Page 24 of Sinful Sorrow

“We understand your line of thinking,” Fletch adds. “To be a lawyer, in your case, or a cop, in mine, and be a parent means you’ll use your skills and determination to keep your child safe. But roadblocking and giving us attitude when we’re searching for answers for that poor girl is not how you make friends.”

“So how about you drop the shit?” I flash a feral smile when Morgan’s eyes swing to me. “And help us out. Because there’s no way you knew that girl for the last eighteen years, and aren’t broken hearted today, knowing what happened to her.”

“Unless, of course,” Fletch takes over, “you were the one who orchestrated all this.”

“I assure you,” Daniel blusters, reddening in the cheeks, “I am not that person.”

“So I guess we’re all friends then.” I drag my hands from my pockets and gesture up the stairs. Since the self-important prick has kept us at the bottom, and he, at the top. It’s a power play he thinks makes him slick. “Could we come in, Daniel? We’d like to get your observations not only on your son, but his relationship, too. As well as your thoughts on the Wallaces in general. The more information we have, the fuller our picture can be. And once we have a picture, we hope to solve a crime.”

MINKA

Isit back at my desk and press my thumbs against my eyes. I crush them closed and count stars as they float across my vision. Phones trill non-stop, risking my mental stability and the callers’ safety. But then the swoop of my office door sucks the air from the room, forcing me to lower my hands and blink the dots from my eyes.

I expected to see Aubree—she’s so often the person casting shadows on my floor—so when it’s Mayor Lawrence himself, in a pressed black suit, salt and pepper hair, and a week-old stubble on his jaw, I startle straight in my chair and ignore my coworker’s stunned expression and face pressed unceremoniously to the glass at his back.

“Sleeping on the job, Chief Mayet?” Lawrence sets his hands in his pockets, so the ends of his jacket sit at odd angles and his sleeves ride up and expose both wrists.

He wears a watch on one.

And a leather band with a single charm on the other.

“Not entirely professional, I would think. Is your sleep schedule the reason my calls consistently go unanswered?”

“Um…” I glance at my still-ringing phone. And though I can’t entirely pinpoint which brain cell instructs me to do it, I pick up the handset, then drop it again, to end the call bouncing from one glass wall to the next. “I wasn’t sleeping, Mayor.”

“You were meditating?” He circles my visitor’s chair and slowly, elegantly sits down, unbuttoning his jacket and crossing one leg over the other. “I never picked you for a woman who takes the time.”

“I wasn’t meditating.” I pick up my ringing phone again and drop it down. Wildly unprofessional, I know. “I was thinking, actually. About one of my current cases. But the noise of the phone was intruding. And now?—”

“And now I’m intruding.” He grins. Handsome, devilish, even, and makes poor Aubree melt on the other side of the glass. Yes, she loves Timothy Malone. And sure, someday, eventually, they’ll probably marry and make a bunch of angry babies. But only ninety-eight percent of her loyalties lie with the Malone heir. The rest of her is dedicated to the formidable and objectively sexy Mayor Lawrence.

Former district attorney.

Father to two grown, married women.

Grandfather to… two, I think. I can’t remember.

“Does it surprise you that I’ve come all the way downtown to get eyes on you, Chief?”

“Um—”

“I feel as though we had an understanding,” he pushes on. “Once a week, you take my calls and assure me all is well. I want to know this building is running efficiently, and you, personally, are also healthy. As long as you hold up your side of our agreement, and I’m satisfied everything is fine, then I would leave you be.”

“Mayor—”

“But you haven’t taken my calls once in the last month.”

“I’ve been busy,” I choke out truthfully. “I’ve been?—”

“I left it alone, because you have a penchant for being on the ground and running cases of your own, despite being chief and leaving this building is not necessary. My wife reminds me that seeing you on the news while you save your staff from that same fate brings me the same outcome. Our deal, in the most technical sense, was being honored. Technical,” he growls when I open my mouth to speak. “But the spirit was not.”

“Mayor—”

“Nevertheless,” he hits me with a fatherly look that, had I known the man in my teens, would certainly have preceded a stern talking to, and probably grounding. “That doesn’t mean you’re excused from communications altogether. You are well aware of the terms of our agreement, Doctor Mayet. So consider me confused when you continue to avoid my every attempt to communicate.”

“I’m often busy when you try to talk to me.” Sheepish, I clear my throat and link my fingers, laying my hands in my lap. “I don’t mean to avoid you. It’s just that, when you call, I rarely have the time to chat, and when I do have the time, I’ve forgotten you’ve reached out.”

“And as a result, I’ve had to schedule a meeting with you. In your building. Without informing you of said meeting in advance, for fear you would go out of your way to be busy someplace else.”

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