AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Doesn’t that mean something to you?”
Fletch hangs up the phone and glances across at us.
“Alastair?” Growing impatient, I snap a little louder. “If this guy kills another woman because you dragged your feet on this, that’s on you. Her death is onyourhands. You okay with that?”
Quietly, Fletch wanders closer. He’s got something to tell me, but not necessarily something a witness needs to know.
“Perrone?” he asks instead. “What’s the issue?”
“I’ll come down.” The guy lowers his eyes and huffs. “I’ll come down. But I need my food and a ride back when we’re done.”
“You got a deal.” I look back at the makeshift home. “You need anything before we go?”
He shakes his head and turns toward the road. “My pals will keep an eye on things while I’m gone. Can I bring extra food back?”
* * *
After we drop Perrone off at the station and introduce him to Brody McNamara, our federally trained artist, Fletch and I walk out again and head back in the direction of the parking garage.
“What?” The moment we’re off the escalator and approaching the bank of elevators, I ask, “What did you find out?”
“Miranda London herself took my call. No, she’s not willing to hand over her footage. No, she doesn’t have to unless we come with a warrant. Yes, she’s still pissed you didn’t call her back after your thing. And yes, she’d be willing to discuss it with you… alone. Over dinner and wine.”
“For fuck’s sake.” I smack the elevator call button and step in with a shake of my head when it opens. Then, selecting G for the ground floor, I wait as the doors close. “That was three years ago, and shestillwants my head on a pike? That’s not fair.”
“Life ain’t fair, and you’re an unforgettable man, I suppose.” As soon as the elevator stops at the bottom, we step off and head toward the car. “She’s kinda mad about it and not willing to give you a damn thing unless there’s something in it for her.”
“And can that something be cash? Or a date with you?”
“I’m not your gigolo!” Bursting out with laughter, he makes his way to the passenger side this time and leaves the driving for me. “Call her back, stupid. She’s not pissed because she loves and misses you. She’s pissed because you bruised her ego. Which,” the moment I start the car and he pulls his seatbelt on with a smile, Iknowhe’s thinking about Minka, “you do often. You annoy women. It’s your superpower.”
“You annoy me. And that’s just who you are.” Pulling away from the station, I slip between a couple of cars and ignore the honks already lost in the wind behind us. “Where are we going?”
“Channel 63.”
When I glance across, he snickers like my head on the end of a stick is amusing to him. “We can talk her around, I think. She’s cranky is all, but I know beneath that is a woman who only wants your approval.”
“She doesn’t want my fucking approval. She’s Miranda London. She’s Copeland City’s Lila Royale—as in, she dates, she eats them up and spits them out, and she doesn’t look back at the trail of stupid men in her wake. She doesn’t sing like Lila, but she sure as fuck decapitates a guy when she passes by.”
“Hm…” Casual and relaxed, Fletch only opens his legs wide and settles in for the ride. “I think she’s nice.”
“She’s a fucking viper. And we already know your taste in women is a little lacking. I assure you, Miranda doesn’t give a flying monkey shit about my approval. I’m just a worker ant in the long line of other worker ants in her world.”
“Maybe. But you’re the only ant that stepped out of line and upset the balance of the universe. So now,” he looks across at me and smirks, “you gotta say you’re sorry.”
“I’m not saying I’m sorry.”
* * *
“Detective’s Fletcher and Malone.” Miranda London looks every bit the overpaid prime time news anchor living the best years of her life. She’s blonde, she’s beautiful, and she’s a spiteful fucking shark if her ego is dinged.
Miranda wears a figure-fitting, fire-engine-red dress today. Perfectly appropriate for television, but the cut means her shoulders are bare, the part where her boobs touch because her bra pushes them up and together is bare, and if Copeland City viewers could see below her waist, though they won’t, they’d see the mid-thigh length and the skyscraper heels that make her legs look ten feet long.
She’s a barbie doll in all the best ways. She’s the quintessential sought-after size and shape that the media hypes up to the world all over.
And now, she runs her tongue along perfectly plump red lips and saunters my way. “Detective Malone? I’m surprised to see you here.”
“Just doing my job.”
