Page 28 of Sinful Reality

“They have a romantic past.” She drops her words like a dump truck slamming onto my head. Backing up, then slamming me a second time. “I feel like a total asshole telling you that.” She swallows when I swing my gaze back to her. “When clearly, she hadn’t told you herself. I’m not here to cause drama—you know that’s not me—but they have a past, and that past is weaving its way into a traumatic experience she spent her whole life dissociating from. That meanshebecomes a part of the trauma, and trauma bonds, as we know?—”

“Fuck over even the best people,” I snarl. “Is she talking to him about work, Aubree? Or is this a bond she can’t quite kick, and he’s all too willing to make himself available?”

She licks her bottom lip and startles when Tim steps up at her back, his chest touching her shoulder and his presence like a wall she gets to lean on. She gulps and glances up, holding his stare like it gives her strength. But then she brings her eyes down again, focusing on mine. “I don’t know. I just know she’s vulnerable right now. This case made her who she is today. Now this guy is back since Detective Lowe retired. If he doesn’t solve it, the communication can continue. And if he does, he gets to be the hero. It’s win-win for him, and the fact she takes his callseverytime, though she does that for almost no one else, means his ego is stroked, and their memories are reignited.”

“This motherfucker wants my wife?”

“He just…” She shrugs and shakes her head. “I don’t know, Arch. This isn’t about what he wants. Because if that were the case, then you’d have an issue with, like, everyone on the planet. Your brothers flirt with her every damn day.” She gestures to Fletch. “He asked her to marry him.”

His eyes flare wide with panic. “I was just kidding. It was a joke!”

“Men like what they see,” Aubree continues gently. “She’s pretty, she’s smart. Her ancestry gives her an exotic flair rarely seen in one person. Add in that she’s confident and successful, and you’ve got a pressure cooker just waiting to burst. Men wanting her has never been an issue in the past because she has no interest in returning their flattery or entertaining anything more than a cool brush-off.”

“So you being worried about this dude says what? That sheisinterested in entertaining him? That she wants him, too?” I grab her hat again when she attempts to glance down, yanking her up and forcing her eyes to mine. “Aubree?”

“I’m saying that she’s vulnerable.” She leans back, forcing my hand to drop away. “And I’m concerned that he might be charismatic enough to remind her of their shared history. If he gets past her boundaries, he may successfully blur some lines.”

“No.” Firm, Fletch shakes his head. “She’s the most loyal woman I’ve ever met. There are no lines to blur.”

“But every time he calls,” Aubree inserts, while back at the van, Minka stands again and turns to study her selection of tools. “She’s not Copeland City Chief Medical Examiner Minka Mayet anymore. She’s five-year-old New York Mayet. Or twenty-four-year-old Minka Mayet. You need to keep herhere,” she presses. “Accountable to the person she istoday. Because trauma can fuck with even the most intelligent person, and if she gets caught up in who she was back then, that’s when a line might be crossed.”

“Fuckin’ great!” I spin from my team and meet Minka’s curious stare when she peers this way. The phone remains pressed to her cheek.Detective Gilbert’svoice, still whispering into her ear. And he’s already had her. In his bed. In his blood. He knows what it’s like to fly that close to the sun.

If she left me, crossed the country, married someone else, and still took my calls, there’s not a damn thing I wouldn’t say or do to tempt her back.

There’s no moral line I wouldn’t cross, no ‘but she’s taken’ stance I wouldn’t toss in the trash. There ain’t a damn thing I wouldn’t try to bring her back.

Detective Paxton Gilbert just zoomed his way to the very top of the list of men I trust the least.

His name sits amongst the likes of Timothy Malone the Second. Nathan Booth. Detective Beau Fox. Glenn Ferris, one of the motherfuckers who worked for my father and kicked the shit out of me all because he had permission and enjoyed hurting people who can’t fight back.

“We have a dig to complete, Chief!” Unable to pull my temper in, I sneer and stalk her way. “We’re on the clock and have a dead woman to dig up. So if you don’t fucking mind…”

Surprised by my mood, her brows furrow, and her eyes scan me up and down. But instead of acknowledging me with words, she gifts them toPax. “I have to go. Thanks for the update.” Hanging up before he has time to respond, she lowers her hand and frowns. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Nothing!”Everything. “We have a job to do, and last I heard, you actually gave a shit about the dead. We have one in the ground right now, so I’d prefer your focus was where it needs to be.”

“My focus isalwayswhere it needs to be.” She strides forward, her stubborn jaw fixed and her eyes burning with impatience. “We have one body here,” she agrees with a barely there dip of her chin, “and seventeen more in New York. Eighteen, if Janiesa loses this round and ends up in a plastic bag. I assure you, my focus is always where required.” Finally, she slips her phone into her back pocket and leans around me to stare at the rest of our group. “Why’s he here?”

“Tim?” Aubree rests against his chest, though we know she’s on the job and probably shouldn’t. “He’s a little obsessed with me, and we’re digging, so I guess he felt bad that we were out here in the rain without him.”

“Let’s go.” I spin on my heels andhatemyself for snapping at her.Good one, Arch. Piss her off and send her back toPaxin a bad mood. That’ll do it. “Let’s turn the recorders on,” I order Fletch. “Start the cameras. Tim,” I meet his eyes, “stay out of view if you insist on staying.” Then to Aubree, “We’re lucky Danika’s case is out of the news, and no one cared enough to follow us out here. It’s just us on scene today.”

Finally, I turn to Minka, her brow sitting high on her forehead, her arms folded firmly across her chest. “Let’s get to work. You taking lead?”

MINKA

Ilet Fletch and Archer start the dig, since it’s all on record anyway, and the cameras carefully document every movement of the shovel. I keep my voice low and my eyes on the men, but I stand beside Aubree, and she’s smart enough to know my words are for her. “The hell is wrong with him?”

She watches them, too. Her bright eyes focused on every stab of the shovel into the dirt. Or really, mud. Sloshy, sticky, bacteria-filled mud. “What’d Detective Gilbert want?”

I narrow my stare and bring it around. “To update me on the case. You have a problem with that?”

“Depends.” She digs her hands into her coat pockets and bounces for warmth. “What was the update?”

“He spoke to a couple of the moms of the abducted girls. Questioned them on their memories from the days surrounding their child’s disappearance. He has eighteen to call, and each one takes at least an hour just to get through their newly surfaced grief since Janiesa’s on the news and bringing everything back to the forefront. Your turn; what’s up with Archer?”

“I told him about yours and Detective Whatshisface’s romantic past.”She meets my stare with a challenging look of her own. “That’s fine with you, right? Since it’s not a secret?”

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