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Then I take out my phone and find her name flashing for my attention.
“Thank fuck.” Swiping to answer, I put the call on speaker—a perk I considered when coming here instead of going back to our shared apartment—then I head to the fridge to see what’s on offer. “I’ve missed you so damn much, Minnnka. I’ve officially become a simp for you.”
“I mean…” She’s in bed already. Snuggling into the blankets and breathing slower. Readying for sleep. “I don’t mind that you live to satisfy me, Detective. There are worse relationships to be in.”
I grab a bottle of water and slam the door shut, then I navigate to my food delivery apps and search for something fast. Somethingfilling. This is the opposite perk of not staying at our shared apartment—no burger at Tim’s unless I want to go out again. “Have you simmered down since our last phone call?”
“You mean the pesky detail of me being mad about my own abduction?” I know she rolls her eyes. “It was naïve of me to think he’d allow anything else. And it’s not so bad here. They let me eat and come to my room without a lot of fuss.”
“Really?” I settle on Mexican and hit ‘re-order’ on a meal I’ve had in the past. But then I halve it, because Minka isn’t here to eat with me. “Felix didn’t nag you to stay up and hang out?”
“Nah. But he asked to come to my room with me so he could listen in on our call.”
Working my way through the app’s steps and accepting the price, I cough out a small laugh that mostly comes out as a breath. “He’s such a little bitch. Christabelle hasn’t killed him yet?”
“No, I think she’s adapting. She’s accepted the fact that her fiancé is a complete whack job. While also possessive of her whack job. The fact that I’m intolerant of his advances keeps us both safe.”
“Good to know you’ve remained strong on rejecting him,” I tease. I receive a message indicating my dinner will be here in about twenty minutes, so I maneuver out of that screen and go back to our call, then I circle the kitchen counter and head to the couch. I have nowhere to be and no one else to talk to except right here and her. Bending, I untie my laces as I move, kicking them off and dropping onto the dusty couch with athwump. “Everything feels weird without you here.”
“I know.”
“But add in that you’rethere.” I shake my head. “My whole fuckin’ life has come three-sixty. We were taught to never, ever bring anyone we cared about to that house. Or else.”
“You’ve brought me here before. Several times.”
“Yeah, but doing so was to be defiant. I was breaking the curse and calling the Malone bluff. But fuck, Minka. I was with you every single time. I had my eyes on you each time. So although having you there went against my instincts, at least I had you in my sight and I knew you were okay. Now I’ve sent you there without me. It feels so wrong.”
“You trust your brothers, don’t you?” She’s not asking because she’s worried. Rather, she’s arguingforthem. “Your father is dead, and he was the only Malone who ever hurt you. Your brothers are just…” She shifts, so the noisy movement of her blankets rolls through the line. “They caught a bad reputation by association. Sadly, though Iwantto dislike them, they’ve done nothing to deserve it.”
“Which is insane,” I admit in an amused huff. “I spent sixteen years distrusting them. It’s taking me a minute to accept that maybe they’re not so bad.”
“I mean… Felix is quite possibly the most annoying person I’ve ever met in my life,” she taunts. “Cato comes in a close second. Micah is redeemable, purely because he hardly speaks at all.”
“And me?”
She sighs. “You have my heart. Forever and always. Any movement on your case since we last talked?”
“Yeah.” I recline on my couch, opening my legs wide, and rest the back of my head against the cushions. I’m not moving again until my food is here. “So Wright and Mercer have been partners since two-thousand and fifteen. Both worked beat for a couple of years prior to that. Mercer was in homicide for a season or two, and Wright was in organized crime. They met up in narcotics in fifteen, which is where official introductions were made.”
“They hadn’t met before that?”
“Perhaps in passing, but not so far as we can find the documentation. Their lieutenant says they got along well, they were close, and in the last several years, there was no notable beef between the two.”
“Is there a reason you’re investigating the pair, as though they might be the reason for each other’s demise?”
“Just getting a clearer picture. They were partners for around seven years. Which is almost as long as me and Fletch have been partners. We have beef all the time,” I chuckle. “But we’re family, too. That matters. The girlfriends?—”
“Wright and Mercer’s?”
“Yeah. Lena and Deana; they’re friendly. They hang out on weekends. They’ve met each other’s families, yada yada yada.”
“So it all seems normal, right?”
“Right. Home front seems legit. So then we caught all of Mercer and Wright’s case notes, and that’s what we’ve been doing all day today and tonight.”
“Except for the stakeout thing?”
“Except for that,” I accept with a smile. “But I told you already, that was purely observation. We sat in the car for a little bit and got the lay of the land. Even then, Fletch and I were reading case notes in the cruiser.”
