Page 7 of Sinful Reality

“Didn’t use my badge.” Her brows roll with confusion as she flicks from one tab of her spreadsheet to another. “Estelle Bagley… what time did you leave?”

“Minka?” I give her hair a gentle tug. “If you didn’t use your badge, how’d you get information any decent cop wouldn’t dare hand over?”

“Estelle was at the park earlier in the day.” She types notes into her spreadsheet to keep the data accurate. “Approximately an hour before the Sawyers arrived. Seems to have left about the same time they arrived but doesn’t recall seeing them.”

“Hey?” I fist her hair and force her around. “How’d you get the case files?”

She stares in confusion, blinking and processing my question. “I already said. The detective.”

“But how? Why? It’s not like Fletch and I are out here handing over that shit to any random medical examiner on the other side of the country.”

“I asked Pax for it.”

Impatience bristles in my veins. “Who the fuck is Pax?”

“Detective Gilbert.” She gently drags her hair free of my hand and goes back to studying the screen. “We knew each other in New York before I moved here. Worked a few cases together. Soph said he’s the new lead now that Detective Lowe has retired.”

“So you just…”Why do I feel like the fucking idiot here? “You picked up the phone and asked, and he just… sent them?”

“I emailed.” She taps away at the keyboard and enters more information into her database. “Said I heard about the new case, explained that I was interested, and requested a professional courtesy. He knows I’m decent and not apt to gossip or leak files, so he sent them over.”

“Just like that?” I push off the couch, only to twist and sit on thecoffee table, staring at my wife over the top of her screen. “He didn’t call you to make sure he wasn’t being punked? Didn’t call to say hey?”

“Didn’t call,” she responds in monotone,typing, typing, typing. “Sent the files and said he’d be in touch in a day or two when he can catch a spare second.” She pulls her lip between her teeth again, abusing the plump line and creating wrinkles in her brow while she thinks. “I’ve never broken professional trust in the past. I see no reason why he’d refuse my request.”

Frustrated, because she doesn’t actuallyseeme here, I shove up from the table and stalk into the kitchen to get a bottle of water. One for me, and one for her.

“What are you planning to do about this, Mayet?” I crack the lid of her water and walk it across the room. “You don’t live in New York anymore. The case isn’t yours, and even if you flew across the country and tried to insert yourself into the investigation, it would look suspicious to anyone curious enough to pay attention. Chief Medical Examiner, Minka Mayet, is so invested in this string of murders when she’s not actually connected. Then we have the vigilante killer who targets men just like this guy, with unsolved cases in two different states, and with time stamps that just so happen to have you in those states at those times. Your freedom relies on the fact no one would ever think to look at you in the first place. But if you horn in on this case, you’re tacking your face to the murder board.” I stop at the end of the couch and stare down at the woman hunched over a computer. “Minka?”

“Hmm?” She peels her focus from the screen and glances up. “What?”

My temper spikes. Anger roars in my veins, and most potent of all, horrifying dread eats me up. Because Minka Mayet is to remain a free fucking woman. Even if it kills me, I’ll keep her on the right side of prison bars.

But I remember who she was when we met, too. Singularly focused. Obsessed with justice. Riddled with unhealthy coping mechanisms and a lack of self-preservation. She was a hunter, and they were her prey.

And now, it seems, her thirst for the hunt is back.

“I need you not to lose yourself over this.” I crouch and rest my arms on the end of the couch. “I need you to stay here with me?—”

“I am.”

I grab her chin when she attempts to turn back to the screen, pulling her around until I can hold her eyes. “Mentally. Emotionally. And physically. You can’t go back to who you were before; not eating, not sleeping, tracking dangerous men down in the fucking dark, and risking your life just so you could end his. I need you to let the cops do their job, Minka. And I need you to stay here and do yours.”

“I’m just reading the case files.” She leans away, pulling her chin from my fingers, then turning back to her screen despite the snarl rolling along my throat. “I’m not going to New York.”

“Do you promise?” I set her water on the coffee table. “Minka? Do you promise, no matter what happens with this case, you won’t go to New York?”

“I mean…” Frowning, she types and taps. “That’s a broad promise to make. If something comes up that I?—”

“No.” I snap her laptop closed and draw her fiery ire. “Make a promise you’ll stay right here. If youneedeyes on the case, do it via case files, just like you are right now. Watch the news. Talk to Soph if you must. But I want your ass to stay in this state. I want you to be able to sleep when you need to sleep and eat when I fucking tell you to eat.”

Like the spell is broken, with the laptop closed and the power Janiesa’s case has over my wife momentarily severed, she blinks and allows a little of therealher back into her eyes.

“Promise me.”

“Okay.” She swallows and softens, transforming from the vigilante I met to the woman I married. The woman she is when the world is right, and she feels safe. “I promise.”

“I want you to make healthy choices. Keep up with the case if you must, watch it on the news or whatever. But you liveherenow. You have your own building to run and cases to work on.Thisis your life.”

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