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“Makes it a little better. Maybe,” he grunts. “I suppose. It was already bad. But to be raped on top of it all would have been cruel. Anything else?”
“Yeah. She didn’t give birth outside. And she didn’t fight the delivery.”
Turning me, Archer moves my head back so the hot water falls across my hair. “How do you know?”
“No dirt under her nails. No grass. No grime. If she was having a baby outside, you’d think she’d sink her fingers into the earth and grab on. Similarly, if she was panicking and fighting it, even in a bed, on carpet, wherever, she’d grab on to the sheets to use them as a handhold. So I’m thinking she was expecting this child. She was ready for it, and she felt reasonably safe. Or… she was not conscious.”
“Cause of death?”
“Still don’t have it.” I purr under Archer’s touch when he drops shampoo into my hair and massages my scalp. “She wasn’t drowned. Wasn’t choked. Not strangled. Doesn’t appear to have been suffocated, but that one’s a little harder to ascertain. No poison. No OD. I was starting to think natural causes under the stress of birth: heart attack, burst aneurysm, something along those lines.”
“Okay.” He grabs the showerhead and aims it to wash the shampoo from my hair, but without getting a single drop in my eyes. “Did you find a thrashed heart?”
“Nope.” Exhaling, I lean back into Archer’s space and snuggle in.
He’s trying to wash me. To be productive, but I’d honestly rather simplybe.
“Upon first inspection, her heart seems fine. Arteries are fine. Valves are as they should be. Left and right atrium is intact. Vena cava. Aorta. I took it all apart until my eyes wanted to bleed. I dissected till there was nothing left, then I put it back together… and still, I can’t professionally conclude there was anything wrong with it.”
“So she didn’t have heart failure. What about an aneurysm?”
“Aubree opened her brain. I haven’t gotten a look at it yet, but she’s saying no bleeds. There’s nothing there.”
“Will you check?” Archer slides his hands around to rest on my stomach. “Can you double-check her work?”
“I can. I’ll do it today. But, Archer, Aubree is damn good at what she does—if she says there was no bleed, then I have no problem taking her word for it.”
Twisting to wrap my arms around his neck and stand on my toes, I kiss the underside of his chin. “I’ll check, because I want to run this one through, top to toe. But I don’t expect to find anything new.”
“Shit.” His jaw clenches tighter, even as I press another kiss where he keeps his tension. “So we have a healthy, young, beautiful,pregnantwoman who died in the last twenty-four hours. She was dumped, and has not, as of yet, been identified.”
“That’s about it.” Stepping back, I snag the bottle of conditioner and work it through my hair. I’m going to smell like Archer all day, and there isn’t a part of me that’s sad about it. “You’re on the right path with needing to identify her. Until you do, we’re stuck running in circles.”
Tipping my head back, I rinse the conditioner from my hair, and though my eyes are closed, I smile when Archer leans in and presses a kiss to my lips.
Five minutes after stepping into the shower, we get out again, shivering under fluffy towels.
“You should know, I left my cum-rag on your pillow.” I drag the towel across my back and hum, now that I’ve worked through my frustrations and exhaustion. “I was a different person before coffee. Now I regret my harsh actions.”
“Well, maybe I shouldn’t have thrown it at you in the first place.” Coming up behind me, Archer presses his stiff cock against my back and rumbles his pleasure. “We’re both a little unkind at five in the morning.”
“Good information to have. Ya know,” I step away and head into the hall, “for future reference.”
“These are the things that’ll help us cohabitate successfully.” Amused, he follows me back to the bedroom, and when we step in and I flick the light on, Archer casts a look across to his pillow and purses his lips. “Filth.”
“Pre-coffee. Not enough sleep.” I snatch my dress from the end of the bed and slip it on, sans bra and underwear. Sliding my arms into the holes and heading back to Archer, I spin so he gets an unobstructed view of my back. “Zip me up?”
“Mm.” He reaches down and takes the zipper between his fingers, but he doesn’t bring it up until he bends and presses a lingering kiss to the middle of my spine. “This was a successful morning, right? We’re tired. We’re frustrated. But we’re being nice to each other.”
“The bedrock of a successful relationship.”
“That’s what I’m saying.” He brushes my hair to the side and kisses my neck. “We’re ready to get married, right?”
“Oh my god.” Shoving away from him with a shake of my head, I move to his closet while, behind me, he laughs and goes to work drying himself. “You’re obsessed.”
“With you? Yeah. I know.”
“With marriage!” I flick through the hoodies in his closet and stop when I find a plain black one. Snatching it off the hanger, I hold it in front of my body and sigh when I realize it’ll hang possibly lower than my dress. “You’re obsessed with marriage.”
