It wasn’t the first time I’d sensed a darker, harder version of my father. It was the first time that I felt it directed at me, not my mother. Anger had boiled in the pit of my belly. I’d stopped a waiter and offered my father an oyster. “I hear you can slurp them right down right along with your judgment. He’s not his father,” I added. “In fact, right now, I think you might resemble his father more than Kane. Did you know him?”

He’d bristled. “Of course, I knew him. He was a kingpin in my territory.”

“How well?” I pressed.

“Well enough to know Kane Mendez is the devil’s spawn.”

In that moment, Kane had joined us and I’d linked my arm with his. “I wonder what that makes me, father?”

“Lilah?”

At Kane’s prodding, I snap back to the present. “I remember that night,” I confirm. “What I don’t know is what it has to do with that woman in our house.”

“Maybe it doesn’t,” he says. The devil’s spawn is always my devil’s advocate.

“Or maybe it does,” I counter. “My father and Pocher were both there. Chef Roswell was there. I’d like to know if Naomi was there.”

“Interesting,” Kane comments. “She wasn’t supposed to be here. Chef Roswell arrived with her instead of the sous chef he’d scheduled, who called in sick. Naomi was a last-minute add-in.”

“She lives in the city,” Andrew announces, joining us. “I put out an APB to have her brought in for questioning. I’ve got patrol on the highway, train station, and airport and I called the East Hampton police department. I’ll call the NYPD unless you prefer to make the call. “

“I’ll make the call,” I say, phone in hand, punching my auto-dial for Chief Houston who until recently, I distrusted. Now, I just mostly trust him, which is about all anyone gets from me.

“Lilah fucking Love,” he answers. “I didn’t expect a Happy Thanksgiving call from you of all people. A hell of a good surprise. Now, what do you really want?”

“We had a murder in East Hampton last night. Long story short, we need to bring the sister-in-law of the deceased in for questioning now, and we have reason to believe she’s on the run.”

“And she lives here.”

“She does. She’s here now, but we suspect she may return to the city.”

“And you’re calling me personally, why?”

“This may tie back to the Umbrella Man case.”

“Holy hell. Tell me we didn’t get the wrong guy?”

“More like an admirer of his work,” I say, quite certain Roger is deader than dead.

“Copycat?”