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ARCHER
“Supposed?” I move closer and stare down into Minka’s seductive eyes. She wants to talk about killers, when all I want to talk about is her. And us. And how much longer we have to work until I can take her somewhere to be alone for a few minutes. “He killed a man, Minka.”
“He killed a rapist,” she counters coolly, so her dimples pop and her eyes dance. “Spoilers, Archer: nobody cares.”
“I care.”
And when she turns away again, absolutelynotcaring, I follow her around the store and slow when she takes a moment longer to study a pair of shoes.
“It’s my job to care. I took an oath to keep the people of this city safe, Minka. It’s not my right to decide who is worthy of that safety.”
“So you’d have Dowel back on the streets?” She runs her fingers along a leather briefcase with thick stitching and a stampedMon the front. “Would you prefer he was still free and killing little girls?”
“I would prefer if the law dealt with him the way it’s supposed to. Not some asshole with a hero complex who thinks they get to be judge, jury, and executioner.”
Across the store, Fletcher’s eyes come up and narrow.
“But the law didn’t deal with him.” Minka peeks over her shoulder at me. “Last I heard, he killed eleven girls over a five-year period. That’s not the law taking care of it.”
“It wasn’t my case,” I argue. “I wasn’t the detective leading those homicides. And if I was, I would’ve done the job right to make sure the prick was locked up.”
“So you pass the buck?” Turning back to the bag, she opens the front flap and glimpses inside. “Not your case, not your problem? Ya know,” she digs her hand into the bag and purrs at the satin lining, “in my position, the buck stops at me. Even if it’s not my case, even if it’s a tech on the night shift I’ve never met before. Every single body that comes through the George Stanley is my problem.” Pulling her hand out again and closing the bag, Minka’s cat-like eyes come to mine. “Every single one.”
“Thanks,Chief. I’m proud of you and your career advancement, but that’s not how it is for me. I can’t just step in and take over someone else’s investigation. I can’t step on anyone’s toes without my lieutenant bringing down the hammer.”
“So I guess it’s lucky the vigilante did.” Winking, she grabs the bag from the display and tests it out in her hand. The weight. The size. The angles. “You should thank the vigilante. Not hunt him down in your spare time.”
“Sure. And next time he kills someone, but his information is wrong?”
“Like over Christmas?” She sniggers low under her breath. “Seems he got the Hayes case right, too. Convicted felon has been put away three times. Didn’t reform a single time. Released again, committed the same crime again. At what point does the law do something about the destruction of innocent lives?”
“That’s not for a single man to decide! What if the vigilante gets it wrong? Maybe his information comes from a biased source. Maybe he kills an innocent. Or maybe he annihilates a cop’s case, and years of work is flushed down the drain, all for a little instant gratification.”
With nothing but a shrug, she carries her new bag toward the cashier, and stopping beside Fletch, she places it on the desk and looks up with a smile when my partner bumps her shoulder with his own.
“So far, the vigilante has a hundred-percent success rate of getting it right. Maybe not in the eyes of the court. But definitely in the eyes of the people.”
She catches the cashier’s attention and takes out a shiny credit card. “No need to bag it. I’ll carry it out.”
“Excellent choice, ma’am. The Markson Series is to die for.”
“Oh,Markson?” She flashes a sexy grin, but she points it at my partner and sets my blood on fire. “I thought it was the Mayet series.” She looks back to the cashier. “My name just so happens to start with M, too.”
“It was fate!” the cashier exclaims. “Such a wonderful choice.”
Five minutes after Minka makes her purchase, and Aubree follows it with a pair of three-hundred-dollar boots—which, according to her, is asteal—we step out of the boutique store and stop on the sidewalk.
I look left, toward The Stitch, then right. “Fletch and I have to get back to—”
“Lunch.” Aubree carries her extra-long shopping bag with a bounce in her step. “We’re getting burritos. There’s a place just down…” Instead of finishing her sentence, she starts along the sidewalk and wraps her arm around Fletch’s.
“There.” Smug, Minka spares a momentary glance for me before turning to follow the other two. “You confound me, Archer. You seem so…” Considering, she waits for me to catch up before she shrugs. “I dunno. Non-conformant. Your childhood isexhibit one.”
Finally, she lowers her voice so it’s just the two of us. “You were raised against the law. Your family purposely flouts it. Your entire upbringing is a show in doing whatever the hell you want, regardless of what the law says.”
“Maybe. But I broke away from that and became a cop. Cops conform to the law.”
“Okay. But the fact you broke away from your family and created your own set of rules, again, lends toward non-conformance. Even though you sought an institution built on rules, I fail to see how your upbringing doesn’t influence your decision-making. In fact,” she adds with a dimpled smile, “if I didn’t know better, I’d wonder if someone of your… pedigree, didn’t join the force purely to screw with the law and do things your own way anyway.”
