Page 9 of Sinful Seduction
“ID first. Then parents.” Minka picks up her bag and drapes the handles over the crook of her arm, then she reaches in and takes out the recorder. She makes a show of switching it off, thumbing the button on the side of the small device, then tossing it back into the bag’s depths. “I can be there for the latter if you need me. I’ll be at the George Stanley for the next several hours working the body, so if you?—”
“You should go home to sleep.” The record is off, so I move closer and angle my head, lest the fucking cameras post us and a lip-reading expert ferrets out our private discussion. “We knowhowhe’s dead, Chief. You said it yourself… The how isn’t what matters on this one. Running the autopsy tomorrow, instead of now, won’t change anything except the time stamped on the files.”
“I’m awake.” She angles back and looks up into my eyes. “I won’t sleep while you’re working, and trying will be a waste of the time I could have spent being productive. I’ll do the autopsy and send Aubree home. She’s supposed to be off this week, anyway.”
“Wedding plans.” Fletch covers his smirk with a brush of his hand. “How just one day, a pretty dress, a single dinner, and a three-minute dance, can turn intomonthsof preparations, never ceases to amaze me. It truly boggles my mind.”
“There’s a reason I did mine at the courthouse, Detective.” A single dimple pops in Minka’s cheek, her eyes flickering with amusement. “The second time, I was on a boat and took part innoneof the planning except the stupid dress.”
“And it was such a lovely dress.” I wink and inch around to give the cameras my back. “It was worth every single stressful moment of planning a wedding you hardly wanted to attend.”
“Don’t you have a dress to try on tomorrow?” Fletch takes a step back in self-defense, knowing he’s likely to cop a backhand from the woman who hates these things. “Three o’clock, if I remember correctly.”
“It’s a freakin’ dress! Why do we needthreefittings for the same dress? It’s not like my body’s changed since last month.”
“Suffering is part of the tradition.” I peek over my shoulder and watch Aubree at the taped barrier, staring up at my brother, her eyes glittering with happiness. “She doesn’t look upset about it all.”
“That’s because she’s one of those weird people. Shelikessocial events. It’s baffling.”
“Three o’clock, Delicious.” Fletch takes out his phone and studies the screen. “Miss Penny will have Mia there right on time, and depending on how long your suffering lasts, Arch and I might be able to swing by to get a look at the pretty dresses.”
“It soothes my cold, hard heart knowing Fifi has to trudge through this crap, too.” Minka glares at her second-in-charge and the gaga eyes she wears on the job. Then, pursing her lips, she brings her gaze back this way. “Fifi likes pretty dresses and salon days. But she and Aubree have been going head-to-head on almost every single topic since planning began. Keeps them both busy and miserable.”
“And misery loves company,” I quip. “As we know.”
Bright headlights flash across our scene, the George Stanley transport van pulling in as uniforms clear a path. And just as I would expect, Minka’s disdain for personal matters drops away in an instant, replaced by on-the-job professionalism. She stands taller, broadening her shoulders and neutralizing her expression. “That was quick.” She starts forward, taking it upon herself to guide the van closer. “Promptness matters in these situations.”
“Guess we’re going hunting for a killer.” I inch toward my partner, folding my arms and frowning as Minka chooses to forgo another night’s sleep.
Would I stay home and sleep if she had to work?
No.
But do I wish she could sleep while I was out?
Absolutely.
She needs it more than I do, and I need to know she’s resting. The alternative stresses me out.
MINKA
There are benefits to working in the middle of the night. Fewer people to talk to, for one. The phones almost never ring, and when they do, I’m not obligated to answer them. There’s no line for the coffee machine, ever. And no mayor knocking on my office door, demanding my attention.
The George Stanley media-relations-front-facing-receptionist-for-all-things doesn’t clock in till nine, which means I don’t have to discuss schedules or argue about press conferences. I don’t have to acknowledge the whispers about Diane Philips’ case, and I don’t have to negotiate which music I listen to while cutting.
The middle of the night is for the love of science. It’s where a woman who went into the medical field to study death, but took a detour by becoming chief—which means office politics, never-ending admin, making nice with the leaders of the city, and dealing with whiny employees—gets to study death in its purest form.
Geez. It’s almost enough to tempt me to toss Doctor Patten down to the dayshift so I can take her place during the twilight hours.
A radio host with a sultry voice chatters into the night. She could be thirty, or she could be seventy. I have no clue. She could be a smoker, or maybe she came across her sexy, raspy sound honestly. But either way, she discusses drive-by shootings and things that go bump in the night. And every now and then, she plays a song that always, somehow, turns out to be the exact song I’m in the mood to hear in eachgiven moment.
Lani—that’s her name—has a gift, and she’s my companion for three blissful hours, while techs work outside my autopsy suite, and bodies are rolled in and out of the elevator by my office.
“You were pretty healthy, huh?” I slice into the kid’s heart, shaving a section off for labs and placing it into a sample tube, then I take the rest and cut right through for dissection. I divide the organ straight down the middle, and with gloved hands, I push each half apart to reveal what was, before tonight, a perfectly functioning heart. “Could’ve been a donor if the circumstances were different. Your lungs are decent, despite your filthy habit, and your kidneys look brand-new.”
I don’t often talk to myself on the job… I used to. And because the thought occurs to me, I bring my gaze up and stare through the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the city I chose over New York. On the East Coast, I narrated almost every autopsy I ever conducted. Here, I stopped. And I suppose it’s probably because now, I have Aubree, and she talks enough for both of us.
“Interesting,” I mumble, smiling behind my plastic shield and shaking my head. I bring my eyes back down and pick up just one half of my John Doe’s heart. “Bullet nicked you. Another inch to the left and you might’ve lived.” I set the half-organ down and peel my gloves off, all so I can grab my pen and take notes for the detectives. For the court. For the autopsy report and, soon, the death certificate. “What’s your family like? Do you come from one of those nuclear kinds, with a mom and a dad and a sibling or two?” Setting my pen down, I slide fresh gloves on and scoop the heart halves into a bowl for further examination.Later. Maybe. If his next of kin wants me to.“Or were you lonely, and that’s why you were out at midnight with a girl?” And then the next thought hits me. “Did you try to save her? Did you step in front of her?”
