Page 45 of Sinful Reality

“It’s alright. You’ve done really well.”

“We appreciate your time,” I cut in, no closer to having any fucking clue who did this than I was before our conversation. “Thank you for taking our call and walking us through this.”

“I wish I could be more help.” Finally, Beatrice’s slippers shuffle against the tile floor as she moves through her home. “Honestly, I do. I spent so long terrified my baby would be next, and I’m ashamed to admit that, once she got through her fifth year, I was relieved she was no longer a desirable target for that sicko. He disappeared, and I thought it was over for everyone. But now he’s back, and my baby has a baby, and I just…”

“Stress,” Minka inserts. “It’ll get you if you’re not careful. You don’t live there anymore, Beatrice. You’ve saved your family. Be proud of that.”

I wait for the final goodbyes and end the call when they’re done, then I meet Minka’s exhausted gaze and hate how heavy shadows plague her eyes. How the whites are pink, and her pupils are too large. But I focus on work, because I know she won’t have it any other way. “It’s like he’s a ghost. He’s there, but no one can see him.”

“Gloria might’ve.” She grabs her phone and navigates to a new screen, but before hitting dial, sheblinks, blinks, blinksaway the ache in her eyes. “Her life was hard. Her son was relentlessly bullied. The kids’ father ran off. She was juggling a handful of jobs while homeschooling and trying to keep the mainstream kids off of hers. Years later, more girls are dead, her income is at risk when the boss dies, and nowherhealth is declining.” She inhales until her lungs fill and her chest expands, then exhaling again, she turns from the counter and sways dangerously to the side. “Mere months after Andy drops, Elouise goes missing. She’ll either remember everything about that day or nothing. I’d like to look into her eyes while she tells me about it.”

“But you need to sit your ass down.” I follow her across the autopsy suite and snag the door handle before she has a chance to. “Take the call in your office. Rest on the couch before you fall.”

“Wait!” Aubree darts after us. “I wanna listen, too.”

MINKA

My head pounds and my eyes burn. My throat aches and my knees wobble way more than I’d like. So I leave two sets of bones behind, though any other time, any other day, I’d lose my mind with contentment at the idea of putting the puzzle back together, and heading toward my office, I bolster my reserves and walk instead of hobble.

Or worse, crawl.

“Can I get a cup of coffee?” Sleepily, I glance over my shoulder and find Archer. Only to look past him to Aubree. “Please?”

“No.” Archer takes my arm, holding me up when I suppose I might have begun folding, and leads me through my office door. “No coffee for you. You’re too sick, and adding caffeine to meds will make you loopy.”

“Coffeeismedicine.” I drag myself free of his grip and stumble to the other side of my desk, then I drop onto my chair with an undignifiedthwump,only to hold my head and groan because the sudden stop of the chair’s hydraulic thingy is like a hammer against my skull. “Coffee helps me brain.”

“And influenza makes you slow.” Smiling, Aubree crosses my office and slumps onto the couch, one leg dangling over the arm and her headdropped back until it almost touches the glass. “I’m sleepy. Four a.m. bedtimes are shit.”

“Now you’re on Tim’s schedule.” Unhappy, I set my phone on my desk, leaning on my monitor so it’s perched up, and soon, I’ll see the woman on the other end of the line. But I open my desk drawer first and search for something. Anything to give me a little pep. “Where are my heart suckers?”

“I took the last one.” Aubree stretches her neck and looks my way with an unapologetic twist to her lips. “I would say I’m sorry, but I prefer not to lie, and I was pissed at you anyway. The sucker was fair game.”

“Pain in my ass.”

Archer tosses something on my desk, the package landing with a splat, and my brain stuck back on the… uh… well, the movement of his arm. It’s like I’m on a five-second delay, and each time I think I’m caught up, something new happens. I blink to clear the frizz from my vision, then I catalog the cream-colored pouch, with vanilla bean images printed on the outside. Then, in big letters GREEK YOGURT below them. Something about protein. And vitamins. And?—

“Eat it.” He snatches it up and twists the cap free. “Coffee, bad. Protein, good.”

“Smug husband, bad.” But I suppose pride is not a sin I hold on to today, because I open my mouth and accept the little spout between my lips. “Vanilla, good.”

Chuckling, he squeezes until cold liquid lands on my tongue and soothes my throat on the way down. “This’ll fill you up till we go home. Then I have flu meds waiting for us. The legitimate, FDA approved kind,” he adds with a sneer. “The kind where a board of doctors approves them for use, not some bullshit concoction a ballerina threw together on the weekend.”

“I mean…” Swallowing, I pull back and lazily drape myself over my chair, because I’m too damn tired to do anything else. “Have we ever actually seen her sick? Because if she says they’re good?—”

“We’re not testing them. And it’s infusion night again.” He drags my visitor chair closer and sits on the edge, forcing himself into my line ofsight. “Does being sick change all that? Do you need more, or less? Or a hospital?”

I firm my lips and act like his questions are a bother. But in my heart of hearts, I warm all over, thrilling in the knowledge he wants me safe and healthy.

“Nothing changes. I’ll infuse tonight and go to bed. Besides, Aubree did the hand thing, which means I’ll wake up all better anyway.”

“That issonot what I did,” she snorts. “Your current predicament is a product of your stubbornness. No way in hell do you get to cheat this lesson and pass it off to me.”

“Make the call, Mayet.” Archer presses his elbows to my desk, then sets his chin on his arms and proceeds to stare. “Make it quick because it’s gonna be dark soon, and I wanna get you home.”

“Dark? Already?” Dazed, I look out my floor-to-ceiling windows and sulk because the day is, in fact, nearing an end. “I only just woke up. How is it almost dinner time already?”

“Something about going to bed at four in the morning,” Aubree yawns, eyeing me similarly to how Archer does. Concerned. Challenging. Confident I’ll need to be caught and they… will hopefully be near enough to catch.

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