I reach the subway entrance and Andrew hasn’t called back.
I try to call him, but he doesn’t answer. I leave a message. “I’m going into the subway. Leave me a message. I’m headed to Kane’s office.” I disconnect and jog down the stairs, eager to catch the next train out of there. As it is, I’ll have to change trains and I’m twenty minutes out. Once I’m in the tunnel, it doesn’t take long for me to make it to the train right after the doors shut. I curse and stop dead in my tracks. “Damn it to hell.” I squeeze my eyes shut and force myself to breathe, but I can’t. For just a moment, I’m back on that first crime scene in L.A., back in a room that was ankle-deep in blood, suffocating with the knowledge that’s it’s slushing around my ankles. That’s what’s happening to me now. I’m suffocating in the idea that Kane is dead.
Dead.
God, where did that word come from?
Kane is not dead.
I open my eyes and force myself to calm the fuck down. He has reasons he might go silent, all likely to protect me, which means I’ll be kicking his ass tonight. And enjoying it. I try to think of anything he’s said to me that might remind me of something I’m forgetting. But nothing comes to me.
Finally, the train comes. When the doors open, I step inside, and thank God, it’s nearly empty. I still haven’t eaten my nuts and with only sugar in my system, I’m feeling unsteady. The subway is a nasty place to eat, but I have no option. I shove down the nuts and nearly choke with nothing to drink. My coffee is still sitting on the table where I accidentally left it. A homeless lady in a trash bag walks toward me, screaming, “They’re coming to get us! The aliens are coming to get us!”
“Yes,” I say. “They are. You should sit down and hope they don’t notice you.”
“They’re coming to get us!” she screams.
I’m going to pull my fucking gun on her in about thirty seconds, and that thought is how I know just how not right I am over this Kane stuff. As if that’s a real revelation. The woman throws her hands up and turns and runs the other direction. The train halts and I get the fuck off.
It’s a full fifteen minutes later when I reach street level a few blocks from Kane’s office building. I check my messages and there are none. I dial Andrew. He doesn’t answer. I’m going to kick his ass. I really am. I’m about to dial Tic Tac when Andrew calls.
“Okay,” he says, and I already know it’s bad. I stop walking and step to the wall outside the rush of pedestrians that is the sidewalk in New York City. “He’s not pinging, Lilah. That has to be intentional. And that’s good news. If he had the forethought to destroy his phone.”
“Or maybe someone else did,” I say, and my throat is tight, my words thick. My heart beats too quickly.
“I’m headed to the airport now.”
“So am I, right after I check in with his office.” I hang up and finish my walk, hurrying into the Mendez Enterprises office tower and then into the elevator. In a flash, I’m in the fancy lobby, approaching the reception desk where sweet, pretty little Cindy is managing the phones. “Is he here?” I ask Cindy as she hangs up from a call.
“Still not here,” she says. “I tried to reach him. He’s got people looking for him. He missed a meeting. Is he okay?”
“Of course,” I say. “He’s Kane.” I motion to his office to let her know that’s where I’m headed.
She nods and I’m in his office in about twenty seconds. I walk to his desk and sit down, looking for clues to where he might be, but this is Kane Mendez. There is nothing to be found. He leaves nothing behind for the wrong eyes, ever.
I exit the office and head toward the door, calling out to Cindy as I pass through the lobby, “Call me if you hear from him.”
Fifteen minutes later, I’m at our apartment building, where Kit is usually at as well, and he is nowhere to be found. I call him. He doesn’t answer. I head to our place and Kane isn’t there. I have no idea why, but I feel the pull to return to the Hamptons.
I dial Jay. “Where are you?”
“About to pull up to the building now.”
“I need to go back to the Hamptons now,” I say, praying I won’t regret that decision. “Is the chopper ready?”
“It is.”
I hang up and waste no time heading downstairs. I exit the building and climb inside. “Where’s Kane?”
“I don’t know.”
“His phone isn’t pinging. You know something.”
“I don’t. I swear I don’t.”
“What about Kit?”
“He’s not answering. I’ve tried to reach him because I knew you wanted answers.”
“His phone is not pinging.”
“He did that on purpose, Lilah.”
“Or someone else did,” I say, repeating what I said to Andrew.
“This is Kane—”
“I know,” I say. “Just drive.”
I text Andrew: I’m on my way to the airport to come there.
I’m not sure why I reach in my bag and pull out the note from Junior. M is for money, M is also for more, and M is for Mendez. Was that a warning or a threat? Or something completely different? If it was a warning it was a fucked-up one. And it was too late. He was already off the grid when I got this. Maybe it’s an explanation. I read it to Jay.
“The note I got today. M is for money, M is also for more, and M is for Mendez. What does it mean?”
He takes it from me and reads it before handing it back to me. “Sounds like some sort of piss-poor threat.”
A threat.
And if Kane’s people know where he is, they don’t want me to know.