My voice comes out high-pitched and nasally. Ridiculous. And most importantly:noticeable.
“Yep.” She grabs the device and answers with a fast slide of her thumb, but then she saves me the effort of asking and automatically sets him on speaker. “Detective Malone, this is Aubree.”
The rush of wind and, in the distance, the honk of cars, tells us he’s on the move. “Oh, hey Aubs. Chief Mayet unavailable right now?”
“Yeah… she’s, uh…” She grits her teeth. “She’s dealing with a little personal hygiene situation. Actually, the next time you’re at the store, maybe you could buy a jumbo pack of tampons for the office.”
“Oh… Oh!” he repeats, his brain clicking over to what hethinksshe means.“Cool. I can totally do that. Detective Banks and I are heading your way right now. We were hoping to catch an update on Josey’s autopsy.”
“We’ll be ready for you. How long till you think you’ll be here?”
“Ah…” I picture him pulling the phone from his ear, checking the time, then bringing it back again. “Maybe ten minutes. Does that work for you guys?”
“Uh-huh. We’ll be here.”
“Alright, I’ll?—”
But I don’t know what he intends to say, because she kills our call and swings panicked eyes back to me. “He’s on his way!”
“Yeah.” I sit back with a grunt and loathe the pitch of my voice. “I know. I heard him.”
“You have blood on your shirt, and the stench of death clinging to your skin! I don’t pretend to knowexactlyhow he’ll react to that, but I imagine life is still kinda raw since last week, and I’m not sure he’s capable of handlinganythingwell right now.” She sets my phone down and shows me the keys. “I can run to the house and get your meds, but it’ll take me twenty minutes at least. Or I can sprint down to the pharmacy and get you a fresh set. It’ll be quicker, but?—”
“For the low, low price of forty-five thousand friggin’ dollars,” I snarl. “No, thanks.”
“Or…” Soph pushes off my desk and snatches up my bag from its slumped position on the floor. Digging through my private things, she flashes a victorious smile and comes out again with her hand wrapped around the parcel I haven’t been able to set aside since it arrived in the mail. “You could try Jen’s batch.” She drops my bag and flicks the container open to reveal a row of pills lovingly—by Jen—dubbed M&Ms. Each pill is larger than the average Tic Tac, tri-colored, and placed in a foam section of its own for safekeeping.
All but one have gone untouched since they arrived.
The other remains zippered into the small compartment inside my clutch.
Ithinkthe clutch is inside my apartment.
Maybe.
“Just take it, Chief.” She plucks a single pill from its section and searches my desk for water. Coffee. Soup, even. “I know we go back and forth about this, and I like to think our bickering is a kind of flirting, but, like…” She extends her hand, palm side up, and stops a mere twelve inches from my face. “We both like the D, so it’s the hetero kind of flirting that makes us cute.”
Adrenaline floods my veins and forces my heart to thump painfully inside my chest. “Soph…”
“We bicker about it, but Jen doesn’t hit wrong, okay? I swear. I surround myself with only the smartest bitches available, which is precisely why you and Doctor Emeri are a part of my tribe now. It’s rare that Jen gets to test her own batches, but this is just clotting factor, right? Metabolized proteins that break down safely inside our bodies. She took some, Chief. Then I took some.”
“You—” I peel my eyes from the pill and bring them up to hers. “You’ve sampled these?”
“Yes.” She loses her smile. Her teasing expression. The dancing in her gaze. Instead, she replaces them all with a solemn nod. “I took one myself, because I needed to be able to look you in the eyes and tell you they’re safe.”
“But—”
“I talked Jay into taking one, though not for an entire week after I took mine, just in case. And Griff even threw his hat in the ring. You’re not the lab rat, Mayet.Wewere.”
“But why?” I look from her to Aubree, the tampon strings tickling my chin and a mild headache thumping in the back of my skull. “Why would you take something not meant for you?”
“I already told you. I willneverrisk my sister by forcing something untested down her throat. I won’t risk Ellie, nor her unborn child. And I wouldn’t risk you either.” She takes my hand and turns it over. Dropping the pill into the center of my palm, she releases me again and offers a small smile. “Smart bitches like us are allowed to hire a bus and act dumb in the middle of nowhere sometimes. Blowing off a little steam doesn’t mean we lack intelligence, Chief. It means we feel safe with our friends, where looking like idiots is okay, but when Monday rolls around again, we straighten our spines and go back to being the smartest bitches around.”
Her phone chirps on my desk and draws three sets of eyes to the alert flashing on her screen. Slowly, she swallows and brings her gaze to mine. “Archer’s in the building, so I suggest you decide. Then pull those tampons out of your nose, because you look like a sad horror movie clown. It’s not cute.”
Nerves hammer inside my blood, ironically making my nose leakfaster.I look at Aubree and pray her brain foo-foo isn’t as made up as Soph likes to claim it is. “This is okay, right?”
She pushes my cold, half-full mug of coffee closer. “Yeah. I believe this will be okay.” She exhales a cleansing breath. “I trust Jen.”