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“We have a new financial period coming up at the end of next month,” I continue, “and I’ve made promises I need to follow through on.”
“What promises?” Piqued, she looks up from her phone. “New coffee machine in the lunchroom? Because Iswear, I didn’t break the last one.”
“I mean getting a new tech for the toxicology lab,” I counter with a smile.
When the elevator stops on the lobby floor and the doors slide open, I let my head drop in acknowledgment of Seraphina Lewis, who waits on the other side.
Just like I expected she would be.
“Fifi.” I start forward and take perverse pleasure in making the George Stanley’s media relations guru run in five-inch heels. She’s model-perfect: long, flowing, salon-styled hair, legs longer than my entire body—well, not really, but that’s how it feels sometimes when I look at her—and lips that are always glossy and sexy.
She wears a pencil skirt suit daily, keeps the media in their lane and off my back, and she’s a friend… even if I sometimes make her run and call her a name she doesn’t like.
“Chief Mayet.” She follows us through the revolving glass doors at the front of our building and onto the street outside, then trailing closely behind, she turns right when we do to make our trek toward Tim’s bar. Which just so happens to be next door to the apartment Archer and I share. “I need insight on the John Doe case,” she pants, humoring me with her faststep-shuffle, made awkward because of her skirt. “Channel Nine has been on me from the moment they caught you on scene with Detective Malone.”
“Detective Malone and I were doing our jobs.” I glance over my shoulder, lips pursed. “And Channel Nine can cool their heels.” Then I bring my gaze back to Aubree. “About tomorrow, I need to squeeze enough money out of the budget to get Doctor Raquel a toxicology lab tech. I told her I’d consider it only after she ran the numbers for me, consistently, for months. She held up her end of the deal, so…”
“Gotta hold up yours,” Aubs concludes. “Okey dokey. Why does that require a team meeting?”
“It doesn’t. The meeting is so I can flush out the imbecile who broke our coffee machine.”
I know who did it already. But I want to see if the guilty party will out themselves, or if I’ll have to do it for them.
Publicly.
“I also want to discuss our team. How is everyone doing? What needs aren’t being met? I’ve been out for weeks with my damn shoulder, and before that, I spent a little time in New York. So I want to touch base and get a handle on my building—especiallybefore the end of the financial year. And I want you to attend and take notes, because soon, I’m gonna have to explain to the mayor why we’re all worth our salaries.” I glimpse Tim’s Bar on the next block. The bright neon sign that literally says ‘Tim’s,’ and the red brick façade surrounding darkened windows. “Not only do I have to account for the staff I already have, but now I gotta convince him to let me hire another.”
“And just so we’re clear…” she pauses her note-taking and peers my way, “if he says you have to fire someone?”
“You’re the first to go,” I taunt. “Second is Fifi, because she annoys the ever-living shit out of me inside that building.”
“You’re so funny,” Fifi mutters. “It’s called doing my job. Which is difficult, as you’re a constant drain on my time and productivity. My position is to aid you, Chief Mayet. Not herd you like the feral cat you are. And speaking of,” she slows her steps as we approach the bar, her lips turning up in derision as music thuds through the walls, and a happy cheer rolls out from the partly open door. “I need your official statement on the Copeland River body.”
“My official statement is that the media should approach the lead detectives for information. It’s standard operating procedure, just as saying ‘no comment’ is mine. You’d think they’d learn by now.” I turn on my heels and grab the heavy wooden door with my briefcase-carrying hand, which makes the task all the more difficult.
Catching on to my intention, Aubree jumps forward and assists so we’re hit with warmth and sound and the view of about eighty first responders drinking away a hard day.
“We’re supposed to get dinner with Detective Fletcher and Moo tonight,” I tell the pair as we trudge inside. And because I speak of Copeland City’s flirtiest cop, I peer over my shoulder, and grin when Fifi’s sneer is in place, exactly like I expected it would be.
She has a love/hate relationship with the detective. As in, he loves to taunt her and beg for a romp in her bed, and she loves to judge and hate him.
It’s a game of cat and mouse that she abhors, but that he keeps interesting for the rest of us.
“I’m gonna call Archer to get the details just as soon as I sit down.” I spy the handsome Timothy Malone behind the bar. Broad shoulders, just like those possessed by every other Malone I’ve met. But unlike the rest of them, he keeps a sexy beard, and his midnight-black hair is just long enough that strands flick across his brow and tickle his eyelashes.
He’s the perfect cliché forlumberjack stuck in the wilderness and about to devour the cute little damsel.
And Aubree just so happens to be that damsel. But neither of them are ready to make a move, so just like the Fletch-and-Fifi situation, I sit back and watch the game, self-righteous in the fact I don’t need to play one myself.
I love my husband, and he loves me. So we no longer act coy and have to search for small slices of attention.
“Sit down, Mayet.” The moment I arrive at the bar, Tim drops an icy cold glass of soda in front of me, and sets his hand on my good shoulder until I plop down and grunt.
He squeezes, as though to make sure I stay put, then releasing me, he rests his elbows on the bar and stares. “You’re pale. Your eyes are glassy, and you look like you’re in pain.”
“What a coincidence. Iamin pain,” I tell him.
I set my briefcase on the floor between me and Aubree as she sits on my left, while Fifi takes the stool on my right. It’s interesting, actually, that we’re in a bar filled with butts that need sitting, and still, stools remain free for the three of us…
