Page 18 of Sinful Reality

“You cannot have cleared all of them! Jesus. The hotel manager’s boss’ wife’s cousin probably hangs around the hotel since it’s cold outside and the ornate flooring makes them feel fancy. Add in that they have connections in high places, and folks swarm to wherever they feel powerful. Maybe they get a free cocktail at the bar because they act important, and the employees don’t want to risk their jobs. There is no way you could say one of those girls’ moms wasn’t working casually in a situation like this, brings her daughter to work, the cousin or whoever the hell he is sees her, and that’s when he finds his newest target.”

“Min—”

“Now do that seventeen more times! He didn’t pluck them out of thin air, Pax. He’d done, at the very least, cursory research on each one. He picked a specifictype, which means somewhere, he connected with the moms. Call them. Ask them. Then call me back and tell me what you found out.”

“You haven’t changed a bit,” he grumbles. But I’ll be damned if he doesn’t say it with a hint of humor in his tone. “Stubborn as a mule and unbending in every case. You think the world is black and white, and theremustbe an answer.”

“Iknowthe world is gray. But I also know I’m not quitting on Janiesa until we figure this out. Call the boss’ cousin and clear them out.”

He grunts unhappily. “Fine. I’ll follow it up and get back to you.”

“Good. Great.” I pull the phone from my ear and kill the call, setting my dying phone down as the battery bar flashes a warning red. “Do you have a charger?” I poke my eyelids again, somehow the pain I feel from that, soothing the fraying edges of my temper. “Archer will be pissed if I walk home with a dead phone and he can’t contact me.”

“Who is that?” She gets up, at least. The scrape of her chair and the scuff of her shoes on the tiles, all the proof I need. “Paxton Gilbert.”

“Detective. NYPD. You already know that.”

“Sure.” She passes through my door, rifles through her desk drawer, and returns in mere seconds. “I know that. But who is he,Min?” She drops the cord on my desk and stands over me until I lower my handsand glance up. “You call him Pax. He calls you Min. Soph mentioned you have a history. So…”

I snag the cord and plug one end into my computer with jerky, shaking hands, then the other into my phone. “Don’t play dumb, Doctor Emeri. It’s not a good look.”

“A sexual history, then?”

“I had an entire life in a whole other city before I met you. Did you think I was born on the plane that brought me here?”

She firms her lips and lowers to sit on the edge of her seat. “How long were you and Pax dating?”

“We weren’t dating! We were just…”

“Casual fuck buddies? Wow,” she whistles low on her breath, “that’s so much more comforting.”

“Oh, get over it, Aubree! What are you? My wife? I had a life before I came here. I wasn’t a virgin when I moved here. I had run-ins with cops in New York, which makes it entirely probable that I might’ve spent time with them in private.”

“And Archer?”

“He wasn’t a virgin when we met, either.”

“No, dummy.” She firms her lips into straight, flat lines. “Does he know about Detective Pax and this sordid history you share?”

“No.” Scowling, I look down at my phone beeping with texts. Some from Archer himself. Some from Paxton. Some, even, from the original Detective Lowe. “I didn’t ask him to write a list of all the women he screwed before me. Nor did he ask me to write a list for him.”

“Right. But those people are faceless, nameless, and left squarely in the past. Pax is very much here, in your inbox, calling you three times in a single day while you’re supposed to be working. And,” she adds with a testing glare, “he calls youMin.”

“My name is Minka!” I snatch my beeping phone and silence it before the dings send me certifiably insane, but then I navigate to Archer’s text chat and read his last question:did you eat? Are you nearly done for today?

Typing quickly, I lie. Only on the first part, at least.Yes, I ate. And we’ve finished rounds. I’m heading home soon. Just waiting for my phone to charge enough to not crap out on me on the walk home. I’ll order somethingwhile I’m walking. Early dinner and hopefully early to bed. I’m beat.Hitting send, I turn my phone over without reading Paxton’s questions, then I meet Aubree’s smug stare and counter it with one of my own. “Another little girl has been abducted, but you’re more interested in turning this into a lover’s quarrel. Your drama is not welcome here.”

“I’m notmakingdrama. I’m only highlighting a double standard. If circumstances were flipped and Archer was chatting with his ex, and she was calling him Archy-Poo, and he wasn’t completely up-front with you about it, you’d have already lit his mattress on fire.”

“Not true.” I push up to stand and leave my phone behind, milking as much battery life as I can in the two minutes it’ll take me to slide into my coat. “This is work. It’s about finding a killer before he dumps that baby in a plastic bag and takes his next. Plus, I’ve dealt with his exes before. In fact, I saved the life of one, even though I wanted to rearrange her face with the hood of my car.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She stands, too, crossing my office and snagging her outside coat from the rack. She takes off the white coat and stabs her arms into the sleeves of the other, shrugging the thick puffer material on and tugging the belt to keep it closed. “I’m saying you need to take care of your marriage on this one, Chief. Stay focused, and don’t be surprised if it turns out Archer isn’t pleased with this little back and forth you have going on with your ex-lover.”

“If Archer attempted to stop me from talking to anyone, male or female, ex-lover or not, then I would consider that abusive and controlling behavior. Fortunately for us both, he is neither. My marriage is solid, so why don’t you focus on yours instead?”

She makes a face, partscrew youand at least twenty-five percentdon’t bring Tim into this or I’ll kick your ass. But she pulls her coat belt tight and fixes the collar so it sits tall against her neck. Then she lopes through the office door to switch her computer screen off and grab her things.

“My marriage is solid,” I grumble to myself, turning back to my desk and snatching up my phone. And as though to prove my point, I smile and read Archer’s reply.I’m heading out soon, too. Fletch being benched means I’m home for dinner every night. Pick whatever you want to eat, dealer’s choice. I caught a huge break on a cold case today, so I’ll tell you about it whenI get home. And I’ve also been thinking about the New York case. I think I have some theories I wanna run by you.

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