Page 65 of Sinful Promise
“Just to talk. I only…” She coughs to clear the nerves from her throat. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“Well, we don’t do that anymore.” I hate that I have to be so firm. So unkind to the woman I once lived for. Especially when I know she’s vulnerable. “I’m not your husband anymore, Jada. I’m your partner in parenting. So if you wanted to talk to, or about, Mia, then I—”
Her breath catches, like she’s crying but trying desperately to hide it. “I wanted to hear your voice. And I wanted to tell you I’m not mad anymore, Charlie. I understand why you sent me away. So I stopped being angry.”
Good for you.
But fuck her for thinking she gets to hate me when all I wanted was to save her life.
“Mia’s asleep at home,” I tell her instead. “But if you wanna call back in the morning, at about seven, you can talk to her then.”
“No, Charlie, I—”
“Do you know what day you’re getting out yet?”
“No, I…” She sniffles so I hear the snot she inhales. “Soon. That’s all they’re telling me.”
“Well, when you know, we can talk to Mia about it. She’s excited to see you.”
“Charlie—”
“I have to go.”
I don’t want to talk to her late at night for the sake of talking. I don’t want my voice to be her security blanket, and I don’t want to get soft and think, for just a second, we could go back in time and forget what she did to our marriage.
Shechoseto cheat on me. And when she got caught, shechoseto escape accountability by snorting a line and drinking instead of parenting.
She doesn’t get a do-over.
Because Ichoosebetter for myself.
ARCHER
“Tire tracks left on Jason Patterson’s crime scene belong to a Yokohama Advan, eighteen-inch wheel.” I set a file on Minka’s desk and settle into the visitor chair like I do so often these days.
Fletch and I have our own station, our own desks, and when we’re feeling frisky, our own boardroom to discuss a case. None of which reside inside the George Stanley medical facility.
But here we are anyway, taking up the chief’s time and using her office like she actually enjoys visitors.
“Yokohama Advans are good for sports performance sedans and such. They’re easily identifiable, because of their asymmetrical tread, and the wide, wavy grooves.”
“Okay…” Minka sits back in her chair, her hands steepled, and her legs crossed. But her eyes remain shadowed by fatigue. “What about them?”
“Those tracks have been left all over the city,” Fletch adds from his place on the couch. “Once we ran them through the system, a whole bunch of reports popped up about street racing. There’s a whole task force set up for it,” he chuckles. “Looking for their big, bad, racecar drivers before they knock over another trashcan.”
“So…” Aubree pushes up from the arm of the couch and nibbles on her thumbnail as she thinks. “Could Patterson have been hit by one of these street racers? It’s possible his death was a complete and utter accident, right?”
“Sure.” Not sure at all. But I look toward Minka, and grin when she firms her lips.
“Did the street racers accidently, but methodically, feed him arsenic too?”I love her. I love her fucking brain. Her ability to see past what seems so obvious.Bringing her gaze to me, she lifts a questioning brow. “Tire tracks have nothing to do with Patterson’s case, do they?”
I shake my head and bring my leg up to rest my ankle on the opposite knee. “I think not. However.” Leaning forward, I open the file I set down, and show her photographs of the debris from the road. “We got kinda lucky with what else was left behind.”
“Which is…” She grabs the file and flips it around to study the image. “Glass?”
“A partial headlight,” I correct. “Not only that, but we can be pretty certain the debris belongs to a two-thousand-five Honda of some sort. Could be a Mazda, maybe. But our experts are leaning toward the first.”
“How certain?” As Aubree makes her way closer, Minka hands her the file, but keeps her eyes plastered on mine. “Like, ninety-nine percent? Because if so, you could run car titles for every person Patterson knows. Figure out who owns that sort of car, and voila, you have your driver.”
