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Her expression is submissive, when she so rarely is in her everyday life.
“I’m gonna go lay on our bed,” I say matter-of-factly. Pulling her chin up, I force her to stand and come with me. “And you’re gonna sit on my face. That’s how needy I am tonight.”
She shivers under my touch and wraps her palm around my wrist as I lead her like a lamb to slaughter. But I won’t ever let her hurt.
“That sounds like an invitation,” she breathes. “I don’t mind it at all.”
“I wanna eat you up and make you cry a little.” I bring her along our hall and into the bedroom at the end, then stopping at the foot of our bed, I slide my thumbs beneath the waistband of her panties and slip them down to her ankles.
She quivers under my touch, and pants when I lower to my knees. I look up at her and grin when she gulps, then I bury my tongue in the apex of her core and hold her up when her knees want to give out.
“Fuck! Archer.” She shoves her fingers through my hair and tugs until fire races beneath my skin. “Jesus.”
“Such a tasty pussy.” I nip at her clit, and groan when she cries out. “Mytasty pussy.”
ARCHER
“Iread over the reports you sent last night.” I set a cup of coffee on my desk and watch, ever so nonchalant, as officers lead each wife into an interview room.
No one is in trouble. There are no cuffs to be found. No Miranda rights to be read.
There’s no reason for anyone to panic.
But we need to get to the bottom of our Four-Identity Fred.
“No one’s workplace crosses over,” I recap for Fletch. “But high school does. We have a couple of his identities going to the same college, and another couple born in the same hospital. Getting Roger, Aaron, Kyle, and Benedict to meet in the same place is kinda easy. But getting Lori, Diane, Janice, and Roberta to meet in the same place is impossible.”
“Okay…” Fletch follows my lead and sips at his coffee. His hair is still moist from his morning shower. His cologne, strong enough to hit my senses. He’s freshly shaved and his shoulders bulge under the holster he keeps his weapons on. But he perches on the edge of my desk and processes my words. “We’ve been leaning operative for a while. You’re saying one of the wives is, too?”
“Nope. But I find it difficult to accept that he had four entire families, all in the same city. Kids in three of those marriages, some of their ages overlapping—”
“They don’t know each other either,” he cuts in. “Different schools. Different extracurriculars. Different sports teams. We’ve got a chess club kid, and a cheerleader. We’ve got another who likes to build model boats and race them on the lake. And we’ve got another who is a straight up jock, playing varsity basketball. John Doe was careful to separate every faction of his life.”
“Sure.”
“Each woman had a different career,” he presses, “in a different field. The only crossover that may have happened is if Roberta was called in for IT support on someone else’s job. But, Roberta knew about the cheating and had her own plan, which didn’t involve killing the guy. And she doesn’t seem homicidal to me.”
“I hear you. I’ve got something else for you.” I toss down a file that Detective Asa sent while Minka and I were in bed last night. A name and an address. A photograph, and a fast bio that told me everything I needed to know.
“We’ve been so busy here,” I huff as he opens the file. “Bower wants us looking at mafia, we’re thinking agent. We’re combing through four families, and four lives. But most everyone mentioned Florida, and yet, we didn’t look into it.”
“Sherry Pickford,” he reads from a sheet of paper inside the folder. “Married to Gordon Pickford.” Curious, he stops and meets my eyes. “Another ID?”
“Mmhm.” I pick up my coffee and sip while he peruses the provided intel. “Thirty-nine years old,” I recite. “Computer salesman. He worked away from Florida most of the time, but came home to his new wife at least two nights a week.”
“No children?”
“None. But this marriage is only three months old, and,” reaching across, I nab the relevant report Sophia sent, and flip it over so Fletch can read the back. “OBGYN appointments have been made. Mrs. Pickford is already on pre-natals, which kinda tells me they’re trying.”
“He was fucking obsessed,” Fletch grits out. “Jesus. No way anactualgovernment agent is this stupid or egotistical. If he was, he’d lose his job really fucking fast.”
“You’re not wrong. Let’s go.” I push up to stand as the fourth and final Copeland City wife is shepherded into a room.
I grab my coffee and snatch the file from Fletch’s hand, then turning to glance across the bullpen of detectives working various cases, I spy the interview room with a number one on it.
“Let’s start with Lori,” I suggest. “She was first to claim the body. His identity as Roger is also the oldest in age, at forty-five, and comes with a business partner and a whole-ass company.”
“You think she killed him?” He practically runs to keep up with me, his own coffee cup in hand. “You think it was a lovers’ quarrel?”
