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That he’s pissed, and it’s been more than a week since he last spoke to me.
We’ve slept in the same bed some of those nights. We’ve eaten at the same table. We’ve watched the news side by side. But he won’t speak—and whenItry, he looks at me like I’m the worst monster he’s ever encountered.
“I want you to document the angles of the cuts where McGregor was dismembered.” Trying to ignore Archer is like standing on the sun and pretending it doesn’t burn. Trying not to panic at his cold indifference is as easy as walking into the Arctic Ocean, where the only thing I see as far as my eye gazes is freezing water and nothing else.
I’ve fought Archer on everything since we met. I didn’t want a relationship. I didn’t want his love. I didn’t want complications. And while I wasn’t wrong for my reasons behind those wishes, now that he’s unreachable for me, even when we’re just feet apart, my heart aches for his touch.
For his warmth. For his love.
“Asshole,” I murmur. “Literally the reason I didn’t want him in the first damn place.”
“Hmm?” With her eye pressed to the viewfinder of the camera, Aubree remains relaxed andclick, click, clicks. “You say something?”
“No.”
I move around the side of the bed closest to Archer, but I make sure not to look at him, not to touch as I pass, and when the playful Detective Charlie Fletcher smirks, I scowl and force my attention to McGregor’s destroyed body.
“I’ll approximate time of death,” I tell Aubree. “It’s important we document this scene exactly for theinvestigating officers.”
I can’t stop the sneer in my tone as I say those last two words. I can’t stop the anger pulsing in my veins. And I’m terrified that if I somehow do manage to push the anger away, I might crumble under the weight of Archer’s hatred.
“We need to be sure we have everything before we move him,” I finish.
“Cause of death?”
My heart skips when Archer’s voice penetrates my concentration, but before I can turn and respond, he adds, “Doctor Emeri?”
“Er…” Lowering the camera away from her face, Aubree looks to me, then to the cops at my back. “I’d say the decapitated head might’ve done it. Or maybe he bled out from the dismembered limbs before that. Or coulda been shock, maybe. It’s, uh…” She brings her gaze back to me. Unsure. Uneasy.
When I say nothing, when I keep my head down and my focus on the incision I make with my scalpel, she looks to him again. “I guess we’ll have more answers for you by the close of business today, Detective Malone.”
“Alright.” Archer’s tone is gruff and unfriendly, but his cologne, as he passes, is enough to overpower even the stench of death.
I doubt anyone else thinks the same. But I’m attuned to his scent. Addicted to his proximity.
Damn him for ignoring my wishes to remain alone and unloved when I moved to this godforsaken city. Because now that my heart is involved, he’s gone ahead and stomped on it.
“We’re heading out.” Archer stops on Aubree’s side of the room. I see his face in profile. His unshaven jaw, and his flexing muscles. I see one brow, one eye, and half his plump lips, forced into an unkind line.
He’s beyond angry, and I’m the villain in his world.
“Stay warm,” he grits out to her. “Stay safe. The perp isn’t coming back here, and I doubt he’s gonna kill anyone else. This was personal, so I don’t feel like you’re in danger. But still,” his glare comes to me for just a beat, then back to Aubree. “Stay in contact, and if something feels off, find a uniform and stand behind him till I get here.”
“Thanks, Arch.” She forces a friendly smile for the guy who just so happens to be the brother of the guy she’s stupidly in love with.
Timothy Malone is the oldest of five boys, the lucky brother named after their mafia father. And though I enjoy a friendship with Tim, though he’s funny and quirky and decidedly nicer than Archer, I know firsthand he’s not willing to entertain a relationship with Aubree.
“We’ll be in touch,” she adds when Archer steps to the door. “I’ll email our report when we’ve got it.”
“Thanks.”
Again, his ferocious eyes move to me. But they’re so mean, so chilling, I’m unable to find my voice and demand he come back to me. To love me, the way he claimed he always would. To smile at me, or show off his usual crass, sarcastic personality. I get none of that. Instead, I clamp my lips shut and slide my thermometer inside McGregor’s chest.
“I’m going to find me a killer,” Archer says instead. “We all know how much I hate those.”
Ouch.
With that final jab, he swings out of the room and quietly chats with the officer on the door, while across the bed, Aubree brings her camera back up and snaps her documenting photographs.
