Page 7 of Hell In A Handbasket
“For your heart.”
“Oh God.” Aubree mock-gags, loud and obnoxious, even as Minka’s phone trills. “That was so freakin’ cheesy, Malone. How long have you been saving that up for?”
“Don’t call me cheesy! I was exposing my soul and vulnerability because I love my wifesomuch. Gagging is unkind.”
“You’re a Malone,” Minka drones. “Makes you a hundred percent cheese.” Whipping her hand forward, she answers her call by tapping the speaker button. “This is Chief Mayet.”
“Chief. I have a Detective Asa on line three for you. Can I connect the call?”
Fuck.
Just like that, my smile vanishes and Aubree’s mock-gagging cuts to a gurgled stop. Minka’s eyes sling to mine, and though she hovers a hand above the phone, it trembles.
Dammit. It trembles.
“Chief Mayet? Can I connect the call?”
“Uh… yeah.” She clears her throat and nods, though fuck knows, Callen can’t see the movement of her head. “I’ll take the call. Thanks.”
Fletch and Fifi wander back through the door, smiling—him—and carrying two coffees—her. It doesn’t take a genius to feel the tension in the air, least of all the anxious energy wafting from my fucking soul.
Sophia Asa Solomon isn’t a woman I trust on speakerphone, and Fifi isn’t asinon Minka’s secrets as the rest of us. She doesn’t know what we know.
Of course, Fletch feels that.
“What’s wrong?” He shuffles Fifi across the threshold and closes the door. “What happened?”
Instead of explaining, Minka selects line three. “Detective Asa. This is Chief Mayet. Before you start, you should know you’re on speaker, and we have an audience.”
“Detective Asa?” Fletch snatches Fifi’s coffees and strides to the desk, silently mouthingwhat the fuck?
“Are you sitting down, Chief?” Soph is always, and will forever be, one of the largest sources of stress I’ll ever know. Because she’s too fucking powerful. Too knowledgeable. Too messy. “I have something I want to talk to you about, but you need to be sitting.”
“Come on, Soph.” Minka slams her elbows to her desk, then her face to her hands. “The last time you called and started with those words, I didn’t like what came next. Say sike right now.”
“Not sike,” she sighs. “I have a case I need your team to investigate. I need you on a plane tomorrow.”
“A plane?” Fuck it. She’s not arealcop, and this call clearly needn’t follow real rules of engagement. I sit on the edge of my seat and stare down at the phone. “She’s not leaving this city without me, Asa. No fucking way.”
“Detective Malone. Detective Fletcher?”
He grunts. “Present. What’s the case, Soph?”
“Doctor Emeri there, too?”
Like a game of pinball, Fifi’s eyes shoot from one person to the next. Because she’s the only one here who has no fucking clue who Soph is.
They’ve met. But she doesn’tknow.
“Emeri?”
“Yeah,” Aubree murmurs. “I’m here.”
“Why do you need us, Asa?” I set my elbows on Mayet’s desk and lean closer. “Wherever you think you’re flying her, I assure you, there are doctors there, too. Different doctors.”
“I needthesedoctors. And since they come with their own cops, it makes my life a hell of a lot easier.”
Sounds illegal.
