AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Aubree’s shoulders bounce with muted giggles.
“So what’s your next step, Detectives?” Minka looks from me to Fletch, smug with herself and looking sexy in her work outfit of black dress pants and a silky white blouse. “You’ve got a mystery, and two families connected by a dead woman. One side claims tragic accident, the other says it was intentional and callous. Who do you believe? Whose word do you accept?”
“You’re gonna tell us to ask the body, aren’t ya?” Fletch grumbles. “You’re gonna get all voodoo weird and claim the dead have something to say.”
“The dead rarely lie.” Slowly, she brings her eyes back to me and stops. “The same can’t be said about those who are living.”
“It was one pack of cigarettes!” I shove up from my chair and break all George Stanley protocol by leaning across Minka’s desk and pulling her in for a kiss.
It’s fast, chaste, and not nearly as filthy as when she had her lips wrapped around my cock just last night. But it’s enough to make her startle. Enough to make her freak out—god forbid her employees see her kiss her husband—then she pushes me back and makes no apology when she hits my bad shoulder.
“Archer!”
“You found old cigarettes in the back of my closet, Mayet.” Standing tall, I press my arm to my chest and pray the ache will leave my shoulder soon. “It wasn’t a lie, I don’t smoke now. You’re seriously obsessed with something I did last decade.”
“You smoke?” Aubree’s nose wrinkles with disgust. “That’s terrible! Does Tim?”
“What do you care, Frenchy?” Fletch smacks Aubree’s arm with the manila folder so the wind blows her hair back. “You’re not interested in him, remember?”
“Shut your piehole.” Scowling, Aubree looks to her boss. “It’s time for them to leave, right?” Then she brings her teasing eyes to us. “It’s time for you to leave. We have important doctor-y things to do, and none of those things include you two.”
“You’re mean and sensitive about your boyfriend situation.” Throwing his head around, giraffe-like, Fletch turns toward the glass door. “We come here looking for help, and all we get is abuse.”
“Probably should get used to it. We’re not likely to change. And, Archer?” Minka waits as I glance back her way. “Maybe all those reportshavebeen filed and they’ve simply been misplaced. In which case, you’re fine. Read them, bring them to me for translation, solve your case. But if they were never done, then you have a thirty-six-year-old problem that includes cops and doctors colluding to mishandle a case. And if that’s the way it is, then you might find a little push back by those same semi-retired officials as you search for answers.”
“You telling me to be careful, Doc?” I study her eyes. The shadows in them, and the deep thinking she rarely voices. “Are you worried about me?”
“We should all be worried. You’re calling cops into question. I’ll be doing the same to the coroner who ran Holly’s case.”
“And lung cancer,” Aubree snickers. “He has that to worry about, too.”
“One packet of fucking cigarettes.One.” Blowing an air kiss to Minka, I turn on my heels and flick Aubree’s hair up, purely to annoy her. Then I move through the door and follow Fletch toward the elevator.
“She found an old pack I forgot about, and it’s like I murdered a fucking kitten.”
“Married life, bruh.” Charging ahead, he slaps the call button and steps back to smile for me. “Sometimes it’s good, and sometimes, you want to sit on a cactus while giving yourself a lobotomy with shit-covered cake beaters charged with an electrical current.”
Looking to him in dismay, I stop on his playful grin and shake my head. “Oddly specific and painful description. But, shit and cake aside, would you do it again?”
When the elevator doors open to reveal someone inside, I step to the left to let them through. But where I expect a scientist who spends most of their time with dead people, it’s Seraphina Lewis who exits with her chin in the air.
She’s proud—especially when Fletch’s eyes latch on and his lips quirk up.
She makes a beeline for Minka’s office on five-inch heels, leaving behind a trail of perfume and unattainable sex.
Setting my foot in the way of the elevator doors, I wait for Fletch to get his fill. Her pencil skirt, and her long legs. Her stockings, with the seductive line up the back that makes a man wonder what’s hidden beneath, and Fletch’s attention, glued to her ass as though his life depends on it.
“You need to stop staring.” With a shake of my head, I grab his arm and tug him into the elevator. “We’re not sticking around for the third Powerpuff Girl to join her squad.”
Hitting the button for the below-ground garage, I wait for the doors to close and for Fletch’s attention to snap back to our reality, rather than the fantasy he’s fucking in his mind.
“If Jada never got sick.” Clarifying, I bring us back on point. “If she never lost her way… would you do it all again?”
“I intended to stay with her forever.” Shrugging, he sets the file between his arm and ribs, then he drops his hands into his pockets and glances down to study his feet. “She was the love of my life, Arch. She was everything, and then she went and threw it away for no good reason. Now our family’s broken, she’s holed up in rehab, and our daughter is living with me.”
He looks up again when the lights above the door indicate our level. “I thought we were a sure bet. I thought we were more certain than death and taxes, and it still went this way. So… nah,” he decides after a moment. “I wouldn’t do it a second time. That shit’s for chumps.”
Stepping out of the elevator, he moves toward the car. “Where are we heading?”
