I sleep exactly four hours, and I only do that at Kane’s insistence.
I know he loves me, but personally, I think he’s protecting himself. I’m a bitch when I don’t sleep. Okay, I’m more of a bitch than normal when I don’t sleep. And if there is one thing Kane Mendez is afraid of, it’s me in bitch mode.
As the morning throws me chaos, I decide I should have slept more.
I hurry through my shower, dress to confuse. That means black dress pants, Chanel ankle boots, and an emerald green silk blouse with my hair long around my shoulders. I look like a girl. It makes people expect me to be soft. I like it when people expect me to be soft. It makes them an even softer target.
Kane dresses in a suit the color of a deep blue wash of sea on a sunny day. He wears it like a king, arrogance radiating from him. I like him arrogant about as much as I like my targets soft. Both equal winning. And when it comes to the Society and a murder investigation, winning matters.
Jay picks Kane and me up in a black Escalade. Our first stop is the airport, where Kane is flying out on a chopper to the city while I ride deeper into Long Island for the autopsy. I say my goodbyes to Kane just outside the Escalade and then Jay and I are on our way. For the sake of the investigation, I lay my head back and shut my eyes. Sleep comes hard and fast and lasts until the vehicle halts. I jolt awake and sit up to find us sitting in front of a place called Duck Donut.
“What is this?” I demand. “I’m FBI, not a cop. We eat chocolate cake, not donuts.”
“I’m a Mexican,” he says. “We eat whatever we like and I like donuts. And they have a strawberry donut with buttercream icing. Thank me later.” He gets out of the vehicle.
Okay, that little monster has tempted me now, when I secretly swore to myself that I’d drink water and eat rice cakes today. Only I didn’t buy rice cakes or water. I was lying to myself. I hate people who lie, even to themselves.
And still, I climb out of the truck and hurry toward Jay, with donuts on my mind. “What the hell does a duck have to do with a donut?”
“They started out in Duck, North Carolina, and yes, apparently that’s a real place.” He opens the shop door for me and motions me forward. “Unless I’m not allowed to be a gentleman with you, Agent Love.”
“And why wouldn’t you?” I ask. “I’m a lady.” I head inside and the sweet smell of sugar and donuts touch my nose. To hell with rice cakes.
A few minutes later, Jay and I each have two donuts, mine are, of course, strawberry, while his are maple bacon, and we head to the vehicle. I walk to my side of the Escalade and stop dead in my tracks. There’s a note on the window and I know exactly who it’s from: my note writer who had gone MIA. Junior is back.
I scan the parking lot, but the strip mall is new, and Duck Donut is the only tenant. There are no other cars. Clearly, someone could have driven into the parking lot and posted the note and most likely they had been following us. Otherwise, they would not know I was in the passenger seat.
I walk around to Jays’ side of the vehicle. “I need my bag,” I say.
He reaches in the car and hands it to me, casting me a curious look. “What’s up?”
“Find out if there are cameras anywhere. Now.” I toss my donuts onto his seat. To his credit, he doesn’t ask questions. He’s already moving, shutting his door, walking back to the donut shop. I round the vehicle, bag the note, and glance down at the message. As in the past it’s short, not at all to any point, and created with cut out of letters from a newspaper. It reads: M is for money, M is also for more, and M is for Mendez.
Again, with the jabs at Kane. What the hell is Junior’s problem? And why now? I glance at my ring and decide the timing is no accident.
I toss the note in the seat and shut the door, with me on the outside, and start walking, checking the vacant spaces and finding them all locked and dark. When all is said and done, I’ve checked the perimeter and further, and I don’t even find a suspiciously parked vehicle. I head back to the Escalade and Jay is walking toward me. “No cameras. What’s going on?”
“Someone left me a note on my door,” I say.
“Then we were followed.”
“It looks that way,” I say, but I offer nothing more.
I motion to the vehicle and we make our way in that direction. Once I’m inside, I think about the timing of the note. They first started when I returned to the Hamptons after years gone. And now, they start again when Pocher returns to the Hamptons after weeks gone.
There is no such thing as a coincidence. And I know then that whoever this is, stands close to Pocher’s side. That detail makes Junior easier to find. And I will.