“Whatabouta honeymoon?” She parrots my words, but her tone implies I’m insane for even suggesting a break in routine. “You want to go somewhere and vacation?”
“Do you?”
“Well…” I hear her feet on the tile. I hear other doctors and techs and scientists chattering close by. I hear the scratch of a pen when she signs whatever is thrust in front of her, and a moment later, the ding of the elevator I’ve come to know so well. “We just had a week off. Does that count?”
“Do you want it to count?”
She ponders that for a moment, surprising me when she doesn’t come out with an instanthell yes.
“I could do with an island getaway someday. But, like, an island where we don’t have to talk to anyone else. An island that hasn’t seen life since before the dinosaurs.” She stops for a moment and snickers. “I wanna go on a honeymoon, but only if you and I are the only people there. Which,” she adds happily, “is kinda what we just did. A week of just me and you.”
“In my apartment.”
“An apartment that was heated, supplied with food, and had no other humans—except the couple of times Tim and Fletch dropped by. But they’re not those weird humans I hate so much, so their presence didn’t make me itchy. Archer?”
“Hmm?” I set my empty paper cup on top of the dispenser and turn back to find Fletch reading. Cataloging. Studying Holly Wade’s file. “What?”
“What’s wrong? Something’s bothering you, and those contracts we signed mention I’m supposed to be with you through the good and the bad, so…”
“Thecontracts?” Laughing, I press my palm to my temple and shake my head. “You mean our marriage license?”
“Yeah,” she answers. “Exactly what I just said. Now tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing.” I draw a deep breath and release it on a sigh. Dropping my hand, I blink my eyes clear of the dots that try to infringe on my vision. Shoot a man, and his body will insist on being horizontal as much as humanly possible. “I’m just working this case where the—”
“You’re working a case?” she bites out instantly. “You’re not supposed to be working! I leave you alone for a single hour, and now you’ve caught acase? What the hell are you d—”
“I came by the station to visit Fletch,” I cut in. “He’s checking out a cold case. Chick died just three weeks after her wedding, and less than a year later, dude ups and marries again.”
“Are you intending to marry again after me?” Her voice turns brutally cold. Challenging. And if I’m not mistaken, flavored with homicidal revenge. “Archer Malone?”
“I couldn’t go more than a fucking hour without calling you.” My legs shake, threatening to put me on my ass and force all those oblivious cops in the pit to ask questions I don’t have answers to, so I move back to the table and sit down again before I fall. “ClearlyI’m not looking to find someone else.”
“But you’re digging into someone else’sMinka,” she decides. “Someone else’s wife. Someone’s family. She’s dead, and you’re feeling it too deeply.”
Sighing, she starts walking again when the elevator lets her off at her destination. “You’re a good cop, Arch. Because you feel it, and you care about your victims. But you shouldn’t be working at all this week—you’re not ready. And you definitely shouldn’t be worrying about my mortality. It’s unnecessarily stressful, because I’m not gonna die… and I’m never letting you die. If you wanna go on a honeymoon, then sure, when our schedules are clear, I’d like a teeny tiny getaway somewhere warm with lots of food and alcohol and a comfy bed. Hey,” she says to someone else, “I’ll be with you in a sec.” Then back to me. “Archer?”
I’m tired. I’ve spent a week in bed with the one woman I live and breathe for. And now here I am, in a cold conference room, preparing to go to war for a different woman; one who died before I was even born.
“Yeah?”
“If you don’t take care of you, I’m gonna have to do it for you, okay? Because all this marriage and love and obsession talk means I care that you’re okay. It means if you take on a case that tires you out or puts you in danger, I’m gonna get pissed. And I don’t have time to be pissed, because I literally have a line of people outside my office right now, demanding my attention and staring at me while I talk to you on the phone. So…”
“So I’m gonna rest…?” My voice is soft. Weak from exhaustion. “And you’re gonna work.”
“Excellent plan,” she says cheerfully. “What time will you be back at your apartment?”
“Lead detectives were slapped a couple years after this case.” Looking up, Fletch’s eyes meet mine and confirm without a shadow of doubt that I’m not going home anytime soon. “They were fired for all sorts of shit.”
“Archer?”
“One of ‘em is already dead,” he continues. “The other lives a few blocks away.”
“Archer!”
“I’m gonna work the case.” I bring my attention to Minka and wish, with my entire heart and soul and being, that I was speaking directly into her ear and not into a phone. That her hair was tickling my chin and her shampoo was swirling in my nostrils.
Instead, I get her exhalation of exasperation. “Arch—”