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“So you’re saying we ignore this one?” Growling in the back of his throat, Fletch brings us around a corner and onto Adrianna Alves’ street lined with flowering trees. “Deem the case unsolvable?”
“I’m saying that if someone beat my wife, or if Moo was married to an abuser, I’d help her dispose of the body. We made a promise to uphold the law, Fletch. But I guess I’m willing to uphold fairness on this one instead.”
“Jesus Christ on a motorbike.” Puffing his cheeks, he draws the car to a stop a few doors down from the Alves home. Yellow tape still circles the yard, and the front door remains sealed to anyone except those with a badge. But a couple yards down, the Alves girls play in the yard of the Nunes’ home.
Katie and Kiera skip rope with another little girl, all three of them giggling. The youngest’s hair flips with each jump. And behind them, two grown women sit on a rickety porch and watch on.
“That’s Cassidy Nunes,” Archer murmurs, somehow reading my mind. “And Adrianna. Drinking a cup of tea and watching the kids play in the yard. If Adrianna goes to prison for this…”
I study the two women who nurse their mugs. Their content smiles. Their moving lips as one says something we’ll never hear, and the other laughs in response.
“I was raised inside a home that consisted of daily beatings,” Archer rumbles. “I know what it is to not be safe in the one environment you’re supposed to be. And I know how much I wanted to kill the man who owned the fists.”
Noticing us, Adrianna freezes in her seat, her eyes locking on to mine. A hundred feet separate us, but I catch exactly the way her cheeks pale. I witness the lump of nerves she gulps down.
She’s guilty of murder.
She knows it. I know it.
But was it justified?
“I’m gonna follow your lead on this, Fletch.” Archer reaches across and taps his partner’s chest with the side of his fist. “I’ve already fucked up your career pretty bad. The fact you’re my partner makes it worse. There’s nowhere I can go where idiots like Jones won’t assume I’m a dirty cop, and by association, that makes you one, too.”
“If we drive away,” Fletch rasps, tapping the steering wheel to work through nervous energy. “That makes us dirty. We could be tossed to I.A. and indicted. If we’re caught,” he swallows, “we could be sent to prison.”
Archer sets his hands in his lap and glances down. “If I’m caught for anything, I’m already going to prison. Well… I’m not. Because I always have an exit strategy. But they might try. If I’m caught, my entire identity is gone, and this is all over. I’m prepared for that.” He peers across and drags his bottom lip between his teeth. “I’ve been ready since I got my shield, Fletch, and I made damn sure my exit was secure when I found out my wife commits life-sentence crimes. I was born into the mafia; we always have a way out. But that doesn’t mean I’ll blindly make things worse for you. So…” He looks back to Adrianna and meets her stare. “It’s your call. There’s only three of us in this car, and you know we’re already blood in. Loose lips won’t sink this ship.”
“It’s on me?” He growls. “I get out of this car and arrest her in front of her daughters. Or I drive away, go home to mine, and leave a killer on our streets.”
“That’s about the gist of it.”
I sit in silence. My input, unneeded as two cops work through a decision that could alter their entire lives.
“There’s no wrong answer,” Archer finishes. “There’s no bullshit once the decision is made. You have the lead, no questions asked. And you have my loyalty. Always have, always will.”
“Shittttttt…” Frustrated, Fletch scrubs a hand through his hair and groans in the back of his throat. “Does my decision alter the honeymoon plans?” He releases his hair and glances back at me. “He was right, right? Even if there’s no formal arrest?”
“You want us to go? You’re happy to be away from us for a whole weekend?”
“A week,” Archer growls. “We had a deal.”
“I would’ve done two.” I sit back and smirk. “Your negotiation skills are lacking, Detective Malone.”
“I’d have done a weekend in bed,” he counters easily. Turning in his chair, he grins. “I wanted a week all along. Start high and let your opponent talk you down. That’s basic negotiations 101, Chief.”
“Shut up.” Fletch drops his head back and groans. “I’m trying to make a massive decision here. And you two just wanna flirt all the fuckin time.”
“He’s grumpy,” Archer whispers. “Sexual frustration will do that to a man.”
MINKA
“I’m bumping Doctor Flynn up to acting chief. You can be her second.” Holding my phone to one ear and pushing a cart with the other, I wander through a department store while Archer bounds ahead of me and spends far more money than we have. “You can use my office for the week, Aubs. But I swear to god, if you change my chair height or do anything weird, I’m gonna kick your ass down to the second floor and keep you there for a month.”
“Harsh,” Aubree snickers. “What do you want me to do with Kirk? And what about Catlin?”
“Keep Kirk on the Prestin case and give him a little push on Monday since he’s dragging his feet. Doctor Catlin has been working at the George Stanley longer than you’ve been alive, so you don’t have to do anything with her. She’s got it under control.”
“Minka!” Archer’s deep voice carries from the other side of the women’s wear floor, but when I glance up, I grit my teeth and barely stop myself from smacking the man with a clothes rack. “Bikinis, babe!” He waves a pair of navy and white polka-dotted strings. “Bikinis!”
