Archer
ARCHER
W e used our thirty minutes the way we know how. Wasting none and bringing each other to completion more than a few times. Married life fucking rocks, because I know how to make the delectable Doctor Mayet scream my name in a matter of minutes, and fuck, she knows how to bewitch me with just a look.
A word.
A crook of her finger.
Thirty minutes ended with the apartment door opening and my baby brother waltzing in noisy enough to announce his arrival. A plastic bag rustling. The smell of Chinese food wafting along the hall. Which led to Minka jumping off my cock and scrambling into just enough clothes to make her trek to the bathroom decent.
Which led to her running away, and me, doomed to greeting my brother with her release still coating my dick and the taste of her sweet pussy on my tongue.
Not that I tell him that sort of stuff.
We ate our dinner and talked about dead bodies the way we’re apt to do. We discussed college and the classes Cato is supposed to attend—as opposed to the classes he does attend, which are rarely the kind that’ll count toward his degree—and around ten o’clock, I found myself back in bed.
With my freshly showered wife riding me once more. But that time was quieter. Gentler. As Copeland City lights illuminated our bedroom window and created a halo around her perfect form, we brought a new day to an end the way we both need.
The way we choose.
And soon, we’ll do it with New York City lights silhouetting her body.
Or at least, that was the plan.
My phone vibrates against the bedside table, buzz, buzz, buzzing on the hardwood furniture and dragging me out of my sleep. And though my subconscious fights it, the incessant sound saws into my sleeping brain as though a chainsaw was tearing up the space beside my ear.
“Phone,” mostly asleep, Minka rumbles and turns on the bed, snuggling into her pillow and smacking her lips. “Still quiet time.”
“Fuck.” I peel my eyes open and begrudge the way it feels like I dunked them in sand first. Then I turn just my head, searching for the flashing light from the device to lead my way. I snag the stupid phone and check the screen, spying Fletch’s name. Then scowling, I glance at the time in the top right corner and groan at the unfairness.
Swiping to answer, I bring the device to my ear, while with my other arm, I scoop my wife’s succulent body closer and force her to snuggle. That pillow didn’t earn her love . “It’s four-thirty, Fletcher. What the fuck, man?”
“We have a new D.B.,” he sighs. Unlike me, he’s already moving. Already dressed and preparing to run out the door. “Cowper Street, over by that deli we sometimes go to.”
“It’s four-thirty,” I repeat on a growl. “We already have an open. Why the hell are they tossing us another case?”
“Different body. Same case.” He opens his front door and whispers, “Thanks, Deena. Just head on over to the couch and go back to sleep, sweet pea. I appreciate you coming up at this hour.”
“No problem, Detective.” The teenage babysitter trudges through his apartment and flops onto the couch, freeing my partner up so he can leave his four-year-old at home and get back to work.
“How is this the same case? We haven’t even arrived to I.D. the body yet.”
“No, but uniforms on scene have identified him as another cop, considering the badge he kept in his pocket.” He steps through his door and pulls it shut with a quiet snick, locking two girls inside his apartment for safekeeping. “I’m going out on a limb here and making an assumption. Don’t suppose you’d like to join me?”
“For fuck’s sake.” I scrub my face in frustration, awake now, and grudgingly aware I’ll be in the pre-dawn cold annoyingly soon. “Fine. Grab a cruiser and swing by to pick me up? I’ll be out front in ten minutes. ”
“Bring coffee,” he bargains. “You got those to-go coffee cups in your kitchen now. Hook me up.”
“Yep.”
Ten minutes later, almost to the second, I leave my wife, warm and sated in our— allegedly —bacteria infested bed and stalk through the heavy glass door that separates our apartment from the street. If I worried I’d be standing in the cold for long, waiting for my partner, he proves me wrong instantly, pulling up at the curb and lifting his chin as I juggle two cups in one hand and yank the door open.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” He snags his coffee with no concern for the risk he might send the other sprawling into my lap, and tips it up at his lips, hissing when it burns on the way down. And yet, he doesn’t stop. “Shit,” he groans. “First coffee of the day always tastes the best.”
“Not if you scald all your tastebuds off.” I reach back for my seat belt, dragging it across my chest and down to click into the catch. “Why didn’t dispatch call me?”
He pulls away from the curb, driving one handed as he wraps his other around his warm beverage. “They called me first. I told them I’d call you. Sleep alright?”
“Six hours.” I bring my coffee up and take a cautious sip. “Give or take.”
He glances across, smirking at the qualifier in my answer. “In bed for six. But not sleeping for six.” He looks back at the road and turns a corner. He doesn’t bring us across the city hot—sirens and lights are so unnecessary at four in the morning—but he drives fast, navigating sharp corners smoothly and crossing city blocks without slowing us down. “You’re a lucky motherfucker, ya know that?”
“Yep.” I take another sip. “I know.”
“You married up, and I’m not ashamed to admit you hit the jackpot and leave me jealous every damn night I go to bed alone.”
“You can’t sleep with my wife.” Teasing, my lips curl behind the cup. “I won’t let you. And even if I had a stroke and lost my fucking mind, Minka isn’t one to be passed around. She’d stab you before you touched her.”
He chuckles, narrowing his eyes when an ambulance zooms past us and heads in the opposite direction. “Christmas is coming up soon,” he murmurs. “Maybe Santa will help me out.”
“You can’t ask Santa for my wife, either. She’s mine.”
“No. But maybe I can ask him to make me less of a screwup.” He checks his watch, a quick twist of his wrist, before he glances back to the road. “ Not pissing people off could be a good start to a new year, ya know? Once that’s taken care of, maybe then I can expect someone warm and decent in my bed.”
“I thought you were uninterested in the commitment side of female companionship. You were pretty content with fucking a new chick most nights.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t happen anymore.” He lifts his shoulders and slows as we approach our crime scene. Already, the place is lit up like the Rockefeller Center at night, police lights swirling in the air to paint the surrounding buildings red and blue. “I don’t go to the bar to pick women up anymore, since I always have Moo with me. And I can’t take random chicks back to my apartment because… same. Moo.”
“Which makes you a newly reformed and totally respectable member of society… Finally.”
He scoffs, bringing us around a tight corner and careful not to scrape a blue and white cruiser blocking most of the turn. “I don’t have the time or ability to date anymore. And I don’t want another twenty-minute fuck where I send her on her way before the sheets even cool.”
“You’re in your feelings about Fifi.” I cut to the chase and earn a scowl from my partner when he stops as close to the barricades as he can manage. “She’s mad at you. Minka was mad at you. Mia’s asking to see Fifi because she misses her. And your ex-wife is still kinda M.I.A. after her, ‘ I’m gonna be decent now, Fletchy-Baby. I promise .’”
He firms his lips, unimpressed with my version of the woman he once swore his life to.
“Things are really hard right now. Your daughter is young, so you have no room to sneak out to get your fix. And the situation with Fifi is currently in flux.” I clap his shoulder when he unsnaps his belt and reaches for the door handle to get out. Then I turn to the back seat and snag a vest, dragging it forward and slapping it to his chest. “Seems kinda superfluous, I know. But it’d make me feel better if you wore this.”
He rolls his eyes and accepts the eight-pound protection. But then he pins me with a glare. “You too. This isn’t gonna be one of those Mercer/Wright things where I’m left here to mourn your loss, dickhead. You’ve gotta live, because hitting on your wife after you die is less funny and more disrespectful.”
I shake my head and reach for a second vest. “Pretty sure it’s already disrespectful. At least where I come from.”
“But you’re not there anymore.” He shoves his door open and sets his coffee on the roof, then he uses the door as a shield and fusses with his shoulder holsters so he can shrug into his vest. “You all set for New York tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” I climb out on my side and match my partner’s actions, shrugging into the heavy material we both hate. And honestly, considering the tungsten tips this motherfucker possesses, it almost seems like a waste of our time and a hindrance to our flexibility. But this is what we do. To be cautious and make it home to our families at the end of a long day. “Cato sorted accommodation last night before I got home. I’ll call Felix today and organize our ride.”
“Oh, how the other half live.” He fastens the Velcro straps and eyes me across the roof. “God forbid we just buy a ticket on a regular commercial flight, huh?”
“Get the fuck out of here. Tell me you hated your all expenses paid, private plane, helicopter, and yacht experience to the Caribbean recently.” I flash him my middle finger and grin when he laughs. “My brother has a plane: the plane will be used. Why would I squish my wife into a regular seat sitting next to some onion smelling motherfucker if I don’t have to?”
“I’m just noticing how, not so long ago, you swore you would have nothing to do with the New York Malones. You were an emancipated man,” he taunts. “They were dead to you.”
“Uh-huh.” I flatten the strap at my ribs and check the gun I already secured to my thigh. “And sometimes, things change. My father is dead now, which means my brothers and I can be a family again without him trying to create a five-way war between blood.” I re-holster my weapon. “I trust them. With my life, and with Minka’s. That’s all that matters to me.”
“Like I said,” he snags his coffee and slams the door closed, “oh, how the other half live. I can be happy for your ass, sitting on those comfy private jet seats. And I can be jealous at the same time. I’m a skilled multitasker like that.”
“And jealous of my wife, too,” I tease. “I hit the jackpot, and you pissed off the first broad you’ve actually liked in years.”
Unimpressed, he flashes his badge at the uniform guarding the barricades. “Detectives Fletcher and Malone. This is our homicide.”
“Go on in.” He grabs the police tape and lifts it for us to pass through. “I haven’t been any closer than I am now, Detectives. So I don’t know what you’re gonna find. But I’m hearing whispers.”
“Yeah?” I duck beneath the tape and turn back when I straighten out, holding my coffee and pulling as much warmth from the cup as I can manage. It’s not winter yet, but fuck if my breath doesn’t puff white ahead of me anyway. My ears sting under the cold pre-dawn darkness and my nose smarts at the tip. “What things are you hearing, Officer?”
He gulps, the bob of his Adam’s apple telegraphing the nerves firing through his veins. “I heard we’ve got a cop killer on our hands. People are starting to worry.”
“Heard anything else?” Fletch’s jaw tightens as he looks the rookie up and down. “Anything else we need to know about?”
“Not yet, Detective. This one’s been kept kinda quiet. Orders came down from the brass pretty quickly. That’s when you were called in.”
“Come on.” I turn from the uniform and start toward our vic. “He’s just a kid, and the fact that Lieutenant Fabian has already come out means we have a shit-show ahead of us. It’s not surprising folks are whispering amongst themselves.”
“Yeah?” He lifts his chin and nods toward the taped off area, a body lying dead on the sidewalk, arms splayed wide, and a puddle of blood following gravity down the slight incline that leads to the gutter. Then we come to a stop just six feet from our new vic’s face, unseeing eyes staring back at us. “Probably don’t need to run fingerprints on this one.” Snarling, he strides closer and stands over Detective Wright’s dead body. “Goddammit!”