Page 9 of Turkey Trouble

“Felix said we were having dinner up here?”

“Alright,” Felix chuckles. “Seems I’m surrounded by a bunch of fucking narcs. Why are we suddenly snitching on each other just because it’s the holidays? I raised you better, Cato! But you shack up with a cop for three fuckin’ minutes and suddenly you have loose lips?”

“Where is Archer?” I charge through the group—I would toss them like bowling pins if not for the fact half of them are male and twice my size—then I emerge into the hall and desperately search the top of the stairs. “He’s at the bar, right?”

Cato’s dark brows pinch with confusion. “Huh?”

“Archer’s at the bar!” I turn and pin the baby Malone with a glare. “He’s there, right? With Tim?”

“Tim’s there, but so is Daisy. He’s briefing her, then he’s breaking away for dinner.” He shakes his head. “Because it’s a Malone family Thanksgiving, like Lix said.”

“Archer’snotin the bar?” Worry beats in my heart. “You’re not lying?”

He shakes his head.

“Well, then, where the hell is he?” I leave my apartment, filled to the brim with people who think I’m crazy, and charge to the top of the stairs, searching the concrete stairwell and praying I catch the sounds of his footsteps. Or his aftershave in the air. Or his whistle, though God knows, he never whistles. “Archer?!”

“Uh… do we have an actual problem here?” Felix folds through the door and follows to the stair landing when I start down. “Archer’s here. He said he was heading home.”

“Archer isnothere! Clearly.” My walk turns to a fast jog, and my jog turns to a sprint that risks my life as I round the third-floor landing and keep going. “Archer Malone. This is not funny!”

“Mayet?” Lix dashes down the stairs behind me. “He was on the phone. Your act is immature at best.”

“Archer!?” I round the next landing, then the next again, my knees singing when I jump a half-dozen steps and my wrist twisting when I use the railing to maintain my balance. Then I continue down, my freshly washed hair slapping the back of Archer’s hoodie. The string of my fucking thong, riding up my ass and reminding me why no sane person wears this nonsense on a normal day. “Archer?”

“Ms. Mayet?” Steve steps out of his apartment, concern etched on his hundred-year-old face and worry beating in his eyes. “Is everything okay?”

“Have you seen Archer?” I blow past him and crash into the glass door that opens to the street. “Has he come in this afternoon?”

“No. He…” He follows me through the door and huddles into his cardigan when the icy wind whips past. “Doctor Mayet?”

Sirens whoop along the street. Police cars and fire engines, killing all traffic momentum as commuters get caught up in the drama. Blue and red lights illuminate the area as the sun hides behind the buildings and makes a beeline for the horizon. But my heart… my heart aches as intuition has my feet turning. My palms turn clammy despite the cold, and my stomach rolls with dread as I walk.

Then jog.

Then sprint.

“Archer?” I want to puke. I want to scream.Please, not again.“Archer!?”

“Hold on.” Cato catches up to me first. He’s our youngest, but he’s also our resident athlete and his legs are longer than the average person’s body. He grabs my arm before I breach the police tape, yanking me off my feet when motion carries me forward. Then he spins us, placing his back to whatever lies on the other side of the closest truck. He robs himself of the chance to see, to protect me. “Go,” he barks at Micah. “Check it out.”

“Let me go!” I shove Cato back, surprising him with my strength and spinning out of his flailing hands. Then I grab Micah’s sleeve and allow him to drag me along.

“Calm down, Minnnnnka.” Archer’s sultry voice turns my knees to jelly. It empties my lungs and almost has me doubling over in relief. But confusion still swarms in my mind, and darkness threatens to put me on the ground.

“Archer?” Tears burn my eyes as I search, frantically, in every direction. “Where are you?—”

“Up here.”

I snap my head back and stare up at the top of the hospital’s multistory building until I find my husband sitting at the very, very top on a dangerous ledge not made for grown men. He sits with his legs in the wind, one arm folded across his chest to combat the cold, while the other rests on his thigh.

A gentle smile feathers across his lips when our eyes meet.

But then I look to his left and blink once, twice, three times as I study the guy he’s sitting with. Middle-aged, slightly overweight. Balding, but it’s slow and tedious on the way out. That guy’s legs hang in the wind, too, and his right hand is on his thigh.

Worse, a silver glint shimmers between them, shining blue and red as the fire engine lights flicker around.

Handcuffs.

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