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“It’s a cold one,” I tell her quickly. “Loads of desk work, reading old reports. Fletch will keep an eye on me, and I’ll pick you up from the George Stanley at six.”
“Four,” she counters. “Pick me up at four.”
Surprised, my brows shoot high. “You’ll leave work early?”
“Contracts!” she snaps. “I signed a contract that says I’ll help you through bullet wounds and health.”
“You mean sickness and h—”
“I know what I said,” she snarls. “Pick me up at four. And if you’re completely wiped out from working too much, I’m gonna hurt youandFletch. Are we clear?”
“Yes, ma’am.” A sly grin works its way across my lips and sends a pleased tingle right down into my chest. “And, Mayet, before you go?”
“What?” Grumpy now, she huffs. “What do you want?”
“I love you.”
“Yeah, well… I love you too.” Hanging up, she leaves me all alone.
For half a beat, my system reels from having her and then losing her. Then I glance across to Fletch and lift my chin. “I’m here till four. Let’s start with the victim and work our way out. See what we find.”
MINKA
“Doing the chief part of the chief job is booooring.” Aubree slouches in my visitor chair, her legs hanging off one side, and her sparkling high-top sneakers reflecting the afternoon sun as she swings them.
She helps me work through the backlog of reports piled on my desk after a week of absence grudgingly, and not without constant complaint. The woman with blonde hair and pink streaks missed me. No doubt she was the perfect professional while I was gone and she got to beacting chief, but now that I’m back, she’s happy to revert to her old self.
The self that feels the need to be vocal about every tiny thing.
Of course, it’s better than the traumatized silence Tim elicits from her…
“Doctor Flynn had a three-car pileup.” Letting the file flop flaccid and pathetic from her hand, Aubree looks over the papers and meets my eyes. “Two of the dead are easy enough to call. But the third, the driver of the car that started it, she’s struggling.”
“Why’s she struggling?” Sitting forward, I stretch across my desk and snag the offending file. Bringing it back to my side, I flip it open so it lays flat, and read over the case notes. “Petechial hemorrhage, anti-mortem,” I murmur. “Was the driver epileptic, by chance?”
“How’d you know so fast?”
“Lucky guess.”
I continue scanning the page, reading Flynn’s notes, and attempt to piece together whatever she missed. “Intracerebral hemorrhage. Blunt force trauma to the head—though, evidently, that’s from the crash. Myocardial infarction.” Curious, I let my eyes jump from point to point. “Coronary thrombosis? This person’s body shit out on them.”
Giggling, Aubree lifts her feet toward the sky in a centerfold seduction pose, and I know it’s purely because she wants to see her shoes in the sunlight. “Your professional opinion is noted, Chief Mayet. But which killed her? The epilepsy? The heart attack? Or the hemorrhage?”
“Or the trauma to her head,” I volunteer, despite knowing that isn’t the answer. “I’d suggest Doctor Flynn take a closer look at the heart attack. That type of arrest is stressful on a body. I’d theorize that it led to the pressure in the vic’s brain, which led to a seizure, which led to a brain bleed. Which,” I toss the file back, “led to the three-car pileup and three dead bodies. That one was easy. What else we got?”
“You’re so sexy when you’re smart.” With a happy sigh, she shuffles that file to the bottom and smirks. “P.S. Flynn thinks the same. Your conclusions, not the bit about you being sexy.”
I look up with a frown. “So you were testing me?”
“What can I say?” she singsongs. “It turns me on.”
Snorting, I sit back in my chair and press the heels of my palms to my eyes. Because I’m exhausted, and for just a minute, I get to show that exhaustion where Archer won’t see it.
I’m his nurse around the clock, making damn sure he doesn’t sprout an infection in the middle of the night. And when I’m not doing that, I’m watching the halls while he sleeps, lest a certain Malone brother return to continue the mess he already started.
According to Felix Malone, Archer and Tim’s father is ill. The man is dying, and to save face and retain whatever turf the crime family runs in New York City, the enterprising brother felt the need to come to Copeland and recruit his siblings into a war they never wanted a part of.
Felix has fled for now, but it’s only a matter of time before he comes back.
