Murder Girl Read online

  PRAISE FOR LISA RENEE JONES

  “Jones’s suspense truly sizzles with an energy similar to FBI tales with a paranormal twist by Julie Garwood or Suzanne Brockmann.”

  —Booklist

  “Intoxicating, intense, and deeply seductive.”

  —RT Book Reviews (Top Pick) on Escaping Reality (RT Book Reviews Award for Best Romantic Suspense, 2015)

  “Darkly intense and deeply erotic, each new reveal involving Chris and Sara leaves you raw and restless, emotions running high as you wait for the next obstacle. These books are an addiction!”

  —RT Book Reviews (Top Pick) on No In Between

  “Passionate, all-consuming.”

  —POPSUGAR

  OTHER TITLES BY LISA RENEE JONES

  LILAH LOVE

  Murder Notes

  DIRTY MONEY

  Hard Rules

  Damage Control

  Bad Deeds

  End Game

  Poison Kisses (Seth’s stand-alone story)

  WHITE LIES

  Provocative

  Shameless

  TALL, DARK, AND DEADLY

  Secrets Exposed: The Prelude

  Hot Secrets

  Dangerous Secrets

  One Dangerous Night

  Beneath the Secrets

  Deep Under

  Pulled Under

  Falling Under

  CARELESS WHISPERS

  Denial

  Demand

  Surrender

  THE SECRET LIFE OF AMY BENSEN

  Escaping Reality

  Infinite Possibilities

  Forsaken

  Unbroken

  INSIDE OUT

  If I Were You

  Being Me

  Revealing Us

  His Secrets

  Rebecca’s Lost Journals

  The Master Undone

  My Hunger

  No In Between

  My Control

  I Belong to You

  All of Me

  ZODIUS

  Michael

  Sterling

  Kel

  Damion

  VAMPIRE WARDENS

  Hot Vampire Kiss

  Hot Vampire Seduction

  Hot Vampire Touch

  WEREWOLF SOCIETY

  Wicked Werewolf Night

  Wicked Werewolf Secret

  Wicked Werewolf Passion

  THE KNIGHTS OF WHITE

  The Beast Within

  Beast of Desire

  Return of the Beast

  Beast of Darkness

  Demon’s Seduction

  Captive of the Beast

  Beast of Fire

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Julie Patra Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503902619

  ISBN-10: 1503902617

  Cover design by Caroline T. Johnson

  CONTENTS

  CHARACTERS

  DEAR READERS:

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHARACTERS

  Lilah Love (28)—dark-brown hair, brown eyes, curvy figure. An FBI profiler working in Los Angeles, she grew up in the Hamptons. Her mother was a famous movie star who died tragically in a plane crash, which caused Lilah to leave law school prematurely and eventually pursue a career in law enforcement. Lilah’s father is the mayor in East Hampton; her brother is the Hamptons’ chief of police. She dated Kane Mendez against her father’s wishes. She was brutally attacked one night, and Kane came to her rescue, somewhat, and what unfolded that night created a secret between the two they can never share with anyone else. This eventually causes Lilah to leave and take the job in LA, away from her family, Kane, and that secret.

  Kane Mendez (32)—brown hair, dark-brown eyes, leanly muscled body. He’s the CEO of Mendez Enterprises and thought to be the leader of the cartel that his father left behind when he was killed. But Kane claims his uncle runs the operations, while he runs the legitimate side of the business. Lilah’s ex from before she left for LA. He found her the night of her attack and shares that secret with her.

  Director Murphy (50s)—gray hair, perfectly groomed. Former military. Lilah’s boss. The head of the LA branch of the FBI. Sent Lilah to the Hamptons to follow the assassin case.

  Rich Moore—blond surfer-dude looks, blue eyes. Works with Lilah. He and Lilah were sleeping together until Rich wanted more and Lilah called it off.

  Jeff “Tic Tac” Landers—Lilah’s go-to tech guy at the FBI.

  Grant Love (57)—blue eyes, graying hair. Lilah’s father, the mayor, and retired police chief of East Hampton. A perfect politician. Charming. He’s being groomed by Ted Pocher to run for New York governor.

  Andrew Love (34)—blond hair, blue eyes. Lilah’s brother and the East Hampton police chief. Andrew is protective and seems to be the perfect brother. The problem is that he’s perfect at everything, including being as macho and as bossy as their father. There’s more to Andrew than meets the eye.

  Alexandra Harris-Rivera (29)—brown hair, pretty. Assistant District Attorney of Suffolk County; Lilah’s ex–best friend. They didn’t go to school together but grew up hanging out on the local beaches with each other. Lilah has her reasons for cutting off all communication with Alexandra, but she has yet to share them with her. Alexandra is now married to Eddie Rivera.

  Eddie Rivera (30)—buzzed brown hair. A detective who had a chip on his shoulder growing up. He knows Lilah from their youth and was ever present at their family dinners around the time Lilah left the Hamptons. He went through some hard times, and Lilah’s dad took him under his wing. He had a thing for Lilah, but she was all about Kane. His own father was an ass, and her dad has become a father figure to him. He’s also married to Alexandra Harris, who was Lilah’s best friend during her college years.

  Samantha Young (27)—blonde, gorgeous. A powerful socialite in the Hamptons. She had a “relationship” of convenience with Kane prior to his dating Lilah, and they have struck it up again in the years since Lilah left the Hamptons, even though Samantha is supposed to be dating Andrew Love, Lilah’s brother.

  Lucas Davenport—tall, looks like a prepp
y version of Tarzan. A very successful and good-looking investment banker, he has taken to hacking in his spare time. He is a cousin of sorts to Lilah and Andrew. His father was the stepbrother to Lilah’s father. His father was also known to be with Lilah’s mother, Laura, on the night they both disappeared in the plane crash. He flirts mercilessly with Lilah, seeing as they’re not blood related, but she always shoots him down.

  Greg Harrison—Lilah’s old partner from the New York Police Department. Currently in a lot of hot water with Internal Affairs over an incident that may or may not be of his own making. He was partnered with Nelson Moser prior to being put on leave by IA pending further investigation but has been working independent security with Moser in the meantime.

  Nelson Moser—a lowlife police detective who offended Lilah on numerous occasions before she moved to Los Angeles. She is not very fond of him, and the rumor circulating about him is that he’s a dirty cop.

  Laura Love—Lilah’s mother. Famous actress. Died four years ago in a horrific plane crash. She infamously portrayed Marilyn Monroe in an Oscar-winning performance. Much mystery still surrounds her death, and will be a recurring issue throughout the series.

  Ted Pocher—billionaire CEO of the world’s fifth-largest privately held conglomerate, Pocher Industries. Has taken a liking to Lilah’s father in hopes of furthering her father’s political career. He tried to do business with Kane and Mendez Enterprises but was turned down because of his rep for shady business deals.

  Beth Smith—blonde, tall, thin. New medical examiner in Suffolk County. Lilah’s friend from back in the day. Beth is working one of the assassin murder cases.

  DEAR READERS:

  Thank you so much for picking up the next book in the Lilah Love series! If you haven’t read Book 1, Murder Notes, please don’t read any further! I’m about to recap Book 1, which will contain spoilers. In Book 1, you met Lilah Love, a brash and intensely dedicated FBI agent, as she is called to a crime scene on the Santa Monica Pier. As she gets ready to dispatch to the scene, we witness a quarrel between her and her bed partner, Rich Moore, who she works with at the FBI. This is obviously an ongoing relationship, but Lilah is trying to put on the brakes once Rich yet again mentions their moving in together. The relationship was never that serious for Lilah, and she wants to put space between them now. They leave things with Lilah saying he deserves more and him saying they’ll talk about it later.

  Back to this murder case on the Santa Monica Pier that will set into motion the case that unfolds over the first two books in this series: a naked male body has been discovered on the beach, much like a crime scene Lilah and the locals worked two days prior. But what is different is the tattoo on the body, which harkens Lilah back to her attack two years ago in the Hamptons where she grew up. And through that flashback we learn the attack was sinister and definitely had an impact on Lilah’s future. As Lilah is consorting with the locals on this latest case, her boss, Director Murphy, shows up and tells her of a similar case in New York. With both cases spanning more than one state and the body count rising, Murphy wants Lilah out there. This is when she tells him she’s seen that tattoo before but refrains from divulging in what capacity.

  Murphy sends Lilah to the Hamptons to get a read on the situation. But as she lands, she’s called to another crime scene: a murder identical to the two in LA and the one in New York. From the looks of all the murders, everyone assumes the perp is a serial killer, but Lilah is convinced they’re dealing with an assassin, someone who has a hit list they’re marking off one by one on orders from someone else. Who is calling the shots is a mystery for Lilah to figure out.

  The case in the Hamptons has her back in the web of her ex-boyfriend, Kane Mendez, in two seconds flat. It’s his rental property the body was found at and his employee who was murdered. This doesn’t look good for Kane, but Lilah knows him, and despite the murmurings of his running the local cartel that his father once ran prior to his death, she knows this isn’t Kane’s doing. Of course, that doesn’t stop Kane from showing up and taunting Lilah in an attempt to get her back in his bed, which fails to work . . . this time. Lilah refuses Kane. He’s too much of a reminder of the night she was attacked, and too much of a risk to her reputation.

  As Lilah deals with the locals on the Hamptons case, she runs into Beth Smith, now the medical examiner and who she once knew in school, and Eddie Rivera, a smart-ass cop, now detective, who was always trying to steal her father’s affection and attention growing up.

  Lilah is still going through the scenarios of the murders as she pulls up to her beach house, where she was attacked on that night two years ago. And of course, being Lilah, she decides to face those memories head-on. Prior to going inside, she goes out to the beach where the attack took place, reliving those horrific moments. After Lilah regains her composure from that memory and heads back to the beach house to get to work on the cases, there’s a message waiting for her in fake blood on the side of the house:

  A is for the Apple a day that keeps the doctor away. But a doctor couldn’t help him, could he?

  I KNOW.

  The author of this message is a person Lilah begins to think of as “Junior,” and the message is the first of what she calls “murder notes.” So now Lilah has two mysteries to solve: Who is the assassin, and who else was there the night of her attack who knows her and Kane’s secret? Lilah sets up shop in Purgatory—the name for the room in the cottage where she organizes her cases and does her best work—and then makes lists on top of lists of who could be responsible for any and all of this. She reminds herself of the nickname people have for her: Murder Girl. It describes how she’s so good at what she’s done to solve cases: she can be more in tune with a dead body than a live one. She lives and breathes murder scenes and gets inside the perp’s head.

  While she’s in Purgatory, Rich and Kane both call, Rich wanting to be the one Lilah depends on, which doesn’t work for her right then and there, and Kane trying to get under Lilah’s skin, where he’s always been, and also to give her his solid alibi: he was with his friends-with-benefits buddy, Samantha, which rubs Lilah the wrong way considering they were an FWB pair prior to Lilah and Kane being together years ago. Kane signs off with a reminder that he knows Lilah’s demons and he can help ease them if she’ll let him. Which, of course, she won’t.

  Following that little chat, none other than the East Hampton chief of police shows up at Lilah’s door, her brother, Andrew. They banter back and forth about jurisdiction, their father, who Andrew even calls so he can talk to Lilah, and an upcoming press conference on the murder. The conversation ends with Andrew telling Lilah that he’s in a relationship with Samantha Young, the Samantha Young who just happens to be Kane’s alibi for the time of the murder . . .

  Once Lilah is alone again and back at her drawing boards, she can’t shake one thought: she’s the common denominator in all of this. The murders. The notes. The tattoos. Samantha and her brother and Kane. New York and California. But there could be a multitude of connections that just haven’t been realized yet. And with that conclusion, Lilah is making lists of things and people she needs to look into. This effort fades into a nightmare-laden sleep with Lilah remembering more of that night: her and Kane bloodied, her sans clothing, and an eerie feeling to the memory that is still not fully realized.

  Lilah sends a set of fingerprints from her house to be tested by Tic Tac, her go-to FBI tech guy back in California, in hopes that the prints will match someone out of the ordinary. In the meantime, she pays a visit to Kane at his office and grills him about his whereabouts last night, and about Samantha and Andrew. She learns that her father is running for New York governor, and that Andrew and Samantha aren’t necessarily as squeaky-clean as they’d like everyone to believe they are. And that, along with his bid for governor, her father has gotten wrapped up in favors owed to a rival of the Mendez family/cartel, the Romanos. As Lilah leaves in a rage over the things Kane is keeping from her, she finds another note on her car:


  T is for TRUST.

  You TRUSTED him.

  F is for FOOL.

  That’s YOU.

  Lilah then heads off to question Samantha, which ultimately amounts to nothing but more questions and the refusal by Samantha to back up Kane’s alibi.

  Lilah needs answers, so she contacts Beth, the medical examiner, and asks to meet her at the local diner. Before Beth arrives, Lilah runs into her ex–best friend, Alexandra, who is the assistant district attorney and married to Eddie Rivera, now a detective, who has always competed for her father’s attention and been a general asshole. Alexandra’s presence throws Lilah back into a flashback of that night; Alexandra was with her at a bar prior to her attack. They’d seen the movie star Jensen Michaels at the bar, and even though they were celebrating Lilah’s birthday, Lilah convinced Alexandra to go talk with him as she’d been lusting after him for quite a while. All through this Lilah had been texting with Kane, who was in New York but getting on a chopper to come back to the Hamptons. When Lilah got up to leave the bar, it became very evident that she’d been drugged somehow. But by who? As Lilah comes back to the present, it’s divulged that after that night, Lilah cut Alexandra out of her life for good—thus the ex–best friend title.

  Alexandra now spots Lilah in the diner, and they have an almost inane conversation about the potential reasons Lilah may be in town; she sticks with “it’s personal” and other cursory shoptalk. As Alexandra leaves to take a phone call, Beth arrives, and Lilah digs in deep about the current murder case. Before they can get any further, Eddie shows up and intervenes, demanding that Lilah back off and even claiming he has a suspect: Kevin Woods, who seems to have had a violent history with the victim. But as Beth is leaving, she confides to Lilah that Kevin Woods shouldn’t take the hit for this murder. She knows he’s not a killer.

  Lilah asks Tic Tac for background on Woods. The locals are just trying to get him for their one case and not the rest of the murders, a strategy that is already making Lilah suspicious of their motives. Eddie seems to be very adamant that Lilah leave town and not get involved. And Kane is very adamant that Lilah leave the tattoo connection alone. So who’s playing who?

  Lilah calls up Lucas Davenport, her “cousin” (really, her step cousin—his father was her father’s stepbrother, but Lucas is family all the same to her). Her endgame is to get him to help her hook up a security-camera system for her house. If someone vandalizes it again or leaves her another note, she’ll have it on tape. There’s a brief mention of her mother’s death: she was with Lucas’s father in the plane that went down. No one knows why they were together or what may have really happened on that flight.