Page 2 of Sinful Justice

MINKA MAYET

December sleet slams against the windows of the airport, mocking me and three hundred other passengers as we disembark flight 353 and send up thanks that our travel wasn’t canceled for the third time in as many days.

It’s long past dinnertime, my stomach growls with hunger, and my legs ache from a chaotic dash through JFK earlier today, when the airline decided last-minute that we would board from a different gate.

Get there now, or you lose. Loser.

Winter storms are a pain in my ass in everyday life. But when I’m attempting to move from New York to a new city where I’ve finally landed my dream job?

So much more annoying.

For the last four years, I’ve been Doctor Minka Mayet, medical examiner—one of many. As of Monday, I’ll be Doctor Minka Mayet, badassChiefM.E. of the George Stanley building, with her own team to run and a lab to make successful.

Finally.

I was born twenty-seven, almost twenty-eight, years ago, and raised in New York City, by blue-collar parents who worked two jobs each just to make rent. My mother—Polish, though she was born here in the States—was an elementary school teacher by day, and a factory worker by night.

The factory she worked in just so happened to make, package, and distribute medical materials.

My father, a builder by trade, had Egyptian roots that hailed back to his grandparents, but just like my mother and I, he was born and raised stateside, so while those roots remain in Egypt, I enjoy the perks of a slightly darker pigmentation in my skin that helps me brown in the summer and avoid the nasty lobster look if I get too much sun.

It also means dark eyes, dark hair, and, thanks to genes coming down on both sides, long legs and an athletic body.

Because of my parents’ unwavering work ethic and insatiable hunger for, ya know, electricity, food, and medication, I was a latchkey kid from a young age, raised by the school between the hours of nine and three, and after that, the television until it was time for me to go to bed. That meant my vocabulary, when I was young, swung fromDaniel Tiger’s NeighborhoodtoM.A.S.H.

Kindness and morality, as taught by the tiger, and medical drama and sinful passion, as taught by Hot Lips Houlihan and her motley crew of misfits.

It’s an odd combination, but I enjoy my own company, so it can’t be all that bad…

Right?

I was a respected member of my team in New York. I was treated well—enough—and the gender pay gap was, for the most part, unnoticeable. But when the esteemed Doctor Chant stepped down for early retirement, and a position opened up in a new city, I didn’t hesitate to put my name forward.

I had no friends holding me to the Big Apple. No relationships I wanted to pursue. My parents passed away a long time ago, and my work relationships were surface-level at best.

I’m not the type of person who seeks long-term companionship to fill a well that would, in other people, overfill with loneliness.

I like my privacy. I like the quiet.

It is, after all, one of the main reasons I choose to work with the dead instead of the living.

To be offered the position I now hold, but not take it, would have been career suicide and a lifelong regret, so the moment I got word my bid for the lead position was successful, I informed my superiors I was bowing out of New York, and that same day, I put in notice on my apartment.

Now I’m here, and no amount of sleeting snow will dim my spirits or stop me from hailing a cab and barging my way into my new home.

Making my way through an airport about a third of the size of JFK, I head into the public bathroom, my oversized purse slung securely across my chest, and my arms bruising from the weight of my heavy carry-on case. The second contains nothing of true value, but to have it checked and ferried with the rest of my luggage would have cost close to a hundred dollars, and this move has already been a burden on my bank account.

I’m one step up from what my parents achieved—at least, I eat and rarely have to panic about making rent—but that doesn’t mean I spend frivolously. I never pay for things that needn’t be paid for… like a hundred dollars for someone else to carry my bag from New York to carousel five.

Setting the case on the sparkling tile floor, impressed by how clean it is, considering this is a public restroom, I step into a stall and lock the door so I can pee. I’ve been holding it since my chaotic run through JFK earlier, but now I sit and finally allow myself to relax. Just for a minute. Just a fast break while I celebrate making it this far when the universe seems intent on throwing up roadblocks.

First, a record-breaking storm that grounded flights for days, then an overeager plane-buddy who smelled of cabbage and French fries. To pee on the plane would have meant climbing across his lap or willingly talking to him; neither of which I wanted to do after working so hard to avoid his incessant chatter in the first place.

His name was Chad. He’s an aeronautical engineer whose mom lives with him, ‘not the other way around’—yeah, sure, Chad—he was married once already, but the missus ran off with the cabana boy—again,yeah, sure, Chad—and how would I like to get a drink at one of the airport bars once we land?

No thanks, Chad.

I was kind. I was passive. I was unwilling to continue discussing Chad’s ex-wife, and I was certainly not interested in becoming the new Mrs. Chad.

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