Page 66 of Sinful Deception
“To say so would be to accuse a friend and officer of a jailable crime.” She sips her coffee and smirks behind the lip of the mug. “Conspiracy to murder, right? Is that the formal charge?”
“I don’t know! But we can’t just leave it unsaid, right?” My phone trills with a call fromunknown number. So I silence it and focus on the here. The now. “I’m not saying we go and make a freakin’ statement to the press. But we need to talk it out between us, right? So I don’t feel like I’ll burst with what IthinkI know, but can’t confirm because no one is talking about it.”
“Should we hold similar meetings about you?” Taunting, she sips like the world isn’t sitting on our shoulders. Like we didn’t just find out our friend ordered the hit of another man. Or worse, that it’s common knowledge—but never discussed—that I, too, am responsible for a handful of deaths when the law couldn’t, or wouldn’t, step in to make things better. “A monthly sit-down to discuss Laramie Fentone, perhaps?”
I shoot a look toward my office door, though no one stands on the other side listening in to our conversation.
“Do you mind?”
“What?” She crosses one leg over the other and kicks her foot out so it arcs through the air.Up. Down. Up. Down. “You want your cake and to eat it, too. You do some things sometimes that you feel are righteous and worthy, and you don’t want anyone to talk about them. Similarly, Fletch might have done something he felt was righteous and necessary.”Up. Down.Then she shrugs. “I guess he doesn’t have to talk about it if he doesn’t want to. And we shouldn’t discuss it behind his back.”
“He hired someone to kill Nathan Booth! That’s a big deal, don’t you think?”
“Only about as big as you securing information that led you to an undisclosed address, that led to a man with a knife in his throat and a bullet in his brain. So… Want to discuss?”
I firm my lips and kill anotherunknown callercall with a fast flick of my thumb. “I do not wish to discuss.”
“Mmhm.” She flashes a playful smile. “Exactly. We can love and respect and want the best for each other. But that doesn’t mean we have to disclose our every little secret.”
“Says the woman who soldered un-removable jewelry to my body and slept in my apartment a mere five minutes after we met. You’re the friend who demanded my formal relationship status before I even knew what it was. You’re the one who plasters her face to my window and listens to conversations you’re not invited to. But now, suddenly, you’re okay with a little privacy?”
“Exactly.” She twines a lock of pink hair around her finger. “Privacy matters.”
“Sure,Pet. It matters now that you’re shacked up with Timothy Malone the Third. The timing of your new stance on this is awfully convenient, don’t you think?” I snarl when my phone bleats again, so I pick it up and angrily swipe to answer. “Chief Mayet speaking. And since you’re calling my private cell, andnotleaving a message, I have to assume you have something important to say.”
“Minka Mayet.” Sophia freakin’ Solomon’s voice rolls through the line and settles like a one-ton anvil on the back of my neck. “How’s it going?”
“You were in Copeland last week.” I shoot a look to Aubree, my eyes wide and my mind racing as the information I thought I was missing jumps back to the forefront of my memories. “Holy Shit. Of course you were. It makes complete sense now.”
“Hmm?”
“How talented are you with a long-range rifle, Solomon?”
“Me?” Oh-so-innocently, she snickers. “Not so great. My husband is a hell of a shot, though. Even from half a mile awayand at six hundred feet elevation. But,” she exhales, infuriatingly smug, “that’s a discussion for another day.”
“No,” I growl. “It’s not. I’d like to discuss this now.”
“Another time. Are you sitting down? Because I have something to tell you, and you’re not gonna like it.”
My heart gives a heavy knock that almost steals the breath from my lungs. “What?” Dread settles in my veins, shoving aside every last remnant of anger from a moment ago. “What happened? Who is hurt? And what has it got to do with me? All of my people are safe.”Aren’t they? Archer texted only twenty minutes ago.“Soph?”
“Janiesa Sawyer.” She flicks through a stack of pages on her end of the line, shuffling the pile and tapping them against what I suppose is her desk. “She’s five-years-old and was taken from a park in New York.”
The blood drops out of my head, leaving behind nothing more than an echo chamber of thudding booms.
“My…” I lick my parched lips and shake my head. “What?”
“She went missing on January eleventh. It’s been on the news.”
“I rarely watch the news. It’s…” I rub a shaking hand over my forehead. “No. Soph. Don’t say it.”
“The cops haven’t gone public with the connection yet, since it’s still early days in the investigation. But the press is already making public comparisons.”
“No,” I grit out. “It’s impossible.”
“It’s not a copycat,” she murmurs, perhaps for the first time since we met, true sadness rolling through her words. “He’s back, and I needed you to know before the calls start coming in.”
