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MINKA
“You told me to go away.” Archer paces his kitchen, refusing to step close enough to me to touch. “You told me to stay away. You told me to do my research and get over my shit and leave you the hell alone. So I did—and now you’re here anyway!”
“You researched?” While Archer paces, I push up to sit on his kitchen counter and set my factor bag aside.
It’s infusion night, and this is simply my reality; normalize my medication, make it a part ofourroutine. Maybe then, Archer won’t worry as much as he does.
“What did you find when you researched Diane Philips?”
“A little girl!” He storms closer to me and tugs the factor pack open. “I saw she was five at the same time you were five. And I read how she was taken and brutalized.”
“Did you see the other girls who were taken too?” I accept the bottle of factor when he gently hands it back.
He’s hard, then he’s soft. He’s angry, then he’s gentle. Now, he spins away again and goes back to his angry pacing.
It would be humorous, if not for the fact my heart aches.
“Did you read up on the sixteen who came after her?” I press.
“Yes! And then I fully intended not to fucking sleep tonight because I saw pictures of that little girl dead in a fucking bag. Dammit, Minka, why would you tell me about that when I already have a million other dead folks taking up my brain space?”
“Because she deserves to be remembered.”
I go through the steps of disinfecting the bottle stoppers and setting the caps aside. I place the double-ended needle into the factor powder stopper, then I drop the diluent on top and watch as they slowly mix together.
“Diane deserves better than what she got, Archer. Frankly, she deserves for her killer to be found, brutalized, tossed in a plastic bag, and dumped to be forgotten.”
At that, Archer stops in the middle of the kitchen and turns to me, only to narrow his eyes when I smirk.
“If I ever find him…” I shrug.
“If you ever find him, he deserves to be arrested, tried, and placed in prison for life.”
“So he gets to live a life, but that little girl didn’t?” Still shaking my head, when the diluent finishes dripping and the bottle on top is empty, I remove it and set it aside, then I pass the full bottle on the bottom to Archer while I grab my tourniquet.
He knows what he needs to do, and hell if he’ll do it wrong just because we’re fighting.
“He killed seventeen girls, Archer. Seventeen, in one city. One man! But you condemnmefor making it better?” I slide the strap onto my arm and tighten it partway up my bicep, then taking a fresh alcohol wipe, I disinfect the inside of my elbow. “That can’t be. It just can’t.”
“But it is!” he attempts to argue. “It must be. Because what if everyone felt the way you do? Suddenly, we have dozens, maybe even hundreds, of middle-aged dudes turning up dead simply because they walked by a park.”
“Luckily, not everyone thinks like me.” I wink for him and take out the butterfly needle and tape for my next steps. “You don’t have hundreds of dudes turning up dead. You just have me removing killers from the streets.” I shrug and slide the needle into my vein.
I don’t flinch anymore. But Archer does.
“You just have—”
“Shh.” He claps his left hand over my mouth, and hands me the reconstituted factor with the other. Then, turning to the door, we have to wait only a second before the handle turns and the door opens wide.
My heart thunders, because I have a needle in my skin and a hell of a lot of vulnerability out for show, but then Fletcher walks in the door, surprisingly carrying a little girl on his hip who’s not a hell of a lot smaller than the one whose death we discuss.
“Hey, Arch. I hope you don’t mind I—” But then he stops. He looks at me, then down to my arm, and swallows. “Crap. I—”
“Uncle Archer!”
The little girl in Fletcher’s arms can’t be more than three or four years old. Two and a half feet long at a stretch, but with beautiful honeycomb eyes, and hair squashed under a blue hat.
“Moo-Moo!” Stepping away from me, Archer rushes to the girl and catches her mid-air when she launches herself from one man to another.
