Page 16 of Sinful Promise
It’s not his fault he may eventually try to arrest me for this.
“What’s going on, Arch?”
I keep my mouth shut and head into the hall to study the peeling wall, knowing I had my back to it last night. The flaking paint. The sprinkle of off-white now littering the floor. If I was actively working to solve this case, I’d have CSIs pick those up and send them away for testing in hopes of finding residual DNA.
Did Minka lose a stray hair while walking this hall? Did she scratch her arm and knock loose any dry skin?
Did I breathe too heavily? Did I touch a doorhandle and not realize?
“Arch?”
As I continue walking, Fletch step-jogs to catch up, then slaps a hand to my shoulder, pulling me up short before I make my way downstairs.
“What the fuck is going on with you?” he demands.
“Nothing.” Carefully, I bring my eyes around and meet his honeycomb stare.
He knew everything there ever was to know about me before Minka came into my life. That I’ve killed before. I’ve hurt. Stolen. Cheated. I was the son of a fucking mafioso, and it wasn’t all that long ago, I snapped a man’s neck and left him to lie in the dirt.
Killing a man, when justified, isn’t something I wouldn’t tell Fletch.
ButMinkakilling a man in cold blood, a dagger through his heart… Linking her name to the vigilante…
I shrug his hand off to continue downstairs. “Nothing’s going on. It’s my first day back on the job after a week away—and before that, I was on medical leave.” I move over a creaking stair and startle at the brutal reminder from last night. Swallowing, I turn and meet his eyes. “It’s taking me a minute to find my rhythm again.”
“Do you need to talk about your dad?” He follows when I continue toward the living room—a space Minka and I didn’t come into last night. We didn’t even breathe in this direction. “He’s dead, Arch. Love him or hate him, he’s gone, and Felix is the head of the table. That’s gotta weigh on a man’s mind.”
“Felix being the head of anything is a concern.”
I wander into the kitchen to find dirty dishes in the sink and a laptop open on the table. A jacket draped across a dining chair, and a half-consumed can of soda on the counter.
When a uniformed officer wanders through, I snatch the pen from his hand and use the end to poke the power button on the computer.
I don’t expect much. The battery could be drained. Maybe it won’t work, and we’ll have to transport the device to the station to see what’s on it.
For a single beat of my heart, I hope for just enough remaining juice to see what Fentone was up to.
But then the screen fires up, and pictures of little girls sear themselves on my brain.
“Fuck.” Bile rises in my throat and burns the back of my tongue.
These photographs alone, images a sick man buys from the dark web, would’ve been enough to arrest Fentone and toss him back into a cage. They’re surely a good reason to have put a knife in his heart and a bullet in his brain.
“Fuckin’ hell, Fletch.” I turn my face away and try to rid my mind of the filth that men like Fentone seek out. “They’re just babies.”
“Same age as mine,” he grits out. Twisting away, he lifts a hand to summon a crime scene tech. “Come over here,” he calls. “I want this bagged and checked into evidence. Then send it to the tech division so they can pull whatever they need.”
“But…” The guy who wanders closer in full PPE gear—gloves, mask, and rubber suit, so he neither sheds DNA of his own nor absorbs our evidence—frowns. “He’s no longer under investigation.”
“He’salwaysunder investigation,” Fletch growls. “The dude may be dead, but he was a person of interest in two unsolved homicides. His death doesn’t preclude the others from being solved.”
With a huff of disgust, he spins my way and bumps my shoulder with his to get us moving. “We’ll have to let Detective Franklin know, too. And Delicious will wanna be kept in the loop, since she was M.E. for the girls.”
“Yep.” I’ve never in my life tried so hardnotto solve a homicide… to avert my eyes and see as little as possible. And fuck, but it hurts my soul. “Franklin can probably let her know, once he’s gone through the computer and found whatever else is on it. Fentone hurt those babies, Fletch. We know he did.”
“Yeah, and Delicious knew it too. She washoundingme to pull his records while you were in New York, Arch. Fucking badgering. And word on the street is she sat in on Franklin’s interrogation. In fact,” he stops by the front door, so the fresh air from outside—albeit humid and choking with too much pollution—eases the stench of death. “I have it on good authority you’ve made a habit of providing the good doctor with jackets and data she probably shouldn’t have.”
Shit.
