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Shaking my head, I close my eyes and attempt to push my suffocating thoughts aside so I can focus on my reason for calling. Because maybe I’ve trained for those scenes too, and I’ve seen death up close enough to touch. But to know what I know now has left me with my own set of traumas I fully intend to bottle up and squash down for the rest of time.
I married into the mafia.
“You said you intended to call me. What did you want to talk about?” Opening my eyes again, I startle when I find Archer staring intensely from across the kitchen.
He watches me closer than I could have ever expected in a relationship. He cares more than I can ever truly accept. He acts kind of untroubled and joking sometimes, but his love and protection are absolute.
Proven already when he stepped in front of a gun to save me from pain.
“Caseloads.” Aubree’s voice brings me back to her. To the normalcy she craves.
Normalcy, to us, is to discuss every dead body… exceptthatone.
“Doctor Raquel sends her regards,” she continues. “And her thanks for the new tech who started this morning. Doctor Kirk tied up a biggie today. He set his reports on your desk—to which I helped myself and read every last word. Female vic, killed by her cousin. It was a money thing.”
“Generally is,” I murmur.
“Kirk called it right. His notes are so perfect, I’d bet you’d give him a gold star if you had any. My professional opinion is he learned his lesson after the whole Drew Kernicke drama, and at this point, he could probably lose the training wheels. I think he can work without you sitting on his shoulder in the future.”
“Good. Saves me time.” I store that information away for future reference and think of everything else on my desk. “What about you? What are you working on?”
“Closed a couple today, actually. Killers around Copeland are getting sloppier.”
She says it like the thought is something for us to celebrate. As though, if wemusthave murderers on our streets, the least they could do is make their crimes easily solvable.
“Mandy Toohey was thirty-five years old. Hit and run. Driver panicked and fled the scene. I was able to determine the exact cause of death, and also provide the lead detectives paint samples from the car that hit her. It’s a slam dunk from here on out. I also closed Julia Morrow; she was a supposed suicide by overdose.”
“So,notan OD?”
“Nope. She was fed those pills and held down till they took her under. I found deep muscle bruising consistent with the size of her fiancé’s hand, so the cops took that and ran with it. He’s already in custody.”
“Happy days. Does that mean you’re ready to take over as chief yet? I think it’s time I retire.”
“Please don’t.”
I was aiming for funny, but the desperation in Aubree’s tone makes me frown.
“I love my job, Minka. But I wouldn’t love it nearly as much if I didn’t work with you daily. If you’re leaving, I’m leaving too.”
“Wow.”
Archer remains standing, watching me, but his face turns paler with every minute that passes, so I scoot off the edge of the counter and drop to my feet. Then I loop my arm around his and lead us to the couch.
He needs a horizontal place to rest, new dressing on his shoulder, and a warm meal in his belly.
The worst part about criminals and bullet wounds that come from a mafia gun, is that a man cannot go to the regular hospital without having to answer a million questions that might get him into trouble. So Archer gets me instead: a doctor for the dead, and antibiotics prescribed for animals.
“Sit down,” I murmur for him, while keeping the phone pressed to my ear. “I’ll be back in a sec.”
Moving into the hall, I head for the bathroom and leave Archer swaying on the couch. He’s healing up, but that doesn’t mean his body has replaced the blood he lost inside that old boat warehouse. It doesn’t mean he can skip bedrest and continue to have sex and traipse across his apartment like he has no cares in the world.
“How is he?” Aubree whispers, though she really doesn’t have to. “Getting better?”
“He’s stubborn.” I grab new bandages and antiseptic lotion from the cabinet. “And I’m stubborn,” I confess. “So sometimes, I push him to get his own damn cereal. Other times, I have to force him to sit down before he falls.”
“Infection? He’s not septic, right?”
“No. We’re just waiting it out and keeping him clean and rested in the meantime.”
