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“No.” Huffing, he glances back to the board and writes her details alongside her name. Age, though we both already know it. Her major. Her classes. How many she takes a week. How long she’s been inside the school. “I’m scamming on no one. I especially have no interest in barely legal college students. Karla isn’t our suspect, but she’s definitely a set of eyes and ears inside that school we would otherwise not have.”
“Fine.” I roll my bottom lip between my thumb and finger and consider. “She’s on her way?”
“Should be.” He turns from the board and re-caps his marker. “Officer Clay is on the lookout in the bullpen. He’ll come get us when she’s in the building. I have others on the schedule, too, but Karla’s our main target right now. No one else is gonna give us the same access she could.”
“Fantastic. And while we wait,” I lift my feet and kick them up on the edge of the table. “What’s happening with Jada?”
He groans. Instant and defeated. But we’ve been through hell and back together for years. We’re brothers, first and foremost. We have no secrets. Not anymore. So instead of telling me to mind my own business, he drags a chair from the table and plops his ass down with a grunt. “Can’t find her. I’ve put out feelers and left messages on her phone.”
“She’s not gonna come to you if you’re angry and accusatory.”
“I’m not,” he sighs. “My messages were kind. Just checking in. Mia wants to see her mom. Blah, blah, blah. I told her to call me back and even dangled that we could get dinner or whatever. As a family.”
“All the things she wants.”
“Right. She wants her family back, but not enough to give up the drugs. I have no interest in the romantic relationship we used to have. But I won’t give up on what she and Mia could have. I’m gonna keep trying to save her, and that means she goes back to rehab.”
“And you’re just gonna repeat this for the rest of your life? Save her. Support her. Literally kidnap and toss her into a clinic and hope something eventually sticks?”
“I have no other fuckin choice! Her behavior harms my daughter, Arch, and for as long as that’s the case, then I’m gonna step in and shield her. I’ll keep saving Jada until Mia’s old enough to understand. And if she asks me to continue what I’m doing, then that’s what I’ll do.”
“So you’re giving up your life? For someone who doesn’t give a fuck about anyone but herself. Jesus, Fletch.” I drop my feet and clap my hand on the table instead. “You’re better than that, man. You deserve better.”
“Mia deserves better,” he snarls. “She’s the only innocent I know, which means the things I want don’t actually matter.”
“Fletch—”
A knock at the door brings me to my feet and placing my body in front of my partner’s, so when whoever is on the other side opens it up and peers in, they don’t see the shell of a broken man sitting across from me. Because maybe Fletch’s only mission is to protect Mia.
But I have a different mission.
The girl is safe, but the man… is not.
“Yeah?” I call out and wait as Officer Clay inches the door open. He’s younger than me and Fletch by a handful of years. But he’s baby faced, too. Which only makes his youth more pronounced. “Is Ms. Darling here?” I ask. “Put her in Interview Room Thr?—”
“Uh… actually?—”
But he doesn’t get to finish, because Minka strides past the poor guy and helps herself to my war room.
“It’s Chief Medical Examiner Mayet,” Clay rasps. “She wouldn’t allow me to call ahead.”
“Minka?” I circle the large table and follow her all the way to the whiteboard, my heart in my throat and my stomach whooshing with an odd concoction of nerves and thrilling anticipation. It’s not like I don’t work with her in a professional capacity every damn day of the week. It’s not even like I don’t see her at her office daily. In her building. All her staff.
But shit, I’m not sure I can remember ever having her in my building.
“What are you doing here?” I force two feet between us or risk grabbing her inside the cop shop. “Minka?”
“Thank you, Officer Clay.” Back to work, Fletch pushes up from his chair and crosses the room to shut the man out. “Keep an eye out for Ms. Darling,” he repeats. “Let us know when she arrives.” Then he closes the door and leans his back against it to ensure privacy. “I’ve only seen you in this place a couple of times, Delicious.” He allows a slow, devious smile to cross his lips. “Every single time, even when you lied about it, was you preparing to kill someone.”
“Oh please.” Minka turns from the board and rolls her eyes. But her lips are curled up, too. Her entire countenance, playful and happy. “That was one time. And it was for the greater good.” She folds her arms but jerks a thumb back to indicate the board. “Karla Darling? Sounds like a fake name.”
Impatient, I grab her elbow and force her around to face me. “What,” I speak slowly, enunciating every single syllable. “The. Fuck. Are you doing here?”
“You’re being rude. And you’re interviewing a college girl today.” She grabs the marker Fletch tossed, pulls the cap off, and turns back to underline Karla’s name. “Nineteen. Criminology degree…” Then she pauses, “Informant?”
“Swear to god,” I tug her closer and grit through tight teeth, “if this is a jealousy thing, where you think every woman in the world is trying to horn in on?—”
She meets my eyes; her smile vanishing and in its place, a savage control that has my mouth snapping shut.
