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“Oh! Cool.” Panicky now, fluffing her hair and spinning in a circle, Aubree shoves my visitor chair back into place until it thuds against my desk, then she hurries across my office. “Good luck! Pop your top button, maybe.”
“Get the hell out!”
“Hide your new briefcase!” She swings my door open but stops on the threshold. “It looks expensive as hell, and if you’re asking for money, he might think we’reoverpaid.”
“Go away!” The elevator dings and the doors begin to open. “Get lost!”
“I’m going,” she hisses. “Good luck. Do good. Get us a new homogenizer for each lab. The ones we have are old and crap.”
“Get. Out,” I hiss through my teeth and barely stop short of throwing a textbook from my bookshelf to shut her up. But I don’t, because I’m a professional businesswoman with a ton of responsibility and a medical center to run.
As Aubree turns away and slides onto her chair at her desk, a lone man steps out of the elevator in a three-piece suit and shoes that have been shined to within an inch of their lives.
He’s in his mid-fifties. His coloring says he gets a nice amount of sun, his jaw implies he’s not at all weak, and his chest says he enjoyed his youth as, perhaps, the star football player. His shoulders are as broad as Archer’s. His waist, a little narrower. His thighs appear neither thin nor too boxy, and the white socks that peek out from the bottom of his pants say he’s above average in the height department.
The guy fixes his suit button as he walks. His head is held high, his shoulders back. He’s a proud man, but in a different manner than how the late Mayor Tribble was proud.
“Sir.” Aubree goes out of her way to tap at her computer keyboard and draw his eyes down to her as he passes. She’s the perfect little office secretary, seeing to her duties and making her masters happy.
Nevermind the fact she’s a doctor and not a pencil-pusher.
When their eyes lock, she smiles and pushes her hair back, and though he returns her smile, it’s nothing but a professional friendliness.
My stomach dips with nerves when his gaze locks on to mine through the glass wall, but the moment he steps into my office and lets the door close at his back, I work extra hard not to pay attention to the way Aubree swings around in her chair with eyes wide like saucers and watches us.
“I can only assume you’re the former District Attorney Justin Lawrence.” Clearing my throat and extending my hand, I force my friendliest smile and wait for him to close the space between us.
Up close, I see short stubble on his chin, and salt and pepper coloring all over. His eyes are dark and seemingly all-seeing. His hair is cropped about an inch long—windswept, in a very Derek Shepherd kind of way—and as he wraps his hand around mine, it swallows me up and leaves me feeling tiny.
I have to look up to meet his eyes, but the man doesn’t stand over me as though to intimidate.
“You can call me Justin.” His voice is deep and gritty, like maybe he smoked a lot in his youth. “I’d like to workwithyou, Doctor Mayet. Not against you.”
The fact he called medoctorright away and notmissspeaks positively of our future.
“I’d appreciate a harmonious working relationship, Mr. Lawrence. And just so we’re on the same page about all this, you should know the mayor who came before you seemed to enjoy high conflict.”
Releasing my hand, Justin’s mouth curls into a half smile as he looks to my visitor chair. He doesn’t verbalize his request, but his body language is enough for me to nod and wave him toward the seat.
“I’ve heard a great deal about Tribble, Doctor. Before accepting my placement in Copeland, I thoroughly researched the man I was to succeed.” Settling into the chair, he crosses one leg over the other and links his hands together in his lap. “Did you enjoy a life of crime-fighting before coming here, or was what happened a moment of insanity?”
A nervous snicker rolls along my throat as I back up and sit on my side of the desk. “At least we’re not hiding behind the elephant in the room. You can call me Minka. And the things that happened on December sixteenth were…” I shrug. “A crazy anomaly.”
“So you don’t make a habit of killing people? Least of all, politicians?”
I snort. “No, sir. I’m busy enough dealing with the bodiesotherpeoplekill.”
My phone trills on my desk again—an annoyance, I’m coming to realize, that never seems to end.
Looking to the phone, then back to the soon-to-be mayor, I quickly lift a finger to ask him to wait, then I snatch it up and bring it to my ear. “Doctor Mayet.”
“Thirty-six-year-old motorcycle rider versus a truck.” Aubree’s voice is giddy and strange. “Reports say he has a closed head wound, penetrating abdominal wounds, and multiple blunt force trauma. Dummy wasn’t wearing a helmet. A jogger found him about an hour ago, lying in the snow about ten or so feet from the road. He’d been there awhile. Paramedics attended the scene first, no pulse. He’s turkey. Homicide is now there. NotourHomicide,” she amends. “Different guys. They’re calling us off the bench, Captain. What do you wanna do?”
I want to get myself a new friend who has at least a semblance of professionalism.
“We’re in a holding pattern with Chase and Bastion,” I respond. “What’s Kernicke up to?”
“He’s busy with the aftermath of a hotel fire. Flynn and Torres are helping. How long will you be with our devilishly sexy mayor? I know he’s older and all, but I’m totally experiencing mild daddy issues right now that I should probably discuss with a therapist.”
