Archer
ARCHER
I wake to a cold bed.
To a cat scratching at the door—not to be let out, but to come in.
Frowning, I blink my eyes open and search for sense, glancing toward the window and the overcast sky outside, then to Minka’s side of the bed, empty. Though that’s exactly where she should be.
She’s sick, and the day has barely begun. But of course she’s up, fucking around and prolonging her time with a sore head and stuffy nose.
Drawing a long breath, I sit up and let my blankets droop to my lap; then I search one last time to make sure I’m not a blind idiot. I lean across to her side of the mattress, checking to make sure she’s not on the floor— nope —then I straighten again, my eyes swinging to the door because Chloe is still scratching.
“For fuck’s sake.” Why can’t she stay where she’s supposed to be? Why can’t she rest and get better ? Why did I fall in love with someone so medically fragile ?
Would I choose someone else if given the chance?
No.
But would I tie her to the bed and force vitamin C and electrolytes into her system if I could?
Absolutely.
Pushing my blankets aside and snagging a pair of sweatpants, I step into them as the cold air sends goosebumps sprinting along every inch of exposed skin I possess. Grabbing a shirt and dragging it over my head, I run a hand through my hair and start toward the door, even as a yawn wracks through my body and forces my eyes shut.
Quietly, I open the door and let Chloe dash in to take back her comfortable spot on my pillow, then I step into the hall and make my way toward the living room. I hear no voices. No news on the television. No conversations between my brother and wife. But I see the flicker and glow of the TV screen playing off the far wall.
And then I hear the gnawing sound of air passing through a blocked nose.
The whistling exhale of someone who should be asleep in her own damn bed.
Curious, I stop at the end of the hall and tilt my head, taking in the odd scene laid out ahead of me. The TV playing CCTV footage of places I know the New York moms visited, the time stamp showing October twenty-seventh, two-thousand-and-nine. And on the couch, Cato sitting up, his legs criss-cross style and his entire body cloaked by a blanket.
He’s like the hunchback of Notre Dame, his elbows on his knees and a pen in one hand, a notebook resting in his lap.
Worse… or stranger, perhaps, is Minka laid out on the floor in front of the couch, a barely touched coffee sitting on the coffee table, Cato’s pillow under her head, and the spare blanket draped over her curled body. She snores through her blocked nose and frowns in her sleep.
But she sleeps, at least.
“Don’t be loud,” Cato grumbles without looking my way. “She was working at two. She needs the downtime now.”
Digging my hands into my pockets, I wander around and stand at the end of the couch, spying the notebook he scribbles in and the screen he takes notes from. Then I look at Minka again, frowning because her nose is trying to kill her, and her mouth hangs slack while she struggles for air.
“I don’t even know where to start. But how the fuck did we end up here?”
“She woke up early to work.” His eyes remain firmly on the screen, his hand moving fast as he writes things in short form scribbles only he would understand. “She made a coffee, sat down, and started watching the videos.”
“And you let her?” I study her messy hair, long strands draped across her face and tangled in the blanket. Her splotchy cheeks and red nose. I count the tissues scattered on the floor and the coffee she attempted to drink, but didn’t get through.
Thank fuck.
“She should be in bed.”
“That sounds like a you thing.” He pauses the footage, adds notes to his book, and pinches his brows tight. “As her husband, it’s on you to get her to bed and keep her there. As her brother-in-law, it’s my job to hand her a pillow and blanket and hope she doesn’t tear my face off for it. I couldn’t offer her my bed, couldn’t carry her back to yours, and didn’t want her to work all night.” Lowering his pen, he glances my way and flashes a smile. “Did my best, considering I’m working on a single hour of sleep.”
“Why? And why are you watching confidential evidence in an active, ongoing homicide investigation?”
He drops his grin and un-pauses the video to resume his task. “Because she started it. And then she was missing stuff.”
“Missing stuff?”
“Mm. Too tired to see straight. She was writing things down, but missing other things.”
“And you thought you could do a better job?”
He reveals a wicked grin and sets his pen down, an air of finality in the action. Smugness, too. “Not only did I do a better job, but I found your common denominator.” He grabs his phone and beckons me closer with a tilt of his chin. Unlocking the screen and navigating to his photo album, he smirks and swipes quickly when I get a glimpse of bare skin. “Not those,” he teases with a laugh. “Those are for me. ”
“Minka finds out you’ve got naked women in your albums, she’ll peel the flesh off your bones.”
His cheeks puff higher, pushing into his vision as he opens a different album and scrolls to the top. “Each one was sent with permission. I didn’t download them off the net, and I didn’t buy them or receive them illegally.” He looks up with a taunting grin. “Women enjoy when I pay them attention, Arch. I know you’re married now, but I’m sure you remember those days.”
“Shut the fuck up about those days .” I snatch his phone and perch on the arm of the couch. “I’m sick of you getting me in trouble for things I didn’t do.”
“Didn’t do this year. I’m not sure our lives were a hell of a lot different when you were eighteen, though.” He pushes his blanket off and leans closer to point at the screen. “I’ve got the same woman at the same places as sixteen of your vics so far.”
My heart jumps with adrenaline. “You’re sure?”
“Looks the same to me. Older footage is a lot harder to say for certain, so a jury probably wouldn’t consider it enough to convict. If you only had the first two or three cases to work with, you’d be shit out of luck. But technology jumps, and pixels improve pretty significantly around ‘05. This woman rigggght…” He flicks through his pictures and pulls one up, though it’s only of the back of her body. “Here. She ages over the years, and so does her kid. Her clothes change, and her hairstyles, too. At some point, long after the actual trend ended, she had a perm. Other times, she went with a ponytail. Her weight fluctuates, though not by a lot. Her face ages significantly around two-thousand and fourteen, two-thousand and fifteen, like life got really hard in those years. Her kid grows fast as hell, from little to a teen and beyond.”
“Her kid?” I pinch the image between my thumb and finger and attempt to zoom closer. “You’re saying our potential perp is a woman who brought her kid along for each kill?”
“Well, these aren’t your kills, right? Those are all in January, but this footage is from other times in the year. The cop from New York did a good job compiling the videos, considering how massive the net was. But he was on to something; follow the moms on their free coupon adventures, find the one person who keeps popping up at each place. ”
“This could be any lady, Cato.” I un-zoom, then zoom in on another part of the image. “Different hair, different clothes, different weight; she could be ten separate, similar-looking women.”
“She has the same purse in every single picture. Like she got a good one once and never let it go. Her son ages up exactly how you’d expect year on year, and he’s always carrying the same toy.”
I peel my eyes off the phone. “A toy? Even when he’s a teen?”
“It’s hard to see in the earlier clips, but in the later ones, you catch the little ship he’s always carting around. It’s like six inches long. Two or three inches thick. It reminds me of the ones I saw at the Intrepid Museum when I was a kid.”
Stunned, not because he could pick out a tiny boat in a grainy video, and not even because he may or may not have found my perp. But, “You went to the Intrepid Museum? Who the fuck took you?”
Because it sure as shit wouldn’t have been Dad. Or even Lix, to be honest.
He grins and sits back on the couch. “Went by myself when I was nine. I even bought one of those ships, which is how I recognize it in the kid’s hand. You could argue the woman is different in each video, but she looks damn similar, has the same purse every year, and each time, she’s accompanied by a boy and that toy.”
“You only have the back of her head?” I flick the picture away and search the rest of the album. Some in black and white, though some are not. A lot of the images are grainy blobs, while others are so crisp I can make out the buckle of the bag she carries.
Then I lock in on a face I fucking know, tapping on that image and zooming in so close, I can almost count the wrinkles fanning from her eyes. “You can’t be serious?”
“She mean something to you?”
“Yeah, but…” I swipe to the next image, my brows pinching tight. “It makes no sense. She’s not… Why? And for who? She’s a single mom, her husband has bolted, no boyfriends in the house, and nothing in her record that points toward January eleventh being a significant event. Whoever our perp is, she’s working with a guy. These girls were raped by a man, Cato. The evidence proves it.”
“But what about him?” He takes back his phone and flips from one image to the next; a woman and her son. A woman and her slightly older son. A woman and her teen. Fifteen images later, a woman and a grown-ass man. And that grown man clutches a tiny metal ship in his right hand. “He starts out young, but…”
“What the fuck?” I push off the couch and circle, shoving my hands through my hair and holding on like the pain will help connect lines in my mind. “But he’s a kid! There’s no… And her daughter… She’s…” I squeeze my eyes shut and search for sense. “Her daughter is fine, Cato! Her daughter is?—”
“She has a daughter?” Obnoxiously calm, he studies me and nibbles on his lips. “Could’ve fooled me. Because she’s not in a single one of these videos. Old Mama is playing favorites, bringing him out every year and leaving the other locked up at home.”
“Oh God. Oh fuck.”
“Has anyone actually had eyes on the girl lately? Because I’ve scanned twenty-something years of footage in the last five hours, and I didn’t see her once.”
“Motherf—” I spin and stalk along the hall, bursting through my bedroom door and snatching up Minka’s phone, then turning back again, I unlock the screen and dial the number that sits red in the call log, with a 3 beside it that says he’s an impatient cocksucker who still lacks boundaries. Striding to the living room, I press the phone to my ear and skid to a stop when I find Minka startling awake, jerking up to sit and her eyes scanning for danger.
“Min?” Detective Fuckface answers with a slow, seductive drawl that sets my heart on fire. “It’s still pretty early there. I’m surprised you’re calling?—”
“It’s Malone,” I snap out, purely to shut him the fuck up. “You need eyes on Serena Donohue.”
“Serena—” He startles. “What?”
“Serena Donohue! She was five years old in ‘97, right? The killings began in ‘98. Has anyone seen that child since the incident in the park that involved the fruit shop guy?”
“The incident…” Way too fucking slow, Gilbert flicks through folders at his desk, the time difference between New York and Copeland coming in handy since he’s already on the clock. “What incident? ”
“The one where Serena fell off the swings, and her brother tried to fight Stein! Lachlan Donohue was eleven when Diane went missing. He was ten when Andy scooped Serena up after she fell. It was the year before the killings began!”
“Oh God,” Minka whispers. “The time Lachlan and Serena were left home alone?” Her voice shakes as she reaches up, sliding her finger through her hair. “… they homeschooled. Gloria said so.”
“Which means what?” Cato questions. “No one’s gonna notice a dead girl and report her missing if she doesn’t even attend regular school.”
“Gloria’s kidney failure peaked soon after Andy’s death,” Minka adds. “She went into a temporary care facility, and Lachlan was placed in a home for special boys.” Tears make her eyes glitter. “That’s what she said. A home for special boys .”
“Gilbert?” I snarl, prompting him back to work. “Tell me that little girl has medical records or something dated beyond her sixth birthday.”
“I don’t…” He leafs through folders. Pages. Boxes, as he shoves up from his desk and moves to the million records on hand for this case. “Lowe ran everyone back in the day to make sure the data was clean. Nothing raised alarms, so he put them away, and I didn’t really go back for a long, hard look. Here.” His breath comes faster as he yanks a file free of a box and slaps it onto his desk. “Gloria Donohue. Single mother, two children. Worked for the fruit stall…” He recites the details we’ve already memorized. “The girl was moving through school and hitting decent grades, all cleared by the state. The boy’s academics were not so good. He broke his arm when he was fourteen, treated at the emergency room that same day. Casted. No surgery required. I see nothing for Serena.”
“Homeschool means she could be missing, and no one would know any different,” I growl. “The abductions stopped while Gloria was in hospital. Now she’s out, and he’s back home with her, and suddenly, Janiesa goes missing.”
“There is no record of the child dying, Malone.” He flips pages, back and forth in search of the missing data. “Kids don’t just die and… nothing. These things aren’t easily hidden.”
“Bullshit! People die every fucking day, and unless someone is there to bring attention to it, then no one else is gonna notice. They were homebodies, Gilbert. The girl fell off the swings on?—”
“January eleventh.” He exhales, gulping as reality becomes horror. “Fuck, Malone. The report is dated January eleventh, nineteen ninety-seven.”
“She fell off the swings that day,” I repeat while Minka’s hand snakes up to cover her trembling lips. “She went home with her mother and brother after that incident, and until you show me proof otherwise— and botched schoolwork isn’t it —she hasn’t been seen since.”
“So she fell off the swings and… what? Died from a fucking concussion? Died in her sleep? And instead of reporting it like any normal, functioning human would, her mom stayed silent and went on with her life? That’s far-fetched, Malone. We both know it.”
“Minka spent all night scouring that footage you sent over.” Mentioning my mobster brother could gray-area an investigation faster than we could think up a better cover story, so I run with my lie without remorse. “Every single fucking year, Gloria and her kid are in the same footage, at the same place, at the same time as each upcoming victim. In eighteen separate years, Serena is nowhere to be seen.”
“What?” Minka swings around and snatches Cato’s notebook.
“Minka asked if the daughter—who would now be an adult—could look after her brother when their mother was unwell, but Gloria sidestepped the topic and had her son committed instead. Why would you do that if you have adult children?”
“Taking in a kid like…” He gulps. “One like Lachlan, who isn’t mentally okay. That’s a lot of work. She doesn’t have to do it if she’s not up to it.”
“Find the girl,” I snarl. “Find her alive, and this goes away?—”
“Methylated spirits,” Minka gasps, shoving her blankets off and standing too quickly. She stumbles left and crushes her palms to her eyes, groaning, and completely blind to Cato’s readied hands in case she falls. “Oh God, . The methylated spirits. We joked about it days ago.”
“What?” Fuck Gilbert. I leave him hanging and pay attention to her instead. “What did we joke about?”
“If our perp drank it, they’d be blind. Right? ”
“Okay. But no one is blind.”
“No, but Gloria’s kidneys have gone to shit. Excessive and consistent exposure to methylated spirits would do that.”
“And the pregnant one,” Cato inserts. “The kid ain’t a kid by that point. He’s a man.”
“Oh my God.” Minka presses a hand to her stomach, her cheeks paling and her eyes watering. “Oh God. If Serena is dead and Lachlan was as attached to her as Gloria said, then maybe she’s replacing what was broken. The girl died, for whatever reason, and he’s not mentally equipped to deal with that loss.”
“Hold on.” Cato shoves up from his makeshift bed and circles around to pace. “We’re dealing with a dude with a kid’s brain, right? He’s not thinking like a man. He’s thinking like a child. They’re not his lovers. They’re his sister? But he has sex with them, anyway?”
“It doesn’t have to make sense,” Minka whimpers. “His brain doesn’t always make sense.”
“She was hunting them down and replacing what was lost.” I yank the phone back to my ear and snarl, “Gloria was hunting these girls and gifting them to her son on what may have been the anniversary of his sister’s death. She didn’t die from a concussion after her fall from the swings. She died because he was obsessed with her. She was his little doll, and he was worked up that day. He’d protected Serena from Andy, who he thought was a threat. Gloria took them home and separated them so Lachlan could calm down after his fight, but he was already worked up by the local boys, too. He was just a kid, and Serena was barely out of her toddler years. Jesus, maybe he choked her to death while he was hugging her. Or suffocated her by accident. Or knocked her down the fucking stairs and into the basement.”
“The basement!” Minka snatches up her laptop, the cord connecting it to the television whipping free and flinging back toward the screen. Then she taps at the keys one-handed. “Each girl came home with dirt under their nails and paper in their stomachs. They were also exposed to significant levels of ethyl hydroxide, a cleaning agent that also happens to destroy kidney function. We’ve hypothesized that we’re working with a Jekyll and Hyde personality type: one is OCD and clean, the other can’t control themselves, and they’re not fussed with hygiene. The girls are not raped consistently, which would track that he’s not entirely interested.”
“He was driven by curiosity.” Cato’s nose creases with disgust. “Not lust. He had the mentality of a child, but the body of a man. His dick is gonna get hard sometimes, even if he doesn’t mean for it to, so in those instances, he did what felt good. But the rest of the time, they were his playthings.”
“She doesn’t know she’s a suspect yet.” Gilbert moves around again, trudging across a homicide bullpen where phones trill and cops work. New York or Copeland; the sounds are almost the same. “She’s confident that no one would even consider her.”
“Why?” I yank the phone from my ear and hit speaker, so Minka can listen in. “Why do you say she’s confident?”
“Because she’s coming to the station in a fucking hour to speak with our sketch artist.” He strides through a door and slams it shut in his wake. “She called yesterday, saying how horrible it all is and how, as a parent, she’d be sick to her stomach if her child was missing and she didn’t know what had happened. We got to talking about the past, and I was asking her questions, hoping to shake something loose. It seemed I had, because she mentioned seeing this dude skulking around. It was so fucking long ago, and she can’t be entirely sure. But I asked if she’d agree to speak to our artist. She said she would.”
“She’s sick,” Minka rumbles. “Looking down the barrel of death in the next few years, and when that happens, her son will have nowhere to go except back into a facility. Janiesa’s abduction is grabbing more attention than she probably expected, and the media has already connected it to the original seventeen.”
“It’s getting too hot,” I add. “And Doctor Mayet and I were reminded just this week: parents will do whatever they need to do to protect their children. She doesn’t want you to look at her—or worse, Lachlan—so she’s coming into the station to provide you with a brand-new lead that takes you as far from her son as possible.”
“We can’t raid her house while she’s here, if that’s what you’re thinking, Malone. We have nothing but a few coincidences.”
“Bullshit!” Cato spins back and shoves his phone in my face. “We have CCTV footage of her watching every single victim for years. ”
“Put her with the sketch artist,” I order. “Doesn’t even have to be a real artist. Hook her up with a detective, have him question her while he’s drawing. She’s busy looking left, you go right.”
“We need a warrant for that! Jesus, Malone. I can’t just?—”
“Search her trash can.” Minka stalks closer to me. “Pull samples and send them off to the lab. That’s how you get the DNA we need for comparison. Get those, and the case is closed anyway.”
“Present this to a judge, and you’ll get your no-knock warrant within the hour,” I snarl. “If you don’t, I’ll make a call and get it for you in half that time.”
“If you breach while Lachlan is there,” Minka adds, “he might lose his mind. All the noise and shouting and strangers in his home would be frightening. The fact his mother won’t be there to soothe him would make it worse. If you startle him and he gets angry, that could place Janiesa in more danger than she’s already in.”
“So convince Momma Bear to bring her homicidal, mentally unstable man-child to the station and hope she doesn’t think that’s suspicious?”
“She’s already coming!” I bite out. “Call her back and suggest she bring him along so he’s not home alone. It’s not that fucking difficult, Gilbert.”
“…” Pointedly, Minka settles back on her heels and presents her hand, palm side up. Her eyes flicker across mine and soften when I place the phone in her palm; then she swallows in silence, the lump of nerves visibly rolling along her throat. Finally, she draws a long breath, her chest expanding, before she exhales again and brings the phone closer. “Get the warrant, Pax. This is enough for a judge, and you know it. A child is in imminent danger: that’ll get a signature on paper. Gloria is all about protecting him.” She closes her eyes. Thinking, maybe. Planning. “Whatever happened to Serena, if she is, in fact, dead, then Gloria never punished him for it. She never called the cops, and if no one else even noticed the girl was missing, it seems she never mourned the loss, either. She cares for these little girls for a year at a time. Not very well,” she adds with a sigh. “Ultimately, they’re a gift to her son, a new toy for him to play with. And when the year is up, and they’re no longer the right age, she kills them, strips them, puts them in a plastic bag, and puts th em back where she found them. That implies a detachment bordering on psychotic.”
“She dissociates from Serena’s existence,” I murmur. “But lives for Lachlan.”
“Because he’s special. He’s always been special; his mental capacity means he’ll forever be her little boy. Most parents buy their kid a Spider-Man action figure to play with. Or a Barbie Doll. But Lachlan wants Serena, and maybe his mental state deteriorates every January without her. Maybe he remembers what he did and grows violent or unstable.”
“Replace the child that was lost,” I finish. “Soothe the boy who can’t regulate.”
“Then dispose of the child when she’s no longer useful,” Cato sneers. “Gross.”
“Can you keep us updated today?” Minka brings her free hand up and pinches the bridge of her nose. “I just wanna… I want to know if we’ve finally figured this out.”
“Fly over,” Paxton offers smoothly, “and I’ll postpone Gloria’s meeting until you can be here.”
Minka’s eyes swing my way, glittering with exhaustion. But they shimmer with the hunt, too. Not the same as Gloria when she searches for a new plaything for her son. But with a vehemence that demands this case be solved and a monster put behind bars.
She wants so badly to go there. To be the woman she was before we ever met. Her chest lifts and falls, her lungs searching for oxygen, and her lips drop open. But she shakes her head long before I can remind her of the promise she already made.
Before I’m forced to beg her to stay here.
With me.
“No.” She licks her lips and turns to sit on the edge of the couch. “It would take too long to get there, and leaving Janiesa in that house for a single minute longer than necessary is selfish and cruel. This isn’t my case anymore, Pax.”
“It was always yours.” His voice drops to a smooth baritone. It becomes what I suppose he intends as a comforting hug.
My wife .
Mine!
“I wouldn’t be at this point if I hadn’t brought you in, Min. I want to see you finish it out.”
“I just want to see it finished,” she sighs. “My location is irrelevant. But if you could send updates, I’d appreciate?—”
“I’ll set you up for observation, then.” He sits back in what I guess is a war room, but on his side of the country. His chair squeaks, and his voice echoes throughout an otherwise empty room. “I’ll talk to my lieutenant and get this set up. See what he wants to do.”
Breach the fucking house, you dumb shit.
“I’ll be in contact in a little while.”
“Yeah.” She sets her elbow on her knee and massages her temple with her fingers. “Thanks.”
“And Min?”
Slowly, she glances up and meets my eyes, the soft brown depths of hers like liquid chocolate. But she breathes out a tired, “Yeah?”
“Thanks for taking my calls when this all began. I knew you had a new life over there now, though I had no clue you’d even moved until David told me.”
She coughs out an almost silent laugh. “I like my privacy, and the only reason David knew I’d left was because we shared an office. I’m done with that now.”
“Your privacy will be a long-lost memory once we break this case. It’s pretty fuckin’ huge, Min. Your name will be right there beside mine and Lowe’s.”
“I just want it to stop.” She closes her eyes and releases a pent-up sigh. “I haven’t slept properly since I was five years old. If we’re right with this and it’s Gloria, then I want her behind bars so it never happens again.” She licks her dry lips and nods. “Go. Take care of it. I’ll be waiting for your next update.”
“Alright.” He makes a clicking sound with his tongue and grunts in time with the squeak of his chair. “I’ll be back soon.” He kills the call and drops our apartment into silence, all except for Cato’s breathing and Minka’s sprinting thoughts.
I swear, I can almost hear them as clearly as I see them written on her face .
“If it was Gloria, she’s going to prison.” Wandering closer, I lower into a crouch, resting my arm on her knee and capturing her eyes when she allows me to. “Lachlan will go away, too. But it won’t be the kind of prison you’ve spent your lifetime hoping for.”
She firms her lips, her blocked nose making it difficult to inhale enough oxygen to fill her lungs.
“He hurt those girls,” I continue. “No matter how special he is, and no matter that he didn’t do it alone. He’s the man you’ve hated for most of your life. And if this shakes down the way it should, he’ll end up in a psych ward somewhere, eating pudding and watching Oprah reruns every day. It won’t feel any more like a prison than the life he’s already living.”
“Are you asking if that’s enough for me?” Her eyes flicker between mine. Not saying the word so loudly booming in the back of my mind. The Vigilante. The whole fucking reason she became the woman she is today. “You think the psych ward isn’t enough?”
“I think I worry about you.” I reach across and hold her chin, pulling her back around when she attempts to look away. Locks of tangled hair tickle my wrist, individual strands catching in her lashes when she blinks. “I think you’ve spent a long time thinking about this day. You’ve probably imagined a sense of relief when it’s done. A feeling of ‘ justice has been served. ’ But that might not be what we get this time. If it was Gloria and Lachlan, she’s going to die soon, he’ll go into a home where nothing really changes, and Serena is just…” Swallowing, I shake my head. “She’s just another girl to add to the list. She makes nineteen, and she was the first. No one even knew she was gone.”
“If we’re right and Gloria dies soon, then it’s all over. Forever. Lachlan will go into a facility, and he won’t get a replacement each year. And Serena will be remembered.” Tears well in her eyes, punctuated by a hitch in her breath. “She has to be somewhere, . Her body is somewhere , but wherever it is, it’s not in the ground with a marker honoring her memory. She deserves that.”
“So we’ll look for her.” I release her chin and take her hand in mine instead, twining our fingers together and stroking her delicate wrist with my thumb. “We’ll buy her a marker and have it placed wherever she’s buried. We’ll do that, not only to honor her, but you, too. ”
“Me?” A deep line digs between her brows when she frowns. “Honoring me?”
“The little girl whose childhood was stolen, and then the young woman whose innocence was shattered because she had to autopsy a child who had already been a mother. You did good on this one, babe. You’ve helped them all.”
“Only if we’re right.” Her cheeks warm, and her eyes drop to her lap. “Pretty embarrassing if we’re completely off the mark.”
Chuckling, I lean in and offer my lips. But I wait for her to glance up and accept. For her to close the gap and be the reason we connect.
“Cato was the one who figured it out. If he’s wrong, then the embarrassment is all his.”
“Yeah.” Cato turns on his heels and starts toward the hall. “Fuck me, then. Fuck all that work I did. Fuck the hours where it felt like my eyes were bleeding, all so I could pinpoint one grainy ass picture and stare at a woman I wouldn’t take to bed if she was the last one left.”
I roll my eyes and smile at the woman on the verge of a complete emotional meltdown. “He has standards, it seems. So weird. I was sure he didn’t.”
“I can hear you!” He slams the bathroom door and flips the shower on. “Get off my couch and use your own damn bedroom.”
“Come on.” I straighten my legs and carefully pull her up with me. “Sleeping on the floor is for frat boys and suckers, Chief Mayet. Where was your common sense? Where was your dignity?”
“I think I lost it somewhere in that hole I dug a few days ago.” She relaxes into my side and allows me to lead her around the couch and toward the kitchen. “How much longer until I’m not sick anymore? I don’t want this.”
“Start with vitamin C and we’ll reassess.” I stop at the counter and help her onto the stool, releasing her hip and staying put until she’s settled and the swaying ends. “Less coffee,” I decide. “More juice. Less sleeping on the floor, and next time I tell you you’re on the decline, how about you fuckin’ listen?”
She lays her arms on the counter, creating a pillow for her head; then she slumps onto her new resting place and groans. “I just want this week to end. And I want Fifi to come back to work at the George Stanley. And I want Aubree to be here right now.”
“Now?” I open the fridge and snatch out one of the dozen bottles of orange juice I stacked in there yesterday. “You’re tired and sad and you want Aubree here?”
“She’s like sunshine when it’s cloudy,” she moans. “It pisses me off. But I think going too long between visits is bad for my health.”
I crack the lid open and turn to place it by her elbow. “I’ll call her for you. You know she’s only next door.”