Page 63 of Sinful Memory

“I don’t know how she could stay with him.” He looks down at his shoes, keeping pace with mine. “How can she go to bed each night knowing he chooses other women over her?”

“Dissociation?” I guess. “Maybe she can just put it out of her mind and forget.”

“I don’t get it.” He comes to a stop near our desks and looks up at the stained and ugly ceiling. “I can’t let go of what Jada did.” He takes a deep breath so his chest fills to capacity, then he exhales again and brings his gaze back down. “I just can’t go to bed with her again and pretend she wasn’t fucking around with other men. Could you?”

“Be with Minka if she strayed?” I cough out a laugh, despite the lava-like pain lancing through my gut, but I think about his question. I try to imagine a future that looks the way he paints it.

And I come back to the same answer, time and time again.

“Not possible.” I study his honeycomb gaze and dip my hands into my pockets. “I know this sounds ego-driven and naïve, but I honestly don’t think she’d step out. She doesn’t like to expand her social circle. She doesn’t like to entertain other people in general. Four out of five Malone brothers hit on her on the regular, but I’m the only one she looks for in a crowded room. Men like what they see when they look at her, but I just…” I shake my head. “I can’t even pretend to imagine it. She wouldn’t do it. Besides,” I flash a sadistic grin and look toward the interview room. “I’d kill whoever she slept with, and make sure my partner helped set fire to the body.”

He chuckles, but when my phone rings, he watches as I pull the device from my pocket. That alone, the “Peaches and Cream” ringtone, is enough to make my stomach jump.

“Take your call, Malone. But make it quick. We have work to do.”

“Yep.” I slide my thumb across the screen and accept Minka’s call, then I bring the device to my ear and wander away from my desk. “Minnnka?” I smile, even knowing she’s calling me about a dead body, and not because she wants to chat.

I step into the viewing room beside the interview room and watch Misty as she nervously tugs out a chair. Her hands shake, her hair is bundled with stress, messy, and though she can’t see me through the glass, she’s watched enough crime shows to know someone is probably here.

“I followed up the lab results on the wineglasses,” Minka says. “DNA was left on both. One is a clean match with our vic.”

“Her lips left DNA behind?”

“Mmhm. But we get the added confirmation with her fingerprints, too. One glass was definitely hers. And the other…”

“Belonged to her killer,” I conclude. “Prints?”

“Yes. But get this,” the excitement in her voice makes my brow jump high on my forehead. “The glass we thought was hers, is not.”

Confused, my brows lower again, and furrow. “Explain.”

“The glass that doesnotcontain Anna’s DNA and prints also comes with traces of carnuba wax, polyethylene solidifier, and silicone oil.”

“Soooo….?” I watch through the viewing glass as Misty lowers into her chair and nibbles on her nails. Her teeth are brutal in their attack. Her nerves, palpable enough, even I feel them in my stomach. “I don’t know what those things are, Chief. Dumb it down for me.”

She sniggers. “Lipstick is commonly made from materials such as oil, wax, butylated hydroxyanisole, solidifiers, synthetic antioxidants and preservatives, silicones, chromium, and pigment. Super toxic to put on your face in the name of beauty.”

“Lipstick? The glass with lipstick left behind was not Anna’s?”

“Nope. That’s not proof your killer is a woman, Detective, but that a woman was in Anna’s home during the hours of suspicion.”

Fuckin A.

I stare into Misty’s terrified eyes for a moment longer, then I stalk out of the room to find Fletch waiting by the interview room door with Officer Clay.

“Thanks, Chief,” I speak into the phone. “That’s what I needed to know. I’m about to wrap this one up. Dinner tonight? My treat.”

She snorts. “Arrogant. We don’t know who these prints belong to yet, Detective. And you’ve been looking at men this whole time.”

“Yeah, but every man has a woman nearby willing to kill for what she wants.” I glance up and meet Fletch’s smiling expression. “Women are insane. There’s no controlling them anymore.”

“No mercy,” she responds, almost on a whisper. “You got this?”

“Yeah. I got this. Closing it up within the hour, then I’m a free man. Talk to you in a bit.”

Pulling the phone from my ear and sliding it into my pocket, I look to Clay and dip my chin. “Officer. I have a witness coming down this morning to make a statement on the Switzer case. If Detective Fletcher and I are still in here when they arrive, can you knock and let me know? It’s important we cross all of our t’s on this one. The media are gonna want our throats, so we gotta run it tight.”

“Yes, Detective.” He straightens his spine and stands at attention, despite his already rigid stance. “I’ll let you know the moment your witness arrives.”

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