Archer #4
“They’re so cute, huh?” Aubree stretches out on Minka’s couch, dreamily sighing and staring at his retreating back. “He likes her, and she likes him. They both love Mia, and dammit, they’re both gonna make sure she has a good life.”
“What kinda money are we talking now?” I search Minka’s eyes and smile. “What’s it up to?”
“They’ve got some calendar thing going.” She gestures out there to where her staff work. “People are buying days and months. If Fletch and Fifi kiss on that day, they win the pot.”
“It’s at a little over twelve hundred bucks right now,” Aubree continues. “Each weekday is worth twenty. Weekends are worth fifty since it’s more likely they’re gonna do whatever they’re gonna do on a weekend.”
“Gross assumption,” Minka drawls. “If it was me, and I had a kid, and my kid was in school five days a week, I’d be doing all my dirty sneaking around on weekdays.
Weekends are busier with a kid at home. Besides, how can we even truly know when they kiss?
Maybe they already did, and they just aren’t telling us. ”
“They haven’t.” Fuck it feels good to worry about Fletch’s kissing schedule instead of his ‘ when is his ex-wife gonna rob him again ’ mental health.
“He would’ve told me. He doesn’t even know about the bet, and he has no chill when it comes to that woman.
The first time they make out, he’ll be like a thirteen-year-old boy all over again. Guaranteed.”
“Were you like a thirteen-year-old boy when we first kissed?” Minka sips her coffee, blatantly disrespectful of the time and the fact her sleep will suffer tonight because of it.
But fuck, she looks straight into my eyes and bewitches me with that beautiful brown stare, and a single, sexy dimple popped against her cheek.
“When we first met, were you nervous and gooey and calling your best friend to gossip about it?”
“The first time we kissed, I was in love.” I drop my foot to the floor and extend my legs, and because I already picked one up today, I dig my hand into my pocket and slide the pad of my thumb across a smooth rock.
She’s my penguin, and I can’t go a day without bringing her a gift anymore.
“The first time we kissed, I was more focused on figuring out how to keep you. I didn’t have time to gossip. ”
“Till the next morning,” Aubree snickers. “By that point, the goo was gone, and Fletch was in his living room.”
I hook a thumb over my shoulder. “This is true. I was already plotting how I’d find you again since you insisted on not giving me your phone number. Once you were gone and I found my wits again, Fletch and I began planning our heist.”
Skeptical, a line forms between her brows. “A heist? What heist?”
“For your heart.”
“Oh God.” Aubree mock-gags, loud and obnoxious, even as Minka’s phone trills. “That was so freakin’ cheesy, Malone. How long have you been saving that up for?”
“Don’t call me cheesy! I was exposing my soul and vulnerability because I love my wife so much. Gagging is unkind.”
“You’re a Malone,” Minka drones. “Makes you a hundred percent cheese.” Whipping her hand forward, she answers her call by tapping the speaker button. “This is Chief Mayet.”
“Chief. I have a Detective Asa on line three for you. Can I connect the call?”
Fuck.
Just like that, my smile vanishes and Aubree’s mock-gagging cuts to a gurgled stop. Minka’s eyes sling to mine, and though she hovers a hand above the phone, it trembles.
Dammit. It trembles.
“Chief Mayet? Can I connect the call?”
“Uh… yeah.” She clears her throat and nods, though fuck knows, Callen can’t see the movement of her head. “I’ll take the call. Thanks.”
Fletch and Fifi wander back through the door, smiling—him—and carrying two coffees—her. It doesn’t take a genius to feel the tension in the air, least of all the anxious energy wafting from my fucking soul.
Sophia Asa Solomon isn’t a woman I trust on speakerphone, and Fifi isn’t as in on Minka’s secrets as the rest of us. She doesn’t know what we know.
Of course, Fletch feels that.
“What’s wrong?” He shuffles Fifi across the threshold and closes the door. “What happened?”
Instead of explaining, Minka selects line three. “Detective Asa. This is Chief Mayet. Before you start, you should know you’re on speaker, and we have an audience.”
“Detective Asa?” Fletch snatches Fifi’s coffees and strides to the desk, silently mouthing what the fuck ?
“Are you sitting down, Chief?” Soph is always, and will forever be, one of the largest sources of stress I’ll ever know. Because she’s too fucking powerful. Too knowledgeable. Too messy. “I have something I want to talk to you about, but you need to be sitting.”
“Come on, Soph.” Minka slams her elbows to her desk, then her face to her hands. “The last time you called and started with those words, I didn’t like what came next. Say sike right now.”
“Not sike,” she sighs. “I have a case I need your team to investigate. I need you on a plane tomorrow.”
“A plane?” Fuck it. She’s not a real cop, and this call clearly needn’t follow real rules of engagement. I sit on the edge of my seat and stare down at the phone. “She’s not leaving this city without me, Asa. No fucking way.”
“Detective Malone. Detective Fletcher?”
He grunts. “Present. What’s the case, Soph?”
“Doctor Emeri there, too?”
Like a game of pinball, Fifi’s eyes shoot from one person to the next. Because she’s the only one here who has no fucking clue who Soph is.
They’ve met. But she doesn’t know.
“Emeri?”
“Yeah,” Aubree murmurs. “I’m here.”
“Why do you need us, Asa?” I set my elbows on Mayet’s desk and lean closer. “Wherever you think you’re flying her, I assure you, there are doctors there, too. Different doctors.”
“I need these doctors. And since they come with their own cops, it makes my life a hell of a lot easier.”
Sounds illegal.
“Sounds like that may go against the rules,” I counter instead. Ease into this, for Fifi’s sake. “If you have a crime to report, then I suggest you contact the appropriate authorities.”
“I’m contacting the authorities right now. I need boots on the ground by tomorrow. I need Mayet and Emeri, priority. I don’t need cops, but I figured you wouldn’t want them to go without you, so…”
No fucking shit.
“What’s going on, Soph? No games. No bullshit.”
“No games. We’ve got a case that’s causing somewhat of a kerfuffle.
My, uh…” She clears her throat. “Team and expertise have been called in to assist, and now I’m asking for the assistance of a pair of medical examiners I trust. I need you for a day at the most. I’ll fly you in and out, so you won’t even miss the six o’clock news tomorrow night. ”
“Soph—”
“Remains have been found in a shallow grave. No missing person’s reports match what they’ve found. No one is claiming her. No one is crying for her.”
“Her?” Minka’s eyes flicker with pain. Emotion. Drive.
Fuck.
“They’ve ascertained that she’s female and approximately twenty to twenty-five years old.
They think she’s been out there for a few months, but she was only discovered a few days ago.
The local P.D. are useless, so they’ve outsourced.
This is where I’ve stepped in. I know you’re a…
seeker of justice.” She tiptoes around her threat, callously demanding our presence without saying so too obviously.
“I feel as though we’ve cultivated a positive professional relationship over the last two years, Chief.
I trust you to do the job and do it well. ”
“And if we refuse?” I counter harshly. “If we’re in the middle of our own cases and walking away could jeopardize those?”
“I suggest you make it work, Detective. There are certain expectations I believe we could place upon each other. Failing to honor requests would be detrimental to our ongoing work relationship.”
I shove away from Minka’s desk and slam my hands through my hair. So it’ll be her way or punishment .
Do as I say, or I’ll expose your wife for the crimes she’s committed.
“This is bullshit, Sophia.” I spin back to the phone. “Positive relationships are not built upon ultimatums.”
“I can’t come,” Fletch groans. “Soph, my daughter is five years old. I can’t leave her at home alone, and I sure as fuck ain’t bringing her to a crime scene.”
“Which is why I’m giving you a night to make arrangements. Check your emails, doctors and detectives, I’ve already sent your flights and itinerary. I’ll see you tomorrow once you land.”
“Sophia!”
“Bye.” She kills the call, the last shot amongst a battlefield of noise. That is, until this office explodes.
“Fuck!” Fletch grabs the back of his hair, squeezing and pulling as he stalks to the wall of windows. Then he spins back again. “I can’t leave my daughter alone. Solomon’s asking too much.”
“Call me a cynic, but I’m just not entirely interested in flying my wife into someone else’s war.
” I stand between her desk and my chair, my hands on my hips and my eyes burning into hers.
“I fucking told you, Mayet. Every single time you called her for a favor. Every single time you called her to talk cases, or asked for paperwork to be expedited. Or dammit, woman! To grease the wheels and win popularity with other, more powerful people. I told you she’d come back and collect. ”
“She’s just asking for an M.E.” Not nearly as concerned as she should be, Minka leans back in her chair and steeples her fingers. “She wants a consult. Believe it or not, but this is kind of my job.”
“It’s your job when a legitimate request comes through the appropriate ranks. Her calling you on the down-low and asking for a favor is not how these things are done.”
“I’ve benefited from her friendship in the past,” she counters. “I’ve exhumed a body for her, and nothing bad came of that.”
“Yeah, exhumed a body that didn’t even match the name on the headstone!”