Page 23 of Sinful Deception

“They will do the best they can.” Minka crouches on my right and sets her hand on my knee. “A doctor will always do everything they can to save a patient. It’s the vow we take, nomatter that she’s an addict. They’re trying their best, but you need to take a breath.”

“Shit!” A nurse, or a doctor, or fuck, could be the pastor, cusses in Jada’s room. “Doctor Tran?”

“Tracheotomy,” he announces. Then, as the sound of steel tools clatters and echoes into the hall, he adds, “I’ll cut.”

“Focus here,” Minka croons, stroking my knee and bending closer, so it’s her perfume I smell, not the antiseptic that fills every hospital hall. “Can you hear my voice, Charlie?” She keeps it soft. Gentle. Soothing, even. Which is a stark contrast, considering she’s the fucking vigilante killer that watches over this city; a gargoyle on the corner of every building. What she misses, Sophia Solomon catches. “Fletcher? Can you hear me?”

“Where’s Sophia?” Dizzy, I bring my head up again and search the hall. Past sprinting nurses and an orderly leisurely rolling a laundry trolley along the laminate flooring. Men line the hall, guards, though I know they don’t belong to the hospital. And then I find Soph, the deadly ballerina who sees all. Watching. Waiting. Her brown eyes burn into mine.

Gone is her smugness. Her teasing. Gone is her arrogant,I know everything and like being the smartest person in the roomattitude, and in its place is a woman who has a heart. One whose fate could have been just like this, if her husband chose differently.

“Mr. Fletcher?” A nurse, one I don’t know, crouches on Archer’s other side and jams her thumb into my eyelid, sliding it up and blinding me with a pen light. “How are you doing, Mr. Fletcher?”

“He’s alright.” Minka moves her hand to the back of my neck. “Take a deep breath and unstick those lungs.”

“Is she…” Dazedly, I look past my crowd and stop on Jada’s room door. “Is she gonna be okay?”

The long, constantbeeeeepstops, the horrifying sound ending, so its absence makes everything else stand out in contrast. Then I look to Minka, hopeful. “She’s okay again? That means they got her back?”

Her eyes well up. They burn red and send daggers straight to my heart. But she doesn’t say what everyone else so clearly understands.

Everyone except me.

“Call it, Doctor Tran.”

“Time of death…” His voice comes a little louder, as though he wanders to the clock, perched high above the only door leading in and out of the room. “Sixteen thirty-nine.”

“Oh God.” Sera’s breath catches and comes out on a choked gasp, drawing my eyes along the hall and to the tears streaming along her cheeks. “Oh, Charlie.”

MINKA

“We’ll take you back to your apartment.” I wrap my arm around Fletch’s and carry more of his weight than I would expect of a man so tall, so strong and capable. But he’s more than grieving. More than broken-hearted.

He’s bone-deep exhausted, and it’s barely past seven p.m.

“Mia’s at home with Penny,” I explain while Archer follows up behind us, grabbing things he knows we’ll need. Like my coat. Fletch’s phone. A morsel of sanity, if it can be found.

“She doesn’t know yet.” Rasping, Fletch glances around the ward as we slowly walk toward the elevator. Jada’s body is already in the morgue downstairs. Her organs, unusable even if she had signed on for donation. Her body, battered and broken.

Worse now, after the doctor’s attempts to bring her back.

She died today, just three days short of her thirtieth birthday. Once, a stage-famous dancer, and now… just, nothing. An addict whose habit killed her in the end, and a mom whose daughter will hopefully never remember the lowest, worst days.

“How am I supposed to tell Mia?” His voice crackles. “How am I supposed to tell my baby her mommy died?”

“We don’t have to tell her today.” Archer steps ahead and smacks the elevator call button before turning and looking his friend in the eyes. “I know that sounds kinda unreasonable, but she’s so little, Fletch, and a day or two won’t change anything. Give yourself time to rest.” As soon as the doors open and reveal an empty interior, he backs up and makes room for us to shuffle in. “Give yourself time to process everything, and then you can come up with what needs to be said.”

“I can’t lie to her.” He sniffles and swipes beneath his eyes, though tears don’t fall. I think he’s run out of them. “I can’t lie, Arch. She deserves?—”

“She’s four. It’s not lying if she doesn’t even ask, and there’s no way she’ll ask that question unprompted. We can go home and just…” He reaches around and selects the underground garage, to collect a car he had brought over, and facilitate a ride home that doesn’t include walking the streets. “Go home and try to catch our breath. You’ve been up since the middle of last night. I didn’t see you eat, man. You didn’t rest. You’ve been in fight mode all damn day, and soon, you have to tell your baby something that will rock her for the rest of her life. It’s best you sleep on it, if only for tonight, don’t you think?”

“But you want me to pretend everything is okay?” He drags his arm from my hold. Though it’s gentle. There’s no rejection. Simply… willpower to stand on his own. “Go home and act like my world hasn’t changed forever?”

“We could send her over to our apartment?” I offer. “Let her spend the night with Cato. She’ll like that, and you won’t have to pretend anything. It would?—”

“No.” He digs his hands deep into his pockets and starts out of the elevator as soon as the doors slide open. But then he stopsagain, because a black SUV pulls up and a driver in a suit slides out. “What?”

“Mr. Malone has instructed you to ride with us today.” He looks past Fletch to me and dips his chin. Time and experience with this family allows me a chance to recognize faces. “Doctor Mayet. Detective Malone.”

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