Page 22 of Sinful Reality

“I’m warming your stuff,” I try again. Because fuck it, this ismyhome, and she’smywife.Paxcan respect that, or he can fuck off and call during business hours tomorrow. “I know you’re starving, so I?—”

Growling in frustration, Minka grits out a tight, “Can you just wait a second, Pax?” Then she lowers her phone and twists on the couch to look me up and down. Her eyes are hard, the way they so often get when standing over a body, but she watches me like she’s surprised I’mhere. Mildly curious, but not in the least bit bothered to understand. “What?”

I roll her medication between my palms and slowly meander her way. “What?”

“You said something?”

“Yeah. I’m warming your…” I show her, since I know she’s private about her hemophilia and firm in her stance against sharing that information with outsiders. Then I close my fingers again to keep going. “Can you wrap that up in two minutes? I’ll have everything ready for you by then.”

“No need.” She lifts her right hand and shows me the syringe held between her palm and fingers, her thumb on the plunger as she slowly pushes medicine into her veins. “I’m infusing now, but I’m not super tired, so I probably won’t crash right after.”

“Uh…” I stop at the back of the couch and spy her rainbow tourniquet hanging loosely around her arm. The used alcohol wipe on the coffee table and the butterfly needle taped to her skin.What the fuck?Irritated, I release my tight grip on the bottle, since I’m not sure if warming it already means I’ve wasted it, but then I glance back to the takeout still in the bag, then to Minka and her complete lack of… well,anything. Emotion. Warmth. Not even strewn about food wrappers littering the couch. “So we’re discussingthat,” I press, “with an audience now?”

“It’s just Pax.” She turns and continues what she started without me. “And I had a bunch of water when I walked in the door. Turns out I wasn’t starving. Just thirsty.”

You skipped lunch, you little liar. And infusing on an empty stomach will knock you on your ass.

“I’m serving up dinner.” Incensed, I spin on my heels and stalk to the kitchen, setting the diluent back into the fridge and taking down plates from the cupboard. “You’re eating, Mayet. It’s not up for discussion.”

“He sounds…” Paxton’s gritty throat clearing echoes throughout my home, growing louder as she switches the call to speaker. Then he adds with a soft chuckle, “Friendly. Seems I’m interrupting something.”

“Yeah,” I snarl. “You are.”

“Janiesa Sawyer would disagree,” Minka cuts me off with a furioussnap. “She’s in some asshole’s basement tonight. Starving, terrified, and chances are, he’s already violated her body, stripped her down, and destroyed her sense of smell because he drenches his home in methylated spirits. We’re gonna find her in eleven and a half months with random household products in her belly because she had nothing else to eat. But hey, if she’s lucky, shewon’thave a baby in there. God forbidmydinner goes a little cold.” Then back to Pax. “Did you call the moms after we last talked?”

After we last talked?

How fucking often do they talk?

“I started down the list,” he rumbles, shuffling through papers on what I assume is his desk. Fuck knows, maybe he’s home too, sitting on his bed, and chatting withmywife.

Pissed, I tear the takeout bag open and peel the lid off a plastic container, the delicious scent of Thai spices wafting free of their packaging. She has two minutes until I get out an industrial-sized fan and blow the smell straight into the back of her head.

Three minutes before I pick her up and move her my damn self.

“I spoke to Diane’s mother first,” he continues, “since she was the first. But I figure that was a mistake since it was so long ago.”

“She forgot too much?”

“It’s not uncommon. It’s been so long, and she already buried her baby. There comes a point when loved ones just want to put it aside, right?”

Wrong.

“What did she say?”

His stiff shirt crackles through the line, so I see in my mind the way he shrugs. “She was emotional, of course, especially with Janiesa in the news. She tried to remember the places she’d been and the people she’d talked to leading up to Diane’s disappearance. She had some details wrong, so I ran her through her old statements to jog her memories.”

“Did it help?”

He grunts. “Made her cry, mostly. I spent about an hour on the phone with her, rehashing what we already knew, and needling for anything extra. She said she and Diane went to the fruit market every Saturday before the park, and although she’d mentioned the market inher original statements—which means the folks who worked there have been questioned already—it wasn’t a documented routine. So that’s new. She never worked in the hotel industry, didn’t apply for seasonal positions, and held a steady job throughout Diane’s life. Lowe ran through every single one of her coworkers two decades ago. So, in her case, nothing has changed.”

I move to the silverware drawer and take out a fork, focusing on my task and not on the rage bristling under my skin. The potent jealousy burning me up from inside.

“But the fruit market routine is new,” Minka argues. “He didn’t have to work there, Pax. Maybe he bought fruit. Maybe he worked at the place next door. Or down the street. That’s worth putting on the wall and looking into.”

“For what purpose, Min?”

I slam the fork to the counter and spin so fucking fast, my feet skid on the smooth floor.

---