Page 15 of Sinful Sorrow

“Yeah. She’s not supposed to work late on infusion night. She’s especially not supposed to run cases like this one on infusion night. It takes up too much.”

“Of her time?”

“Of her soul,” I sigh. “She wears it on her sleeve and gives pieces of it away to everyone who comes near. She saves none for her own mental health.”

“You’re so fuckin’ whipped,” he chuckles, changing the tone of our conversation to something far less serious. “Jesus Christ, Archer. She’s fine. She came home, slapped me up the side of the head for having my feet on her textbooks, which were on the table, by the way. The table is a communal space, so that was actually not cool of her. If she wants her dead-people books to be safe, she should put them away.”

“Or you could just be a decent human being while staying in someone else’s home. Not putting your feet on people’s things is like, the bare minimum of effort. Better yet, you could move out to the house and have the whole place to yourself.”

“I’ll move there when you move there,” he teases. “Why would I leave the warm welcoming atmosphere Doctor Mayet provides daily? She enjoys fighting with me. It’s actually a form of flirting.”

“If you so say.” I stride past the bar and glance to my right when a patron steps out and, for a moment, the door swings wide. I catch a glimpse of Tim behind the bar. Daisy, the cute blonde bartender, flipping bottles and serving folks right beside him. And then I notice the thick crowd of drinkers who make up a large proportion of this side of the city’s first responders. “You heading to bed anytime soon?”

“I was waiting for you to get home.” He yawns, finally allowing himself to appear like the normal, functional member of society who is in school all day, on the basketball courts all afternoon, and then staying up late to monitor his sister-in-law until I get home from work at night. “I get the feeling neither of you would like me to pick her up while she sleeps. And I didn’t wanna leave her alone on the couch. She’s beyond walking to the bed herself. So I just figured…”

“You did good.” I continue past the bar and push through the heavy glass door guarding our shitty apartment building, where the stairwell is freezing in the winter and boiling in the summer. Our apartment still has roof damage from a storm that occurred almost a year ago, and we have to climb four flights of stairs at the end of every long day just to get there.

But still… we’re not leaving for a while yet. And even when we do, I get the feeling Minka will want to bring her homely landlord who is older than Jesus and droopier than a basset hound.

He’s the building’s father figure, ensuring his little lambs are tucked up safe at night. And that thought, as I pass his door and start up the stairs, makes me realize I could have skipped calling the George Stanely and Cato for an update on my wife’s whereabouts.

Steve would know all.

“I’m twenty seconds away.” I finally bring my focus back to my brother. “Then I’m taking my ass to bed. What time do you have to be out in the morning?”

“My first class is at eleven.” He yawns again and closes a textbook with a noisy slam. Probably the economics kind, and not the dead-body kind. “I can sleep in, and probably even get an hour in at the Condor stadium before I have to be in class.”

“You realize you don’t have free access to the Condor’s courts, right? They’re part of the NBA. You can’t just waltz in and?—”

“You realize I don’t give a fuck about your opinion on the matter? And that Felix has invested enough money into the team to ensure Whittaker doesn’t toss me on my ass every time I wanna throw a ball around.”

I firm my lips and turn at the third-floor landing. “I’m just saying… if it was me, I’d prefer to know I made it on my own hard work. Not because Big Brother Lix paved the way with bricks of gold.”

“Yeah, but that’s pride talking.” He moves across the apartment, then the telltale snick of my locks plays through our call and my own ears at the same time. I emerge at the top of stairs and lower the phone as my little brother—six foot, two inches tall at only eighteen years old—opens the door. His hair is longer than mine, dangling over his brow. And he’s thinner than me by a fair bit because his metabolism is too fast for his own good, leaving the future NBA star on the scrawny side.

He kills our call and waits at the door with a smirk. “You’re home late, Mr. Malone.”

“Because I have a dead body, a kid in a Ghostface costume, and a whole bunch of people leaning on me to solve a murder witnessed by too many, including, but not limited to, a home security system and footage that’s been promised to be delivered tomorrow morning. Furthermore,” I stride into the apartment, making a beeline for the couch.

The lights are out, so the only illumination comes from the hallway and the television set playing an old Knicks championship game.

Cato follows me into the apartment and closes the door at his back. “Furthermore, what?”

“I have a wife who works until she drops and medicates way later than she’s supposed to. An ideal evening would include dinner at a reasonable hour, medication, a movie, and bed by nine.” I spy the Factor bottles on the table, empty and lid-less. Minka’s rainbow tourniquet sits beside those, and just as Cato described, a needle and tape beside that.

Without context, it could all appear kinda confronting. But this is my life now, and she owns every part of my heart. So I grab the bottles and needle, collecting the tape and Band-Aid wrapper, and turning to the kitchen, I deposit everything where it belongs. I toss the tourniquet into the tub atop the fridge, and the needle into the container under the sink. I toss the wrappings and tissue into the trash, then finally, I turn back to my brother and incline my chin. “Thanks for keeping an eye on her tonight.”

He leans against the couch and folds his arms. “Not really a hardship. I kinda have a crush on her.”

I roll my eyes and wipe my hands on my jeans. Then I start toward the pair. “Kill the crush. Find someone your own age. Or better yet, focus on your studies and the game. You can get a girlfriend once school is done.” I move around the couch and scoop my wife into my arms. She’s toasty warm and entirely too languid as I bring her to my chest and rest her cheek over my heart. Six months ago, she’d have woken from my actions. Startled and angry because she was caught with her eyes closed. But now she trusts. Now, she allows me to see this one vulnerability.

Turning, I move toward the hall and say a silent thanks for the fact that her shoes are already off, and her clothes are not those she wore to the office. Rather, she changed into a slouchy tank and skintight yoga pants at some point tonight.

“I wanna talk to you in the morning, okay?” I stop at the mouth of the hall and glance back as my brother clears his studying mess away and begins preparing his bed for the night.

As in, the couch.

“I have some questions that might help me with my current case.”

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