Page 20 of Sinful Seduction
“Or maybe we could go to the mall! The mall is pretty cold inside, dontcha fink?”
“The mall?”
I laugh—Minka? The mall?Never—then I cross the room and pass Fifi as she tangles herself up in front of the mirror, attempting to see herself, front and back. Stopping in front of my partner, I snap my fingers. “You’re staring. Move.”
“I’m staring because the view is pleasing.” He walks, but his eyes remain rooted, his head rotating to keep hispleasing viewexactly how he likes it. “We don’t have to rush out, anyway. I called Clay just before we got here. He said Molly’s stable, but she ain’t waking up for a while.” He crashes into a mannequin, knocking the boobalicious model askew and reaching out with fast, frenzied movements to catch her before she falls.
The fact he grabs her by the tit is hardly his fault… ish.
“Really, Charlie?” Fifi glares through pointed, willow-green eyes. “With your daughter in the room?”
“No! I…” He sets the mannequin back in place and whips his hands free of her curves. “I didn’t mean to— I didn’t?—”
“Let’s go.” I grab his shoulder holster and use it like a leash, walking him straight past his daughter and through the heavy glass doors. From a pleasant chill to heat that smacks me in the face with the ferocity of a three-hundred-pound WWE wrestler. “Fuck me.” I release him and shield my eyes before the sun melts my skin clean off. “Global warming is real, right? This isn’t normal summer heat. This is the shit they warned us about.”
“Dunno.” He drags a ball cap from his back pocket and unfolds the bill, before slapping the damn thing onto his head. “I was significantly more comfortable in there, Arch. Where the air was cool and the view was hot. My daughter was happy, and?—”
“And my wife was ready to tear my asshole out with a rusty fishing hook. We had to leave, or risk her turning her wrath on us.” I take out my phone, ready to call a ride, but at the bright yellow beacon flashing in my peripherals, I stride to the edge of the sidewalk and wave another taxi down. “This thing better have air conditioning, or I’ll riot.”
“A cab?” Skeptical, he follows. “Since when do we ride yellow?”
“Since my wife was too hot to walk the extra two blocks to the station, so she flagged a taxi down instead.” I pull the back door open and slide in, only to find the exact same driver we arrived with. “Well, this is fun.”
“Air is still on, boss.” He brings us away from the curb the momentFletch is in, cruising along in time with the rest of the traffic. “Heading to the hospital?”
“You listen to your passengers’ conversations often?”
He smirks, settling back in his chair so the fabric touches Fletch’s knees. “Every single time. Your wife is a sassy one, but I heard you call her chief, so I figured to keep my mouth shut and mind my Ps and Qs. She a cop or something?”
“No.” Grunting, Fletch twists his leg, saving his kneecaps from dislocation every time the driver adjusts in his seat. “She’s a medical examiner whoactslike a cop. She’s always up in the detectives’ business, bossing them around and inserting herself in their investigations.”
The older guy whistles, shaking his head and bringing us around a corner. “Sounds like you got your hands full. And those detectives probably try to run the other way every time they see her arrive on the scene, huh? Bossy women are cute at home. But on the job…?” He clicks his tongue, meeting my eyes in the mirror. “You a medical examiner, too?”
“No. I’m one of the detectives she bosses around every day.” I flash a smile and look at a giggling Fletch, hiding beneath the bill of his cap. “You set her up for that, asshole. I’m gonna tell her what you said about her.”
Fletch and I walk the halls of Copeland City Hospital, cold air on my hot skin eliciting goosebumps that prickle beneath my shirt and spread all the way to my toes. The stark contrast to the outside world is stunning, shocking my body into an almost visceral reaction that takes my breath away. “Jesus.” I rub my arms like a total pussy, shivering while I wait for my system to adapt. “It’s freezing in here.”
“We know where the biggest drain on the city power grid is coming from, huh?” He digs his hands into his pockets—he’s cold too, but too proud to say so—and walks the halls of the ICU like he knows his way with his eyes closed.
Sadly, he does. Because his wife died on this floor mere months ago.
“Miss Penny seemed short of breath just coming down the stairs of my apartment building earlier.” He glances across with a set of honeycomb eyes matching the ones he passed down to his daughter. “I’m glad she’s with the girls, because even if Minka, Aubs, and Sera are at each other’s throats the whole damn time, they’re still young enough to not expire from the fucking heat the way Penny might.”
“You expecting your nanny to drop dead?”
He chuckles. “I’m really hoping she doesn’t. If this weather doesn’t back off soon, we might have a hospital swelling with heatstroke victims.” He leads us around a corner, lifting his chin as we pass a pair of uniformed officers, then nodding as Clay clocks us at the very opposite end of the hall. Still fifty feet to go, but I can already tell the young officer’s coloring hasn’t improved much since last night. “He’s wasting away, don’t you think?”
“Physically?” I study the guy again, his hundred and eighty pounds, and his thick chest, the kind that proves he spends at least a few days a week under a weight rack. “I mean, he looks fed. A little shaky, maybe, but I wouldn’t put him out to pasture yet.”
“Nah, I mean, professionally. He’s smart—we already caught that from the cop-killer case. He’s fast and willing to charge forward even when bullets are flying. He’s eager to learn, and he’s no wimp. He could’ve handed his badge in after that incident in February, but he didn’t. He’s come back to the job, with a scar on his chest he can’t escape anytime he looks at himself in the mirror, and his CO is just…” Exhaling, he shrugs. “Waste. He deserves better leadership.”
“You looking to adopt a puppy?” I lower my gaze, knowing that walking these halls and passing quiet rooms beeping with life—fragile as it is—with a smile, is not how a man should conduct himself. I watch my shoes. Watch Fletch’s, too. “I’m not gonna tell you no, but I think you’re making a rash choice. We don’t have room for a third. We still have IA watching every fucking step we take, and Lieutenant Fabian’ll probably decline your request, anyway. Besides,” I bring my eyes up again, locking onto a trembling baby officer who stands at attention. “Bringing him in means you and I don’t get to talk freely anymore. He seems a little too… ya know,moralisticto hang with us.”
He snorts, knocking my shoulder with his. “I’m not looking for a puppy. Just making an observation.”
We come to a stop just a few feet from the white-lipped kid, Fletch’s eyes looking him up and down for a long beat. “Officer Clay. Report?”
“Yes, sir.” He relaxes—fractionally—and gulps. “She’s still out, detectives, and the doctors won’t tell me anything since I’m not the primary investigator on file. But I overheard them on rounds. They had to repair a ruptured spleen overnight, and her heart is weak.”
