Page 41 of Sinful Deception

Dipping my hand into my pocket and taking out the phone I left live with a call hours ago, I unlock the screen and swipe across to my log. Last I checked, our discussion spanned approximately four minutes. So I expect it to say six, or maybe even seven minutes before she hung up. Long enough to listen in and get her fix of Mia’s voice. Enough to soothe the lashes on her heart and equip herself with the willpower to stay the course she’s currently on.

But that’s not the number I find.

Forty-seven minutes, she stayed on the line. Forty-seven minutes, she probably left us on speaker and locked herself away in private, so she could visit with the little girl who holds her heart. That same little girl who cried for her mommy and discussed the logistics of speaker systems, rainbows, and an afterlife.

“Forty-seven minutes,” I mumble aloud. “Jesus, Fifi.”

Archer looks up from the couch. “What’s up?”

I lock the screen again and slide the phone into my pocket. Then I glance up and meet the eyes of the man who loves me exactly how I’m meant to be loved. Exactly how Ineedto be loved. “Nothing.”

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” I snag the towel and get back to work. “Everything is fine.”

ARCHER

When sitting in a bright hospital room while your best friend grieves a life that could have been, time drips through an hourglass slower than a man’s sanity can handle. The tick-tick-tick of the clock is a special form of torture, and the passage of time is torturous and tiring.

But then you’re placed back in the real world again. For the first day, time typically sticks to the molasses schedule.Drip. Drip.Insanity-inducing drip. But soon after, when society marches outside your window and a man is forced to interact with the people out there, things tend to speed up.

Arranging a funeral is time-consuming. Especially in cases like Jada’s, where she didn’t have the luxury of dying from a disease like cancer or kidney failure, or even better, from old age. She died because of the damage caused to her internal organs because a man felt entitled to her body, whether she wanted to share it with him or not.

He wanted to fuck, she said no.

He wanted money, she didn’t have that either.

The tread of his boot was stamped on the side of her ribs, because that’s how hard he stomped. The shape of his fists were pounded into her flesh, because he wanted something of hers, and she tried to tell him no.

Jada’s death isn’t the kind where doctors and those in power will sign off and say, ‘All is fine here. Bury her.’ No, she’s still stuck, dead center of a homicide investigation, and though the medical examiner—none of the M.E.s we know, since the law wouldn’t allow such a conflict of interest—has done their job and filed the reports necessary, the fact her case remains open makes bringing her to a funeral home particularly difficult.

Not impossible. Just onerous.

“It’s time to pick music and stuff.” Minka is instrumental in keeping the rest of us sane. She and Aubree are the backbone to everything we do, as Fletch floats through the planning and Mia spends most of her time watching the sky. “We’ve got a date, and we’ve informed the people who need to know. There will be no viewing, as decided—”No shit. Jada’s in no shape to be seen— “But we’ll have a graveside ceremony where the funeral director will read some things and offer his prayers.”

“What was her favorite song?” Aubree sits in Minka’s visitor chair, since this is where we, as a group, find comfort. Even Mia, who plasters her nose to the floor-to-ceiling windows and looks out at the city. “Could be a song she loved to listen to when she needed to find calm. Or one she liked to dance to.”

“What song did she walk down the aisle to?” Minka wonders. “You could consider that one.”

“I have a song in mind.” Slowly, Fletch brings his focus up and nibbles on the inside of his cheek. “It’s kinda country. But it’s nice.”

“Which one?” Aubree whips out her phone and swipes the screen open in preparation to search. “Do you know who it’s from? Or some of the words.”

“Don’t Forget To Remember Me.” He clears his throat and lifts a hand to scratch his jaw. “It’s not the typical Wind Beneath My Wings or whatever. But it’s nice. I figure it could be kinda like we,” though he nods toward Mia, without saying her name or calling attention to the fact he speaks about her, “are saying goodbye for now. But not forever.”

“That’s a good choice.” Minka scribbles her notes and ignores the phones ringing outside her four walls. The techs who stream by. The beds that are wheeled past, and the dead bodies who are, just like Jada, gone. “I can organize that to be the song played for her.”

“Do you want to carry the casket?” Aubree asks the next tough question. Her jaw trembling because of it, but her eyes fierce enough to get her through. “We have options, in that the funeral director could have her placed there already for when we arrive. Or you could select pallbearers who would help you. You’d need six in total.”

“I don’t know that many?—”

“I’ll help you.” I drop my chin in acknowledgment when his eyes swing across. “If that’s what you want. If you truly want to bring her over yourself, then I’ll help.”

“Even though you…” He peeks over at Mia before looking my way again. “Didn’t agree with some of her choices?”

“For you?” My lips curl into a gentle smile. “Yeah. I’ll do whatever you need. And if we need four more to make six, then it just so happens I have four brothers who would help with anything we asked.”

He scoffs, immediately dismissing my words. “Felix and Micah are on the other side of the country.Andwe have beef. No way they’re?—”

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