Page 2 of Hell In A Handbasket
“So she cheated, ran, came back, and now that dumb sucker is marrying her anyway?”
Out of patience, Raquel trades her smile for a burning glare. “No, Chief. That’s not what happened, and since you’re so interested, he’s not a poor sucker. He’s in love with her, and she’s in love with him. She had her second baby a few weeks ago—hisbaby, this time—and Saturday is their wedding.” She straightens her back, ponders for a moment, then nods. “Okay, yeah. That’s it. That’s the story.”
“Clearly missing a bunch of details,” Doctor Flynn snaps. “You left a whole bunch out. Don’t leave us hanging like that.”
“They had a baby girl.” Content, she exhales a soft sigh. “As long as the couple is happy, I’m happy. And as long as my brother isn’t killing himself with stress about it all, I’ll let things lie.” She claps her hands and looks to Kirk. “Okay, kid. Your turn for an update.”
Frustrated, I press my hands to my face, digging my fingers against my eyes and hoping for peace. Death would also be acceptable.
She wants tomorrow off work? Good. Great! Take it. Anything for a little quiet.
ARCHER
“The fuck you mean you slept with my girl?” I swoop in and slam my hands to Fletch’s chest. He’s my best friend, my partner on the force, my brother, even if not by blood. But I shove him against a brick wall in the belly of an alleyway known to be where less-than-desirables hang out.
Today, we’re just like them.
I fist the lapel of his shirt and yank him away from the wall, then I ram him back again until the oxygen in his lungs explosively whistles free. “We’ve been friends a long fucking time. But you repay that friendship by fucking my girl?”
“Dude! No, it’s not like?—”
“I saw you with her!” I swing out with the rage of a man sick to death of others thinking they can have a taste of what’s mine, and, slamming my fist to his chin, I feel bad—a teeny, tiny little bit—as his head jerks around and his jaw clicks. “No one touches my girl and lives to talk about it after!”
“Hey, now.” I catch movement in my peripherals. A dark shadow and raised hands—not to fight, but to surrender. Or de-escalate, really. “Is there a problem here, fellas?”
I press one hand to Fletch’s throat to hold him to the wall, and with the other, I snag a blade from my back pocket and bring it around to show our newcomer what he’ll taste if he doesn’t back away. “That’s close enough.”
“Woah!” He stops on a dime, smiling around the cigarette that hangs from his lips. “Cool down, bro. I’m just trying to see that everyone is fine.” Wary, slow, he drags his gaze from my knife to Fletch. “You okay, Trev? You got a handle on this, or…?”
“I’m—”
“Don’t talk to him!” I squeeze Fletch’s throat tighter. “Talk to me! You think I’m a fucking cuck? That I’m gonna let you take what’s mine, and there wouldn’t be a price to pay?”
“Or…” Again, the guy inserts himself, coming another step closer and pinching the cigarette between his fingers. He takes a long draw, filling his lungs and smiling about it, then he pulls the cigarette away and makes a show of tossing the butt to the alleyway floor. He exhales, the stench of smoke hitting my lungs. “So Trev is a buddy of mine. He’s a decent dude. Solid. So maybe there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding?” I massage the side of my blade. Caressing it the way I caress Minka Mayet’s thighs at night. Stroking it the way I stroke her skin every time she’s near. “Was seeing them in bed together a misunderstanding?”
“Go,” Fletch croaks under the pressure of my hand. He waves his friend off. “Go before you get caught up in this shit.”
“I can’t go till I know what’s up.” He slides muddy brown eyes back to me. “Can I help you come to a resolution?”
“No. You fuckin’ can’t.” Fast as a viper, I swing my blade around and drive it into Fletch’s stomach.
He gasps in stunned surprise, slapping his hands to his wound as betrayal shines from honeycomb-colored eyes. Then he buckles, slamming to his knees and falling to the ground.
So I turn to the other dude and show him a blade gleaming red. “You still here?”
“Nope.” He turns on his heels and bolts, skidding in a wet patch that steals his balance and sends him sprawling. He scrambles on his hands and knees, grunting and fighting to get vertical again, and then he slams a bleeding palm against the alleyway wall, deserting the friend he swore to defend only a moment ago.
At my feet, Fletch groans and curls in on himself, holding his stomach and smacking the back of my knee because he’s a petty motherfucker who likes to get that last jab in. “You didn’t have to hit me so fucking hard, asshole.”
I leave him writhing on the dirty ground and walk all the way to the mouth of the alley. The stench of piss and homelessness is violent in the throes of a sweltering June day. The smell becomes a wave in the air, pulsing and growing. Alive and bleeding, making bad worse.
Confirming we’re alone, I turn and walk back the way I came, snagging an evidence baggie from my pocket and bending to scoop up Elton Kerner’s cigarette butt as I pass.
Moving past my partner with a crooked smile, I dig the toe of my boot into his ankle as payback for the fist to my knee, and since Kerner decided to give us a little extra, I walk all the way to the wall where his bloody-handprint stains the brick, and taking out another baggie and a collection tube, I grab samples—twice.
One for the state lab since IA likes to make sure we’re doing everything according to the book. And one for my own curiosity. Since I have access to a different, faster, better lab that the brass doesn’t know about.
