“Beyond?” She sheds a little of her hard-ass exterior and relaxes on her side of the desk. “You’re saying there are more?”
“Are you saying there weren’t?”
Picking up where I leave off, Fletch asks, “Women talk sex, right? Dating. Men in general. If Melissa was seeing someone other than Anton or Stanley, it’s important we know. You telling us what we need to know could be the difference between the infant surviving or not.”
“No.” Her face loses color as she takes a step back. “No, she… I mean, she had this one guy she went out with once.”
“When?” I take out my notebook and wait for names. Dates. Details. “Trudy?” I ask when she doesn’t speak up. “When did she see this guy?”
“It was ages ago. Like, back before she got pregnant. It was probably a few weeks before Stan came into the picture, actually. It wasn’t serious or anything, just a little post-divorce fun. After one date, she told me he was anopeand she wasn’t going there a second time.”
“A nope?” I ask. “She said that specifically?”
“Yeah. They went out one night. I believe they had sex, and that was it. She wasn’t looking for love or anything. Just a little companionship. She didn’t want Anton, but soon after her divorce, they slipped and hooked up again. Better the devil she knew, right? But Mel wanted out. She wanted to break the cycle, so she was specifically looking for a man to go to bed with. This guy, Carlton, came into the salon looking for,” she touches her chin, “a tidy-up. He was Rebecca’s client, but while he was in here, he caught Melissa in his peripherals, and the rest,” she shrugs, “is history. They chatted while he was in the chair. They seemed to hit it off. By the time he was done, they’d exchanged numbers and planned to catch up.”
“When did they go out?”
“Uhh…” She wracks her brain. “It probably would have been the following weekend. So a few days between meet and date. But she was single,” she presses. “Young. Divorced. There was absolutely no reason why she couldn’t spend time with a guy. Or hell, a hundred guys. That’s her business.”
“Zero judgment coming from our end. How long after her last time with Anton was this new date? Days? Weeks?”
“About a month, maybe?” She thinks for a moment. “About that.”
“Do you have a last name for Carlton? Contact details?”
“Er, yeah.” She taps the computer mouse on the desk and powers up her screen. “He’d be in here because he was a client. But really, Detectives,” she brings her gaze back up to us, “I’m violating his privacy by giving out these details.”
“We can get a warrant if it soothes your conscience,” Fletch cuts in. “But that’ll take time. Time the baby doesn’t have.”
Shrugging, she snatches a post-it note. “He hasn’t been back since, so it’s not like we’ll lose his business.” Bending, she begins writing his name and number down. “Do you think this is the guy who hurt Mel?”
“I don’t know.” Accepting the square of paper, I fold it in half and nod for Trudy. While just a few feet away, the shy Rebecca hovers like she did last time. “We’ll let you know how it all turns out. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” She speaks louder as we move away. “I hope you catch whoever did this to her, Detectives. Mel deserved better.”
“She did.” Opening the door, I step aside and let Fletch through first. “Thanks, ladies.”
MINKA
“This is Chief Medical Examiner Minka Mayet.” Sitting at my desk, since my case is now, in the most basic sense of the word, in a holding pattern while the police search for their killer, I answer the phone, setting down a tidy stack of resumes that Doctor Raquel somehow conjured from nowhere.
It’s possible she’s been angling for new staff all along and so had her recommendations sitting, waiting for the perfect moment to ambush me.
“Doctor Mayet?” The deep, baritone voice on the other end of the line instantly makes me roll my eyes. “You got time for me?”
“Detective Beau Fox.” Setting my elbow on the desk and my face to rest on two fingers, I barely keep the sigh of frustration from escaping my throat. “How can I help you?”
“A date?” I can’t possibly see him, but Iknowhe smiles.
In another world, one where he didn’t screw Fletch’s wife and then continually poke at the wounds he had a direct hand in creating, I suspect Detective Fox and I could have been friends. But since we’re inthisworld, and I’m entirely too attached to Archer, I relegate the fuckboy to a corner I intend to never visit.
“I will not tolerate sexual harassment in my work, Detective Fox. So if you have nothing else to discuss, I intend to hang up. If you continue to call me about this topic, I will exercise all the power my position as chief affords me, in which case, you’ll need to find yourself a different medical facility to run your bodies through—and we both know you don’t want that to happen. So I’ll ask you again: how can I help you?”
“So no date,” he chuckles. “Noted.”
“Detective—”
“I have a new case,” he rushes on, though I know damn well he takes pleasure from playing with fire—and by fire, I mean he enjoys asking Archer Malone’s…whatever I amout.