Page 17 of Sinful Memory

“He’s a grown man.” He drops my hand, but throws his arm across my shoulders and tucks me close instead. “He has more than enough criminal law experience to be a pain in my ass. And you believe he’s innocent, so…”

“So you’ll look elsewhere?” Hopeful, I pull away just enough to look up at Arch’s square jaw. “You’re gonna leave the mayor be and find your next suspect?”

“Nope.” He chuckles and tugs me back in. “I have Justin’s face tacked up, smack in the middle of my murder board, Mayet. Because he’s being shady as fuck. Ihaveto run it properly, I don’t have a choice. Which means we’ll be pulling financials, phone records, and anything else we can get our hands on, just as soon as a judge gets off Lawrence’s dick and grants our request. But in the meantime, if my wife says it wasn’t him, then it would be smart for me to look outside of the Justin Lawrence bubble and see what else shakes loose.”

“Well…” I wrap my arm behind Archer’s body and hook my thumb in the belt loop on his opposite hip. “Setting Lawrence aside, what do you have?”

“We interviewed the maid,” he says. We both know he’s not supposed to discuss this stuff with me. But it’s become our new normal. Solving a murder together. Theorizing, and figuring out who all the players are. “She says Anna’s been dating someone, but she doesn’t know who.”

I study the street ahead of us, busy because of backed-up traffic, made worse as office hours end and more cars are trying to pass through. But lucky for us, Archer and I live on the same street as our work. It means walking just two or three blocks, and never getting caught up in rush-hour traffic. “How does she know Anna was dating, if she doesn’t knowwhoshe was dating?”

“Messy sheets,” he explains easily. “Condoms in the trashcan.”

I pull away with a gasp and look up. “Get the condoms, and we’ll run DNA. Duh.”

“No condoms this week.” He shakes his head. “And any older ones will already be buried in a landfill. Often, the maid would arrive at the house in the mornings to find two wine glasses in the sink. Two plates. Two sets of silverware. She spoke of discarded lingerie that had clearly been worn and… ya know, messed up. The house was simply lived in. By two people.”

“But she never saw or met this other person?”

He tugs me in again. “Nope. She said whoever he was, he always left early. Arrived late. Never left anything personal lying around. Sent flowers often. Sent outfits, treats, gifts, that sort of stuff. But he never left his name on any attached card. Just ‘lover’.”

“Lover?” I turn that over in my mind and scowl. “What about her phone records? People typically call and text their lovers obsessively, right? Even new relationships can seem a little neurotic in their enthusiasm. We can’t pull Justin Lawrence’s logs yet, since he’s not letting you in, but there’s no way anyone could block you from accessing hers. Figure out who she’s calling, and find your perp that way.”

“Already on it.” He presses a kiss to my temple as we sidestep a bike messenger and move out of his way. “We’ve sent away for those, and expect them tomorrow. We also put in a call to her best friend, since best friends know who the other is banging, right?”

“In theory.”

A block ahead of us, Aubree steps into Tim’s bar, her laughter audible even from here as Xavier follows her in.

“But sometimes, people tell lies,” I muse. “Like Aubree’s little crush on the new guy, while she’s head over heels for another. So if Anna is secretly dating a man, and he’s going out of his way not to leave clues lying around, maybe she’s lying to her bestie, too.”

“But why keep it a secret?” he ponders. “Young, fresh, new love. They’re all over each other, sneaking around, banging every damn night. Why wouldn’t she tell her friend?”

“Because she’s famous.” I snort. “She’s already been labeled a serial dater in the gossip magazines, according to Aubs. If she so much as walks next to a guy in the street, the paparazzi run with their connection like it’s fact. Honestly, if my dating life was reported and speculated on all over the world, even if most of it was made-up, I’d probably keep the real thing to myself, too.”

“And him?”

“Well, if her boyfriend is her killer, his secrecy could be labeled pre-meditation. He’s set it up so he could be in her bed, but not on your list of suspects. It’s perfect, really, if his plan was always to kill her.” I glance up and wait for his eyes. “Have you talked to the guy she was dating when they had that car accident?”

“Walter James?” he murmurs. “Not yet. He’s up tomorrow.”

“Good. He wanted fame. He wanted to be on her arm so much, he called the paps and told them where they’d be. But the second he was found out, his career was over. Sounds like motive to me.”

“True,” Archer concedes. “And the reason he’s coming in tomorrow. But we can’t ignore the fact she tossed him in the trash and was done with him. Why would she let him back in her bed now?”

I lift my bad shoulder in a shrug, and slow my steps as we approach the door to Tim’s Bar. Tim, aka Archer’s brother, and our next-door neighbor. “Women are known to be quite dumb sometimes when it comes to men,” I admit. “I, for one, slept with a man within hours of meeting him. I slept in his apartment, having no clue if I’d survive the night.”

“And you loved every single minute of it.” He brings me to a stop and ever so gently presses my back to the brick wall of the bar’s exterior. Stepping in so his thigh rests between mine, he tucks my hair back and shields me from the glare of the afternoon sun. “You went home with him because you knew it was important. And you slept like a fucking baby, because you knew you were safe.”

“Banged all night,” I amend. “Hardly slept at all.”

“Same-same,” he sniggers. “Everyone walked away satisfied in the end.”

“Agreed.” I slip out from between him and the wall, and grab the doorhandle. “Jerry still calls me about that night. He’d love a repeat, and seems so confused when I tell him I’m married now.”

“Jerry?” Pissed, Archer bounds after me and shuffles through the bar door into a world not at all like outside.

It’s dark in here. Warm. Noisy.

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