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“Lieutenant Fabian wanted me to find a new partner until you’re back from leave.” He glares across the top of his mug with a sneer. “Like I want a different fuckin’ partner. I said no to finding a new best friend, so he ordered me to stay at my desk. You’ll be back soon, so I figure fair deal.”
“And in the meantime,” I open the topmost folder and study a woman’s name. Her death scene photographs. Her date of birth and marital status. “You’re, what, filing?”
“Cold cases,” he counters. “Figured I’d take a look and see what shakes free. I’ve narrowed the selection down to three that interest me. Once I decide which one to follow up on, I’ll get going.”
He moves around his desk and drops into his chair, then he tosses a second file my way. A third. “When are you back?”
In my mind, I shrug, but I learned long ago not to do the physical movement unless I want to feel the burn of puke racing along my throat. “Minka’s back at the morgue today for a couple of hours, so I guess I’m back now too.”
“Medically cleared?”
I bark out a laugh and accept the sting of pain ricocheting through my muscles. “Fuck no. But I don’t wanna sit at home alone and think about all the shit I can’t fix, so here I am instead, annoying you.” Looking up from the photograph that slipped from the second file, I ask, “How’s Mia doing? She at the nursery?”
“No, new nanny started today.” He says the words like they’re poison on his tongue. But at this point,anythingis better than the fucking daycare that let a stranger check out his three-year-old and put her in harm’s way.
As with all things mafia, none of us can say shit without making a mess. That means no formal complaints were filed, no one was fired.
But the little girl in question is now kept as far from the precinct nursery as Fletch can manage.
“Is she hot?” To diffuse my friend’s anger, I grin. “The nanny?”
He forces a soft laugh and shakes his head. “I’m offended you think I’d hire on the basis of looks.”
“So sheishot,” I confirm smugly. “Did you take her to bed yet?”
“That is wildly inappropriate of you to ask.” Still, he smirks. “But no. I haven’t. I can’t afford to mess this up, and I refuse to put Moo back into daycare, so we’re going straight on this one. We’ll be good. I’ll try not to work in the middle of the night, and at the end of each month, I’ll pay her salary and not whine about it.”
He tips his chin toward the stack of files in front of me. “Help me work this while you’re here. We’re sitting, so Doctor Delicious won’t get cranky, and since you don’t have to do a lot, you won’t trip on your feet and have a nap on the sidewalk.”
“I don’t trip, and I never nap.” I open the topmost file and peek at a woman who, at the time of her death, can’t have been any older than my thirty-two years. In fact, when I flip the page and read her date of birth, I do the math in my head and conclude she was only twenty-three when she found herself in a car accident that ended her life. “She was young.”
“Minka said you nap every single day.” Waiting for my eyes, Fletch smirks. “Injury and married life tiring you out, bro?”
“I was shot in the fucking shoulder.” Opening Holly Wade’s file so it sits across the other two I won’t bother perusing, I take out her photos and set them side by side on the desk. “And married life is nice. It’s never lonely.”
“You’re so codependent.” Chuckling, Fletch pushes up to stand and snaps Holly’s file closed again.
Before I can slap his hand away and demand to know what he’s doing, Fletch snatches the file and nods toward the conference rooms. “War room. We work better when we can make a wall.”
“Ugh.” Summoning what strength I can, I push up to stand and follow him across the pit.
My colleagues all think I’m healing from a sports injury rather than an illicit bullet wound, which means none give more than a fast glance to my arm in a sling. They smile in greeting, but there’s no questions about how I’m doing. None ask if the guy who shot me has been caught—he has, he’s dead—or when the case will end up in front of a judge—it won’t.
Slowly, I make my way toward the conference room, and when I approach the door, I make sure to regulate my breathing so my partner doesn’t hear how easily I tire these days.
I’m a fit man, healthy and strong, but shoot me in the shoulder and give me a doctor but no operating room, no pain meds, and no x-ray to make sure the bone is intact, and a guy could be forgiven for feeling a little… fatigued.
“Holly Wade was a twenty-three-year-old newlywed when she crossed the yellow line on the highway, challenging a long-haul truck in the middle of the night. She was the only passenger in her car.”
When I step across the threshold and close the door at my back, Fletch turns to me with a whiteboard marker already in his hand. “She was three weeks out from her wedding, and supposedly driving home from her shift at a local diner, Shirley’s.”
“Supposedly?” Grunting, I tug a chair from the table and drop down to relieve the exhaustion already making my legs shake. “Why supposedly?”
“Because the crash happened at one in the morning. Shirley herself said Holly left work at ten. Add in the fact she drove about a hundred and fifty miles in the wrong direction, and a cop could wonder what the fuck she was doing that night.”
Curious, I lean forward and take the file again when Fletch sets it on the table. “She was working a standard shift, clocked out, got in her car, drove the wrong way for a couple of hours, and just… crossed over?”
“I might wonder if she simply fell asleep.” He perches his ass on the table and snags a printout of notes from the top of the file. “It was late. Weddings tire a woman out. She’d just finished her shift.” He shrugs. “Some people just get tired.”
