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His sons, my brothers and I, protect those we love.
We’re not the same.
“What the hell was that about?” Fletch shoves the car into gear and peels away before Minka can open the back door and slide in. “She flipped like a switch.”
“I think the vigilante’s looking to make a comeback.” I drop my head back and groan because my phone trills in my pocket with the ringtone I’ve allocated to only one person on this planet. “Adrianna Alves is an abused woman. Her daughters were abused. The vigilante only comes out to play when children are involved. And you already said it?—”
I dig my hand into my pocket and take out my phone. But I decline the call and look at my partner as he navigates Saturday afternoon traffic. “The one and only time Minka muscled her way into an interrogation room was because she had plans for the guy. She’s got justice on her mind, and, not for the first time, she and I are on opposing sides.”
“But Karla isn’t our killer.” He slips through a gap in traffic and shoots along an alleyway, a Chinese restaurant on one side and a mini-mart on the other. “Why muscle into that interview?”
My phone pings again, but with a text this time, and not a call.
“If I had to guess what my wife was thinking, I suppose it wouldn’t be a stretch to consider that Karla could be the killer. Or she has insight into the killer. Or maybe Adrianna is the killer. And if either were true, then it would be an easy jump to connect that kill to those of the vigilante’s. As in?—”
“As in,” he sighs, “both women, both using knives, both protecting the weaker citizens of Copeland City.”
“It’s not outside the realm of possibility.” I unlock my screen and glance down at the text she sent.
I feel like you’re reading too much into this, Archer. You assume I’m always in danger, yet you handcuff me to the mafia don. Your priorities are wrong. As are your assumptions.
“Yeah.” I tap the screen and prepare to type a response. “She knows I’ve clocked her. She’s curious because our killer could be a woman, and even if not, our killer killed for a woman. She wants a front-row seat to see it go down.”
“Because she wants to do something about it?” Fletch guesses. “What?”
“Something about curiosity and cats, right?”
I start typing: I love you. I see you. I know what you’re thinking. Adrianna Alves is safe and in custody right now, and considering we don’t have enough to formally book her yet, she’s likely going home tomorrow. For a while, at least. Circumstantial is damning, but I’m not settling till I have proof. Not even to win a bet and get you on an island for a week. Fletch and I will be an hour, tops, then I’ll come home and tell you everything I know anyway. Until then, stop throwing a fucking fit.
Hitting send, I lock my screen and close my eyes. But that lasts only a second before I unlock it again and type some more: Don’t be angry because you didn’t get your way. Or do. Whatever. Rage sex turns me on, and forcing you to love me is my kink. Eat something. Did you even have lunch?
Hitting send a second time, I toss my phone on the dash and sit back as Fletch brings us around a corner, only to come to a dead stop when traffic fills the street. “Shit,” he hisses. “What the fuck is this? It’s not even a weekday.”
“Light it up.” I reach across and flip the switch for our sirens and lights, and though the action helps a little, most people just look at us. “Chances Anderson is our killer, holed up in his undies and crying about the girlfriend he wishes he had?”
Fletch considers for a moment, his eyes glued to the backed-up traffic lining the street in both directions. He looks into our rearview mirror, to check if we can back our asses up out of here, then he peers at the sidewalk and exhales a frustrated sigh.
Deciding, he wrenches the wheel to the right, hits the gas, and sends us barreling toward pedestrian traffic. “Could be a case of unrequited love.” He bounces in his seat as we mount the curb and skim close to a hotdog cart. “Could be nothing.”
“Could be a goose chase Karla thinks is funny.” And with that thought in mind, I reach for the small screen kept in every patrol car and type in the guy’s name. “Charleston Anderson.” I make a guess on his year of birth since Karla said he’s barely older than her nineteen, then narrow it down to guys who live near-ish to the college campus. “Charleston Anderson is not some rich kid whose name they handed down from his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.” I yank the small computer into my lap and speed-read. “D.O.B. October nineteen, two-thousand-and-one. No siblings. Deceased parents. His father’s name was Greg.”
“Just Greg?” At a break in traffic, Fletch swings us back onto the street, our wheels skidding and the stench of burning rubber just enough to make my lips angle up. “Greg Anderson doesn’t sound nearly as fancy as Charleston Anderson.”
“Maybe that was the point.” My phone pings again, a text from Minka, but I ignore her for a little longer. “His parents were in a canoeing accident two years ago. Both dead.”
“Canoeing?” Fletch glances across at me. “What the fuck kind of canoeing accident kills two people?”
“The kind that drowns people, I suppose.”
“And just so we’re clear… they weren’t stabbed to death in their sleep?”
I cough out a soft laugh, my chest bouncing as we bump our way back onto the sidewalk. “Not according to the M.E. Total accident, non-suspicious. Charleston wasn’t even there when it happened. They were out of state on vacation, midlife crisis or some shit.”
“So now he’s alone. They have a house?”
“Yeah.” I scan the details on the screen. “Born in this house. He’s never left it.”
“So he’s all alone in his parents’ house. Now he’s studying criminology. Has a crush on a married woman. This same woman gets tuned up once a week and misses class just as often. He’s young, impressionable. Probably naïve enough to think he could save her.”
