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“Kyle Andrews and Roger Wilson areprobablyAaron Davies,” I say with a sigh. “He doesn’t have children to compare DNA to, but Mrs. Davies’ description of his appendectomy scar, his lack of prints, as well as the hundreds of photos stored around her home, make it kind of impossible to deny. X-Rays also corroborate a long-ago healed broken femur: a fracture Mrs. Davies described without prompting. In my professional opinion, I’m forced to accept that the body in our fridge downstairs is her husband. He is all three men.”
“So we have a guy living three lives,” Archer mutters. “Confirmed. Three names—threeidentities. Which means we have to run each one like its own separate investigation. One will show a crack. An enemy.”
“Let’s talk to the business partner at Wilco again.” Fletch turns from the window. “And Randall Sloane. If he has any clue about this mess, I bet he’ll tell us. He’s dying for the chance to steal Wilco’s market share.”
“Dying?” Aubree asks. “Or willing to kill?”
“Nice spin, Sherlock.” Fletch stops beside the couch and musses her hair, earning a feral hiss and a slap to his wrist before he pulls away again. “One of these men had an enemy. Or maybe he was found out, and the existence of all three pissed someone off.”
“So now we do our part to figure out which it is.” Archer pushes up to stand when my phone dings with a reminder for a team meeting; a meeting that Aubree scheduled at my request, but that I would have forgotten about without the alarm. “Is there anything else you’d like to add to our investigation, Chief Mayet?”
“Nope.” I set my ruler down and rise from my chair. “I had only the one body to run, Detectives. You have three identities to pore through. Good luck.”
I snag my phone from my desk and drop it in my back pocket, but when my desk phone trills with a call, I snatch up the handset. Though I hesitate before I bring it to my ear.
“I’ll be around,” I tell Archer. “And being careful,” I add, heading off the warning I know is coming.
ThenI bring the phone to my ear. “This is Chief Mayet.”
“Chief,” Fifi’s professional tone cuts through, forgoing any annoying small chat others might want to start with. “I have the mayor on line three for you.”
“Lawrence?” I drop back down into my seat, and hide my groan of pain when the movement jolts my shoulder. “What does he want? I haven’t even spent his money yet.”
“I don’t know what he wants,” she drawls. “I’m not privy to his inner thoughts. Will you take the call?”
“Do I have to?” Hopeful, I look to Aubree, only to regret searching for an ally in her, when hearing ‘Lawrence’ makes her dash closer with an extra bum wiggle.
“Can you tell him I’m busy?” I whine.
“No.” Fifi hangs up and leaves me with a dead beep, but line three flashes at me.
Waiting. Taunting.
The fricken mayor wants to speak with me, and I… don’t really like to do that kind of thing. He wants to talk budgets. And business. Andam I taking care of myself?
With a groan, I meet Archer’s humored gaze. “I’ll catch up with you later.” I blow out a breath and tuck the phone between my good shoulder and my ear so I can use my hand to reach out for the button for line three. Then I look to Aubree. “I’ll be five minutes, then we can start our meeting.”
“Can I listen?” Her eyes, wide and optimistic, leave me with a scowl. “Please? I haven’t heard Daddy Mayor’s voice in forever. He never callsme.”
“His name is Mayor Lawrence,” I grit out. “Not Daddyanything. And no,” I nod toward the door as Archer and Fletch file out. “Go. We should’ve started our meeting already.”
Hitting line three, even as Aubree huffs and sulks her way out of my office, I straighten in my seat and bring my hand back to hold the receiver. “Mr. Mayor. This is Chief Mayet.”
“Chief.” His voice is gritty and dark. Formidable and, in any other lifetime, probably considered sexy.
He looks good for a man old enough to be my dad, and in Aubree’s opinion, is hot enough to bang nine ways from Sunday. But he went ahead and took herDaddyand started parenting me instead, blurring those lines and confusing my psyche to no end. Now I have a man who already has his own grown daughters, wanting to make sure I’m okay. Checking that I’m eating and sleeping and taking the pain meds I was prescribed.
He’s Archer 2.0, and though I love the original, I sure as hell don’t want two of them nagging me to slow down.
“How are things over at the George Stanley?” he asks. “Good?”
He wants to talk work?Sure thing.
“Good,” I say honestly. “Finances are healthy, staff is happy. I’ve worked it into next year’s budget to hire a new lab tech to fill out Doctor Raquel’s team, and—”
“A new tech,” he cuts in dryly, exactly where I knew he would. “A whole extra person? Can you afford that?”
“Yes. I found wastage in the budget that the former administration felt necessary.”
