cold as death. Andrew straightens and says, “He’s not home.”
“Where is he?”
“I have no idea. What do you think this achieves, Lilah?”
He’s still the chief of police. He has his oath to protect and serve and all that bullshit but I don’t like it right now. It sure didn’t matter when he helped Kane get rid of Roger’s body after I’d killed him. It was necessary. Ex-mentor or not, Roger was a serial killer who’d attacked Kane and obsessed over me. I’d been left no choice. It was by all legal and ethical means justifiable, even if stabbing him quite as many times as I did might have, okay definitively would have, appeared excessive. Thus, the buried body, which in the aftermath, Andrew handled that about as badly as a drunken sailor trying to walk a straight line to impress a girl. Badly. He’s drowning in his own guilt and bullshit.
“What do you think this achieves, Lilah,” Andrew repeats.
“Relief for the entire fucking world. I’m going to kill him. And then he’ll be gone. He can’t hurt anyone else. Easy peasy. I’m the girl who can truly proclaim your satisfaction is guaranteed. But you can pretend I told you I was simply going to talk to him, Chief Love. I won’t tell otherwise if you don’t.”
“Don’t say shit like that to me, Lilah.”
I scowl and snap back. “Don’t say shit like that to me right now, Andrew. Mom and now Kane and—”
“I know,” he grinds out. “But if anyone comes back from this, it’s Kane.”
“Mom,” I hiss. “And now Kane. You should want him dead.”
His jaw sets. “What if he didn’t do it?”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Roger told me—”
“Roger was sick. How can you believe anything he said? What if—” He cuts his stare and then looks at me as he says, “Dad knows what happened to you. He knows Pocher had you attacked. What if—” He scrubs his jaw, and starts again. “Mom would never have gone along with Dad being Pocher’s little bitch. What if Dad—”
“Killed Mom and tried to kill Kane?” I supply. “All I can say to that is that you weren’t there when he and I talked about what they did to me. At the very least, he’s complicit. Do I think he was the mastermind? No. I don’t believe he’s capable of being that independent of Pocher. Pocher needs to die. He’s needed to die since before the bastard was even born.” I try to step around Andrew.