Chapter 23
MINKA
While Aubree stays back to put Josey’s body away, the rest of us step out of the refrigerated room. Drake leads Sylvia to the elevator, and Archer walks on my left, his finger brushing mine each time he can manage it.
Still, he backs away when a fresh set of eyes swings our way.
“Oh! Good. Can I get a minute with you, Chief?” Preston whips a small contraption from his ear and pushes up from his stool.
Fisting a jumbo takeout soda cup, he takes a long pull from the straw and flashes a wide smile.
“I need you to stand still long enough for me to take your ID photo, then I’d like to run you through the system. We’re almost done.”
“I’ll go.” Archer exhales a tired sigh, a sound he so rarely allows past his lips.
As the elevator closes with Sylvia inside, he studies his detective counterpart with a sadness I’m not sure he realizes is there.
Turning to me, he pastes on a smile as fake as those the Prims are known for.
“I’ll drop by later and update you on our case. ”
“Wait.” I grab his hand before he can escape, then I bring my focus back to Preston. “I’ll come find you soon. I just need to speak with Detective Malone first.”
“Sure thing.” He plops back onto his stool and slurps another mouthful of his soda. “I’ll be here.”
Drake backs away from the elevator, his eyes burning with the same kind of exhaustion Archer’s do.
He wanders this way, his hands in his pockets, but for the first time, perhaps ever, he doesn’t sneer at Archer.
He doesn’t growl. Doesn’t even roll his eyes.
He merely comes to a stop a full ten feet away and lifts his brows.
“You need to talk about Josey’s case, Chief? ”
“No. I need to discuss something else, but I promise not to keep him for long. Preston?” I glance across and catch him mid-swallow. “Are the cameras active inside the fridges yet?”
“Err… They can be. Or they can not be.” He wipes his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt. “Your call.”
“Switch them off, please. I’d like our conversation to be private.”
“Easy.” He busily taps at his computer keyboard. Not the one freshly installed at the desk, but the smaller, sleeker laptop he carries with him everywhere he goes. “They won’t come back on again till you say so.”
“Thank you. Come on.” I draw Archer around and wrench the refrigerator door open.
We step in just as Aubree pushes Josey’s tray back into her cubby, and though she offers us a small smile, she’s intuitive enough to say nothing.
She merely strides the expanse of the room and crosses the threshold.
No questions. No dawdling. She steps outside with nothing more than a dip of her chin, then she’s gone.
I draw the door closed and flip the locks, then I release Archer’s hand and slap the switch on the wall. Instantly, the dozen overhead fluorescent strips die, leaving us with just the yellow glow of digits above each cubby.
They number each space, indicate which cubbies are occupied and which are free for use, and declare the exact temperature inside each slip.
They provide the perfect amount of light so that the darkness isn’t all encompassing, but so we’re draped in a world where, for just a few minutes, Archer and I are the only people who exist.
“What’s wrong?” He steps forward with an air of panic I should’ve predicted and sets his hands on my hips. His forehead on my forehead. His breath brushing my chin. “Say it quickly, because I can’t take much more right now.”
“Exactly that.” I slip out of his hold and loathe the way his expression falls, but I snag his hand and stride all the way across the room.
Releasing him, I grab the rolling stool Sylvia sat on and wheel it his way, then I take the second for myself.
“It wasn’t so long ago you said if I wanted to sit, I had to sit on your lap.
” I lower onto my stool and tug him down so we’re face to face.
Eye to eye. “If I wanted to eat, you’d feed me.
” I wheel myself closer, tucking my legs between his.
“You thought you were sneaky last night, feeding me fries and adding milkshake immediately after so the flavors would mix.”
He exhales an almost silent snicker. “Tasted good though, right?”
Yes. Shut up. “I won’t make you sit on my lap, since you’re bigger than me and it’ll probably hurt. But I got you a stool, so I like to think it’s kinda the same thing.”
Furrowed brows shadow his eyes. “What—”
“You wanna take care of me, and I wanna take care of you. It’s who we are, Archer.
It’s how we operate. Usually, I’m the one who needs to be taken care of most of all, since I work myself sick, and you’re so damn good at picking me up when I need it most. But now it’s my turn to ask you: what’s wrong?
” I draw my tongue forward and wet my bottom lip, his eyes following the movement, and because we’re not the same Archer and Minka from last week, because I can, I push up and kiss him. “Why are you sad?”
“Who says I’m sad?” He captures my hands between his and nibbles on my knuckles. “I’ll never tell you no when you ask for a little city-funded alone time. But what makes you think something’s wrong?”
“Your eyes, mostly.” I attempt to roll our chairs closer, but the wheels get in the way and stop me from achieving the angle I want, so I drape my legs over his instead, hooking us together until his lips curl into a smug grin and his hands drop to my thighs.
“Lay it out for me, Detective. You have a homicide case to solve, and I have to stand still long enough for Preston Danes to take my photo. Both equally important, equally tiring tasks.”
He snorts.
“That means we’ve got five minutes before the real world encroaches again. So what changed since I last saw you? What hurts?”
“Lots of things.” Finally, finally, he draws a long breath and expands his chest wide. “So many things.”
“Share them with me. I’ve got a little extra space on my shoulders right now, and yours are so often weighed down. Redistribution means we can find a better, fairer balance.”
“You.”
I tilt my head to the side. “Me, what?”
“I’m worried about you all the fucking time. About your happiness. About your health. About your tendency to choose isolation when life hurts. I’m still bruised from last week,” he groans. “And now I just… I dunno. Feels heavier, that’s all.”
“The M&Ms were the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back?”
“You were afraid to tell me, Minnnka. I saw the fear in your eyes yesterday, and though we worked it out and I didn’t fuck us over, I still have a million questions, but I’m terrified to ask a single one. I don’t want them to feel like a cross-examination instead of what they really are.”
“And what are they, really?”
“Worry.”
I cup his face and smile until his eyes drop to the movement, then I pull him closer and buzz my lips across his.
“I feel well. I feel healthy. In fact, I feel better than ever. I didn’t have to go through the exhausted crash last night pre-infusion, nor the blinding headache this morning post-infusion.
” I press a second kiss to his lips. “I’m gonna be really sad if it turns out Jen’s pep is something illegal, because I’m enjoying the extra energy and I’m secretly a little mad I waited so long to try them. ”
He studies me with long emerald sweeps of his eyes, searching for the chink in my armor of lies.
“You send me rocks all day long to tell me you love me, right? In text.”
He nods.
“Well, why don’t we adopt the little colored hearts, too?
A green heart might mean I’m feeling okay, but a little off.
Yellow heart is better than green, though not perfect.
Red heart means I’m wildly in love with my husband and want him to know it.
Skull and bones means I dropped dead, and I plan to come back and haunt Jen until she goes insane. ”
Unimpressed, his lips firm into flat lines. “Never send me a skull and bones emoji.”
I snicker. “Okay, but the rest are valid. You can send me a little water droplet emoji to nag me to drink water. I can send you a little rainbow emoji to tell you Aubree’s on my nerves, and I’m about to commit a felony.
If I’m feeling unwell, I’ll tell you. No bullshit, no lies, no fear of getting in trouble. ”
He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing with nerves.
“And you’ll trust that I’m okay.” I sit taller and flash a bright smile. “Next.”
“Next?”
“Mmm. I know you worry about me, and I know it weighs on you. But there’s more. And though I don’t claim to be Aubree with the brain foo-foo, I feel like maybe the more has something to do with Detective Banks.”
Telegraphing his mood more than he wants, a deep grunt rolls from the depths of his chest.
“Mm. That’s what we call a bullseye, so now it’s your turn to share the load. Tell me what hurts, then we can both carry a bit of the burden.”
“There’s noth—”
“No bullshit,” I remind him. “No lies. No fear of getting in trouble.” I tighten my grip on his face and force him to see me. “If you want me to tell you the scary things, then I’m gonna need the same in return. What happened with Detective Banks today?”
“Today?” He twists in my grip and kisses my wrist. “Nothing. Half my lifetime ago? Loads.”
“Okay, well…” I dip a little lower and search his eyes. “What happened half your lifetime ago? And why is it burning you up today?”
“It bothers me that he walks around all self-righteous and shit, bitching about me being his enemy when he was the one who lied. If he’d told me he was a badge, I still would’ve fought with him,” he rasps.
“I still would’ve stepped in front of his bullets.
It pisses me off that he came into my home back then, convinced Lix they were friends, and then used that connection to fuck us over with no care for the bodies he left scattered in his wake. ”
“You’re mad the intel he gathered hurt your father’s world?”