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Finally, he drops his hand again and shuffles our colleagues into the station. Away from danger… maybe. Or toward it, if his statement is true.
“Goddammit!”
ARCHER
“That went about as well as one could expect it to.” Fletch stalks across the living room of a house he doesn’t live in. But he’s staying over tonight with his sweet little Mia, the latter, who climbs onto a stool in front of an untuned piano and taps at the keys. Fifi sits on the couch, her posture intensely rigid and her face pointing in any direction except toward the little girl she so desperately wants to spend time with.
She doesn’t look at Fletch, either.
Aubree sits beside her, and Tim… well… he’s around, I think. He said he was, but I’ve yet to see proof of that since he deposited Aubree here and left.
The mayor declined his invitation to stay inside my father’s home—the estate handed down to his sons once he died—citing his very own home right next door and the ample security he possesses.
He, too, has connections to a certain computer-wielding ballerina who only works with the very best security money can buy.
“You just set the whole fucking precinct on fire.” Frustrated, Fletch pins me with a glare. “You know what you did.”
“Yeah.” My phone vibrates with messages. Phone calls. Emails. The whole world wants my attention, and none, except for one, gets it.
Minka, of course, receives her rocks as promised.
“I did it on purpose. Now we wait for the fallout.”
“You don’t believe thebroccoliis a cop?” Aubree does the crazy-eyes and looks toward an oblivious Mia badly playing the piano. “The broccoli is someone else?”
“No, I definitely believe the broccoli is a cop. I also believe the broccoli is exceptionally sneaky and well insulated. I believe the broccoli is likely to confront me tomorrow. I do not believe the broccoli is going to shoot up any of our homes.”
“But you’re putting us here, just in case,” Fifi rumbles. “There’s doubt in your beliefs, Detective.”
There’s love in my heart for the people who matter to me. And you, my sweet Seraphina, matter to my best friend.
“Just being cautious,” I answer instead. “There’s enough room here for everyone to have their own privacy, and the property is well protected. We’re on a hill, so we’ll know if someone is driving up, and not only is the house secure, but the mayor’s is even more so. His alarms will bleat in time to let us know we have company.”
My phone vibrates again, and my stomach rumbles with hunger, so I turn on my heels and head toward the kitchen. “We lit the fuse,” I call over my shoulder, taking the phone from my pocket and spying Minka’s name on the screen. She doesn’t send me a rock this time, but a penguin. A request. “Felix has allocated additional security to the house,” I tell them. “I’m sending one of them out to get us food, since there’s nothing here to eat.” And yet, I hit dial on Minka’s name and swing the fridge open in misplaced hope. No one has lived here in decades, soifthere was food, that would be a fuckin’ problem. “I’m taking this call, then I’m coming downstairs to eat.”
“Archer?” Minka’s breath shudders on a sigh of panic. “You’re in so much trouble.”
I slam the fridge shut and move into the hall. I know she hears me breathing. My steps. I know she knows I’m here, but as I jog up the stairs, I remain silent and wait. For privacy. For space, for just the two of us.
“I miss you so much,” she exhales, reclining on her mattress so I hear the ruffle of her blankets. “It’s been barely more than twenty-four hours, and I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin.”
“I miss you too.” Finally, I breach the top landing and turn toward the main bedroom. My father brought his whores here. He killed here. He ruled the very city Nathan Booth wants to own, from this house. “If I could pick you up from that bed and bring you to mine, I would. In a fucking heartbeat.”
“How could you tell I was in bed?”
A smile breaks across my lips, just in time for me to leave the hallway and close the bedroom door at my back. “I know what you sound like in bed. You breathe different when you’re horizontal.” I don’t look around too much. Fuck knows, I don’t want to see the massive four-poster bed and think of the women my father cuffed to them. Sometimes it was sexy,probably. Most of the time, it was torture. I don’t want to see the desk he worked at, or the sofa he sipped his coffee on while he ended lives. Or ruined them. Shit, he might’vecreatedlife in this room—me, or one of my brothers, perhaps. “Talk to me.” I cross the room and perch on the edge of the mattress. “Take me out of this world and put me in yours before I go crazy.”
“You’re scaring me.” Her voice hitches with an ache I know too well. A dread I loathe for her to feel. “You’re painting yourself as a target, and now you’re begging me for relief. You didn’t have to do that, ya know?”
“I’m not worried about work.” My skin practically fucking crawls for every miniscule second I sit here, so I slip off the end of the dusty bed and park my ass on the floor instead. My knees up, so I can rest my elbows on top, and my back pressed to the frame.
If nothing else, I know for certain my father never sat here.
He was too proud to assume such a position.
“I brought everyone to the waterfalls. To get them out of their apartments for a night, and somewhere no one would think to look. Just in case.”
“Just in case you get shot,” she sighs. “Not comforting.”
