Page 35 of Sinful Justice

I step out from between her and the wall I lean against, and though I feel bad about the way she stumbles forward to fill the space I was just in, I can’t bring myself to care enough to look away from the woman at the door.

Her hair hung loose earlier today, silky straight and perfectly styled, but now it sits in a high ponytail, as though the hair down is her corporate look. Hair up means she was elbow-deep inside someone else’s intestines. Her eyes are deviously upturned. Not a lot, but enough to call back to her heritage. Her cheeks carry a rosy tint from the cold outside, and her lips are annoyingly delicate.

The tinge of blue makes me worry for her. It makes me think she needs protecting.

“Doctors.” I stop in front of a still-glaring Mayet, and beside her, a grinning Doctor Emeri. It wouldn’t do me any favors to look Minka in the eye, so I glance down at her chest instead, only to smirk when I find something else that makes my mouth water. “Cold outside?”

“Despicable.” One single word, a huff of revulsion, then the woman shoves past me and makes her way toward the bar.

“Don’t talk about her…” Aubree points down at her perky chest and sniggers. “Boss lady gets a little irritable about these things.”

“It would seem your boss gets irritable about damn near everything in her life.” I turn toward the bar and watch as Minka sits on a stool and leans across to snag her own glass. She’s been in town two days, and yet, thinks she gets to run the place. “How was her first day?”

“For her, or for me?” Aubree exhales a sigh of contentment. “Because for me, it was amazing. I got a promotion, I got a new office, I got a boss with a one-hundred-percent success rate of being a total badass. We solved your Sarah crime, by the way.”

Surprised, I look back to the pink-haired crazy. “You did?”

“Yeah, it was—”

“Nope. Don’t tell me.” I take a step forward, but don’t advance further before glancing over my shoulder and grinning. “I wanna hear it from the other doc.”

“Well, of course you do.” She purses her lips and makes her way left, toward the pool tables. “I’m cute and educated too, ya know? I have student loans that need a sugar daddy to fund!”

I bark out a laugh. “I’m a cop, Emeri. I get paid in bad coffee and PTSD. You’re the educated doctor, remember? You earn more than me.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m gonna go proposition Charlie. He might ask me out to dinner instead.”

Not likely.

But as I turn back to a hunched Minka who sips at a glass of water—or it could be straight vodka, I suppose—I find myself not giving a single fuck about Aubree Emeri or her upcoming wedding to my best friend.

Tim’s bar is filled with the usual crowd of first responders I’m used to seeing here at night. Other detectives stationed out of the same precinct as me and Fletch, and uniformed street cops working toward a promotion. Those who sit higher than us on the pecking order don’t drink at Tim’s, thankfully providing the rest of us with a degree of separation between work and leisure—it would look bad if my lieutenant happened to see me harassing the new coroner so soon after she moved to town.

Most of the stools are full, even with it being a Monday night, and Minka, the shrewd woman she is, made sure to park her ass between two occupied stools, as though she learned her lesson from two nights ago and knows to never again leave me an opening.

Beautiful, naïve woman.

All it takes for a uniform to get his ass up and move off my chair is for our eyes to meet. A mere second, a single look, then he’s up and sliding his drink and date a few stools down.

“Seriously?”

I smile at Minka’s dejected sigh, even as I slide onto the stool and turn toward her so the tips of my knees touch her left thigh.

“You couldn’t leave that nice man alone?”

“He’s fine.” Leaning closer, I pull in a deep inhalation so the scent of her shampoo, and with it, the tang of antiseptic and dead people, fills my lungs and makes my heart pump just a little faster. “How’s it going,Minka?”

“Why do you do that?” Snapping her head around, she burns me with a glare. “You say my name like it tastes good. But you also hang out in a bar with another woman who forgot to put on a shirt today.”

“You jealous?” Reaching across, I snag her glass and bring it to my lips. “I knew you liked me more than you were letting on.”

She snorts and looks to the back wall of the bar. “No. Thinking you’re a pig has nothing to do with jealousy and everything to do with disgust. You act the way you do, but the moment I turn around, you’re attached to someone else.”

“And that makes you envious?”

“No! It makes you a liar.” Lifting her chin and giving Tim a wave, she silently orders a fresh drink. “I don’t like to associate with liars, so it’s best if you…” She brings her glacial eyes back to mine. “Hop along now.”

“Cold as ice, Minka Mayet.” Lowering my hand to my lap, then across to hers, I love how she instantly drops her gaze to watch. “Is there a reason you’re always so defensive?”

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