Minka
Iperch on the front edge of my desk, my feet crossed at the ankles and my hands resting on the hardwood beside my thighs. While my team noisily files into my office, I let them talk. To swallow time I’d normally scold them for wasting.
But this is how I get through today. Time. And if it’s taken up with afternoon rounds and not my own spinning, spiraling mind, the better I am for it.
“I’m just saying!” Raquel exclaims. “Being run over by a speeding car and having your spine twisted up as much as his was has to have been the best chiropractic release money can’t buy.”
Wildly inappropriate.
“There was for sure a moment after the collision, before death, right when the pain hadn’t yet registered in his mind, that your DB thought, oh yeah, that’s the stuff.
” She settles back on the leather sofa and smirks at a pale-faced Doctor Kirk.
“I’m not saying it’s ideal. Just that hunching over a desk comes with its pitfalls, and if I could get a realignment that felt that good, but without the torn-off leg and resulting death, I’m not sure I’d say no. ”
“Doctor Kirk?” I look to the man, the boy, and rescue him from his own version of hell. “Would you like to report on your caseload today?”
“Yes.” He visibly deflates, relief washing through his psyche as he turns his attention my way.
Raquel merely snickers.
“Chief. Motor vehicle versus pedestrian. Forty-five-year-old male vic, identified as Morty Presley. Detectives Malone and Fletcher are primary.” He gulps, but he can’t possibly know the ache spearing through my belly at just hearing those names.
“Autopsy is complete, pending tox. Rapid testing came back clear for drugs and alcohol. It doesn’t appear that the DB was doing anything except walking at the time of the collision.
I have not received an update from the detectives, but I emailed them the results of my autopsy a little over an hour ago. ”
Over his shoulder, the elevator doors open, and with them, my lungs collapse in on themselves. My knees shake. My entire fucking soul shrivels. Because the detectives in question step out. And worse, Archer’s hard, dark emerald eyes swing to mine.
So mean. So firm. So… bruised.
What the hell happened?
Unfortunately, I lost the right to ask questions the instant I walked out on him, the home, and the marriage I’d committed to.
Fortunately, I have a team to lead, an entire building to maintain, and if I’m lucky, a dark hole to crawl into before I lose my shit and make an idiot of myself.
So I bolster what little reserves I have after the world’s longest day, and straighten my back.
“Doctor Kirk.” I tip my chin toward the detectives, quickly, before they start this way.
“Looks like your update has arrived.” I flick my wrist toward the door. “Go.”
While he spins and scatters, his leather shoes skittering against the tile, I bring my eyes to the clock on the wall; it’s five on the dot.
Thank God. “The rest of you can go.” I re-focus on my team.
Sans Aubree. “Don’t bother pulling a fresh body out of the fridges at this hour.
Drink lots of water.” I move off my desk and circle around, grabbing my bag.
My phone. My life, and if I search every drawer, I might find a bubble of bravery.
“Rest up. Get ready for tomorrow. I heard they have some insane bridge to bay fun run thing coming up. In this putrid heat,” I scoff.
“We’re bound to catch a few bodies from that. ”
“Your cynicism shines nice and bright today, Chief.” Raquel pushes off the sofa and trudges closer, her hands dipped into her coat pockets. “I’m running in the Bridge to Bay. It starts at five tomorrow morning, in fact. Before the heat gets ridiculous.”
“I dare say you are the ridiculous one. You run… voluntarily? At five in the damn morning?” I switch my computer screen off and meet her glittering blue eyes.
“Is this a litmus test of sorts? Those who register for the dumb run are statistically more inclined to commit a crime and scoff at societal norms?”
“Fun run,” she counters. “Not dumb. And on the contrary. I argue that those of us who registered are less likely to commit a crime. We run to work off the excess energy, which means we do not need other avenues for expulsion.”
“If you have so much spare energy, why not come to the lab earlier, and stay later, so you can make a dent in the backlog of work towering over your desk?”
“Something about how the law says I’m not allowed to work two-hundred hours a week.” She shrugs. “Bogus, I know.” She tilts her head, ever so subtly, toward the cops outside my office. “I don’t claim to be a relationships expert, but am I sensing tensions, or…?”
“Nope.” I scoop up my bag and push my chair beneath my desk.
Taking my phone in my left hand, I hit the button on the side three times—a trick Soph assures me guarantees a return phone call from hers truly—then I step around my desk and stride past the blonde.
“I’m going home, Doctor Raquel. I hope you survive the dumb run.
If you end up back here tomorrow wearing a black bag instead of your usual stylish flair, I’ll assume you’re satisfied with how things turned out.
You died doing the thing you love, after all. ”
“I didn’t say I love running.” She follows me through the door. “I said I run so I don’t kill people.”
Archer’s eyes jump away from Doctor Kirk and land on mine, while beside him, Fletch’s burn, his face almost as bruised as his partner’s.
What happened to you two?!
Swallowing, I lower my gaze and continue past the trio. The sooner I walk, the sooner I can escape. The faster I escape, the easier it will be to draw a fresh breath.
“We’ll come find you tomorrow, Doctor Kirk.” Archer strides three feet to the right, placing himself in my path, and when I attempt to go around, he wraps his hand around my wrist and yanks me to a sharp stop.
My soul trembles with hope. With despair. With anger and anguish and everything in between. My lips quiver, and my eyes, as I bring them up to his, sting.
“Detective Malone?” My voice hitches, rasping and breathy, and Soph’s call comes through as promised, making my hand vibrate. You told me not to come home. “Did you need something?”
“Infusion was okay last night?” His jaw clicks and grinds. His eyes… hurt. “You left your tourniquet at the house.”
False.
I left everything at the house. My heart and soul, included. But for the first time, perhaps ever, this man who manages all, fails to manage this. He doesn’t know I didn’t. He doesn’t know I couldn’t. And he doesn’t know I still can’t, despite the reality that I must.
Steeling myself, I curl my wrist and peel it from his grasp, and when Soph’s call rings out, I hit the button on the side again. Try again.
Meeting Detective Fletcher’s horrified expression, his face and his knuckles, bruised and bloodied, I drag my attention down to Archer’s hand and find it in a similar state.
I lick my lips and nod in farewell. “Good evening, Detectives. Tell Moo I’ll take her out for ice cream or something soon.
” Summoning every last scrap of mental strength I have left, lest I make a complete dick of myself and do something pathetic, like cry in public, I stalk toward the elevator and step inside, answering Soph’s call on the first ring and spinning back to face my crowd.
I have a crowd! Dammit.
I bring the phone to my ear and wait, shivering all over as Archer’s furious stare beats like a drum in my veins.
Mercifully, the doors close me in, freeing me from the torment of being so near, and yet so unwanted.
“Soph.” I choke on the word, the single syllable, and swipe my cheek with the heel of my palm. “Hey. Thanks for calling.”
“Are you experiencing an emergency, Chief Mayet?” Gunshots boom on her side of the line.
Men chatter. Hell, even the whooshing sound of a pierced paper target makes its way through our call.
“That button on the side of your phone screams Jericho. If there’s no emergency, you can call me like a normal human being. ”
“Felt like an emergency to me.” I stumble back and press my weight against the cold steel wall. “Sorry. I needed out of a situation, and even if our definitions of an emergency aren’t the same, I felt like I was gonna die, so…”
“Had to escape Archer, huh?” She wanders away from the noisiness on her end of the line, through a door, so the racket still exists, but muffles. “You doing okay?”
“I’d prefer you stopped asking, to be honest.” I watch the numbers above the door change, from nine, eight, seven…
down to four, three, two… I have seconds to pull myself together before the doors open, so I straighten myself out and shake my hair back.
I sniffle and wipe beneath my nose. Stopping on the lobby floor, I swallow the ache in my throat and step out of the elevator, peeking to the right, to the fire stairs; like maybe Archer ran down nine flights in the time it took me to ride the elevator.
It’s possible. Aubree’s done it.
But he’s not here, huffing and panting and begging for a single second of my time. Duh. He doesn’t have to beg. Broadening my shoulders, I turn toward the doors and bring my focus back to Soph. “How’s your financial situation, Ace?”
“My…” She coughs out a laugh, the sound trailing in the air as I cross from the icy chill of the George Stanley out to the boiling heat of a Copeland City sidewalk.
Harrison pushes off the side of his SUV as our eyes meet, from relaxed to alert in an instant. From off-the-clock, to at attention.
“My financial situation is healthy,” Soph snickers. “Why? How’s yours?”
“Would you like to ride in the car, Doctor Mayet?” Harrison strides my way, slipping his phone into his pocket and hooking his hand around my biceps. “It’s too hot to walk.”