Head Over Heels (7 page)

“Fat?” Coop said blankly.

“Spelled with a
ph,
” Veronica interpreted. “P-h-a-t. It means cool. Rad.” She flashed a sudden smile. “Groovy.”

“Ahhh.” He found himself grinning back. “Why do I suddenly feel so old?”

Riley shrugged, as if that ought to be obvious. But Lizzy stepped forward and gave Coop's hand a shy pat. “It's just 'cause you don't have any kids of your own,” she assured him. Then she blinked. “
Do
you?”

“No,” he said and caught Veronica smirking at the haste with which he'd denied it. He narrowed his eyes at her.

Then Lizzy noticed the box of knickknacks and a little frown furrowed her brow. She looked at Veronica. “Are you getting rid of all my mama's pretties?”

“Is that what she called these?” Veronica asked. “Her pretties?”

Lizzy nodded. “Mama says we're not s'posta touch 'em.”

“I'm just packing them up safely so you'll have
room to play in here without worrying about breaking anything.” Veronica squatted down in front of her niece. “Is that okay with you?”

Lizzy hiked her shoulders. “I guess.”

“Because I'll put it all back, if it's not.”

“No, that's okay.”

Veronica brushed back the little girl's bangs. “Would you like to go through the boxes when I'm done and pick out a few of your favorites for your room?”

Interest sparked in Lizzy's golden brown eyes. “Could I?”

“Yeah. You bet.”

“C'mon,” Riley said. “Let's go upstairs and play Pirate King.”

Dessa jostled her brother. “I getta be king this time!”

“Nuh-uh! You're just a girl. You hafta be a
boy
to be king.”

“Then I'll be Pirate
Queen
!”

Riley made a rude noise. “Did I ask you to play Pirate Queen? You can be the stowaway girl who pretends to be the cabin boy.” Without awaiting a response, he spun back into the kitchen and led the charge up the back stairway.

Dessa's blond curls seemed to take on the electricity of her indignation. “I don't wanna be the cabin boy again! He always ends up walkin' the plank!” She charged after him and Lizzy paused only long enough to shoot a shy smile at Coop and collect the kitten from Veronica, then pattered up the stairs in her friends' wake.

Coop grinned at Veronica. “You realize, don't you, that you'll have to explain
To Kill A Mockingbird
to her?
And somebody ought to teach Riley never to say “just a girl” to a girl. That's begging for trouble.”

She laughed in delighted accord, and he felt confused. He'd been so sure he knew exactly who Veronica Davis was—his image of her had been firmly entrenched in his mind before they'd ever met. Yet every time he saw her with Lizzy, her actions seemed in direct contradiction to the image ingrained in his brain.

Not that he trusted her. Little Miss Ronnie might not wear skin-tight jeans and trowel on the makeup; and she might not go for that sexy, big-hair look, or flirt at the drop of a hat with anyone sporting the equipment to rise to the occasion. But she utilized her sexuality every bit as much as her more obvious sister had done. He didn't know how she did it, but she sure as shit projected
something
that drew a man in. He'd seen it with the air filtration guy this morning. He'd felt it himself.

So no, he didn't trust her; he was no fool. But he might be wrong about her commitment to his niece.

Looking down at her, he demanded, “Why did it take you so long to get here to take care of Lizzy?” Immediately he could have kicked himself. Her reasons had nothing to do with him, so why did he care one way or the other?

He squared his shoulders. He cared because of Lizzy. That was all. But still he squirmed a little, if only mentally, when Veronica stared at him as if he'd lost his mind.

“I'm not sure why you would think that's any of your business,” she said slowly. “But Marissa didn't know how to contact me in Scotland, so I didn't learn
about Crystal's death until I got back to Seattle late Sunday night. The second I did, I cleared my calendar so I could be here with Lizzy until I can get the Tonk and the house sold and clear up Crystal's estate.”

The kids came pounding back down the stairs. “Aunt Ronnie,” Lizzy called in her soft little voice, “can we have some cookies?”

Veronica walked into the kitchen to meet them. “Sure. You all know where the cookie jar is. Milk's in the fridge.” She tousled Riley's hair as he headed for the table with the now-lidless cookie jar tucked under his arm, stuffing a cookie into his mouth as he went. “Use a glass, bud. We're a family of girls here—we don't like to see washback in our milk.”

He grinned at her, showing a mouthful of half-masticated cookie, then plunked down the jar and reached for the cup Lizzy brought over. “Okeydoke. Is it okay if I go see my friend Brad after our snack? He just lives on the other side of the Sooper Save.”

“Why don't you call him up and see if he can come here to play, instead?” Veronica picked a cookie out of the jar and took a nibble. “Then we'll find out what your mom has to say about future visits, okay?”

Riley heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Okay.”

Coop grabbed a cookie for himself, then excused himself from the little group and headed out. But as he climbed the shallow concrete steps of the Andrew Carnegie–built library a short while later, he couldn't seem to get Veronica's interaction with the kids out of his head.

It was just his bad luck that he was a sucker for a woman with a maternal streak. His own mother hadn't possessed one, so women who were good with
kids just did something to him. His heart beat a little too fast and his gut churned uneasily as he pulled open one of the library's big double doors.

You happy now, bud? It's been tough enough keeping your hands off her when you thought she was a selfish bitch and a lousy surrogate parent.

What the hell are you gonna do now?

 

Moments after Coop disappeared into the library, a man drove past the Tonk. As always when he passed by, he felt compelled to slow down and give the juke joint a quick appraisal. Not that the deed that kept him cruising by had been done anywhere near here, but this was where everything had started that evening, and therefore held a compelling attraction for him. When the car behind him honked impatiently, he resumed a normal speed. And smiled in satisfaction.

For he'd committed the perfect crime, hadn't he? He'd killed Crystal Davis and no one was the wiser, due to his quick thinking when he'd cleverly pinned it on Eddie Chapman.
Hey, hey, hey, Boo Boo
.

He laughed aloud, because the old cartoon phrase was his own private mantra. He'd always been smarter than the average bear.

Not that he'd actually planned to kill Crystal. But what the hell—plans change. It was her own damn fault she was dead, anyhow. He'd given her every opportunity to cease and desist, but had she listened? Oh, no. She'd just had to keep pushing him.

Well, no Baker Street bimbo threatened to ruin him—he didn't care if she could suck the chrome off a bumper hitch. He'd spent too many years and labored
too long building his reputation in this town to allow some avaricious slut with a vendetta get away with pulling that down around his ears.

She'd gotten just what she'd deserved. And hell, it wasn't as if he'd
enjoyed
it or anything. He did appreciate his own adroit thinking, though, and he knew if he could tell anyone, they, too, would have to admit he'd acted brilliantly when he'd arranged the suspicion to fall on Chapman.

So yes, indeed, Boo Boo.

He was definitely smarter than your average-type bear.

C
OOP SO SELDOM USED HIS CELL PHONE THAT HE
tended to forget he even had one. So when it rousted him from a deep sleep late Friday morning, he reached over to the nightstand and slapped at the off button on the alarm clock, thinking that was where the sound originated. The phone rang again, and he pushed up onto his elbow. “Oh, for—” He snatched the phone off the nightstand, flipped down the mouthpiece, and punched the talk button. “Yeah!”

“Coop? Steve Parrish here. Did Margery get hold of you?”

“No, why? Has she been trying?”

“For two days now. She called me first thing this morning to find out if I knew where you were. Damn, big guy, isn't the purpose of having a cell phone to
make yourself available anytime, anywhere?”

“That's the popular theory, anyhow.” Coop tossed his pillow against the headboard and sat up, resting his back against it. Steve was his literary agent and Margery Kellerman his editor. He'd spent thirteen years seeing every hot spot in the world, courtesy of the U.S. Marines, and had kept journals of his experiences as point man in a reconnaissance squad in C Company of the Second Recon Battalion. Somewhere along the way he'd begun to jot down ideas for a book based on his knowledge, and that had led to scribbling chapters in spiral notebooks, which had eventually led to the purchase of a computer and a completed manuscript. He'd then shopped it around to several agents, and felt like he'd hit the jackpot when Steve, who'd been his number one choice, was interested in representing his work. A few months after signing on with the Parrish Agency, his military-techno-thriller had been put up for auction in a bidding war between publishers, and fourteen months after that, his alter ego, James Lee Cooper, had exploded onto the bestseller lists and quickly became a name to be reckoned with.

A cold draft whispered across Coop's bare shoulders and he yanked up the blankets. “What'd Margery want?”

“To report some good news. Two bits of good news, actually.
The Eagle Flies
is going back to press for another ten thousand copies, and it's generating renewed interest in
Cause for Alarm,
so that's going back, too, for another seventy-five hundred. Your wholesalers' book-signing tour obviously paid off. Newsgroup and Levy both put in hefty reorders.”

“No kidding? That's great.”

“Yeah, I thought you'd like it. Break out a bottle or two of the good beer. It might not be as exciting as the times you've hit the
New York Times
list, but it's definitely worth celebrating.”

Coop thought about that after they'd concluded their call. Between his jarhead training, which had taught him to keep his eyes open and his mouth shut, and an admittedly knee-jerk reaction to his mother's interminable one-is-what-one-does-for-a-living, keeping his own counsel had become such a way of life that he'd carried it over into his new professional existence as well. Although his career was hardly a secret, neither was it something he talked about to every Tom, Dick, and Harry on the street. He believed in keeping a low profile.

But he'd always had Eddie to call at times like these, and until this moment had never fully realized just how much he'd come to rely on that. Eddie was eternally generous in his praise of Coop's accomplishments, and his obvious pride had made Coop feel ten feet tall. More importantly, his little brother made him feel as if he were still part of a family—and frankly, news like this just wasn't the same without someone to share it with.

Coop threw back the covers and climbed out of bed, swearing beneath his breath when his warm feet came into contact with the freezing, uneven oak plank floor. He'd been extremely fortunate: Unlike so many writers who barely eked out enough to keep body and soul together, he was making a very decent living. Part of that could be attributed to good timing—he was lucky
enough to have hit upon a period in publishing when the books he burned to write were also those for which the reading public currently had an insatiable hunger. Not to mention that he had a supportive publisher who knew how to take full advantage of the fact and a savvy agent who had the ability to get the best deal for his client. Most likely even Mom would have been impressed.

Yet frustration marred what should have been an exciting time. His brother was in a mess clear up to his eyeballs, and Coop had a load of guilt to live with, knowing that the book-signing tour, which had precipitated his back-to-press good fortune, was the very reason Eddie hadn't been able to contact him when he'd needed his help the most. And hell, perhaps if he'd made more of an effort in recent years to come see Eddie in Fossil instead of waiting until his brother's infrequent business trips had brought him to his part of the country, he'd be in a better position to offer some comfort to Lizzy now. Eddie had been a much better brother to him than he'd been to Eddie.

Hearing a faint scritching at the attic door, Coop silently loped down the stairs and yanked it open. Lizzy's little cat Boo leaped back with a hiss, his black fur standing on end.

Coop squatted down. “Hey, little guy. Did I startle you?”

Boo stalked past him up the stairs and Coop grinned. “Looking for some company, huh? And you've decided I'm better than nothing, I take it. I get that attitude a lot around here.” He grabbed his jeans and pulled them on as Boo explored his room. The cat
attacked shadows and showed the shoelaces of Coop's desert boots who was boss, then pounced on the dangling sleeve of his sweater when Coop pulled the garment out of a drawer.

Scooping Boo up in his free hand, Coop extricated the cat's claws from the fine-gauge red wool. Then he gently lobbed the little feline onto the middle of the bed and pulled the sweater on over his head. When he sat down next to the animal to don his shoes and socks a moment later, Boo promptly climbed into his lap, turned in a circle, kneaded what felt like a dozen needle-sharp claws into his jeans, then collapsed in a sprawl along his thigh. A low, gravelly sound like a cement mixer amalgamating its load rumbled in his throat.

The homey sound and comforting warmth reminded Coop that since his arrival in Fossil, he'd neglected one of the few real friendships he could claim. Glancing at his stainless steel watch, he reached for the phone. It was nearly three
P
.
M
. North Carolina time, so if Zach was in-country he ought to be off duty by now. Coop punched in a phone number he knew by heart.

It was answered on the second ring. “Yeah!”

“Atten' hut!” Coop barked.

There was the meagerest instant of silence. Then a deep voice demanded, “Blackstock, you sonovabitch, is that you?”

“How's it going, Zachariah?”

“Oh, you know—same old, same old. Just 'bout got my balls blown off in Bali.”

Coop rolled his eyes. He and Zach Taylor had been
telling each other lies since the first day they met in boot camp as a couple of green, too-macho-to-show-how-scared-they-were teenagers. “You're full of shit, Taylor. There's nothing going on in Bali.”

Zach laughed. “I know, but I figured a hotshot writer like James Lee Cooper would appreciate the alliteration.”

“That pretentious dumb shit? Hell, I doubt that idiot would recognize an alliteration if it bopped by and bit him on his bodacious butt. How've you been?” Coop demanded and scratched the cat's head. Boo demonstrated his approval by sinking and retracting several of his claws in Coop's thigh. “I've missed you—there's nobody around here to dish me up my daily ration of bull.” Except for Veronica, maybe, but since yesterday afternoon he'd been doing his best to pretend she didn't exist.

“I'm fine—I'm being transferred to Pendleton next month.” They discussed the impending move for a few minutes, then Zach said, “How about you? How's the search for your baby brother coming along?”

“Not great. I've eavesdropped on conversations in the bar, questioned people with a subtleness that would astound you when the discussions about Eddie and Crystal turned public, and talked to Eddie's lawyer. And so far I haven't turned up a damn thing worthwhile.” He stroked his hand down the cat's back from head to tail, and Boo's purr cranked up a few decibels louder.

“What the hell is that?” Zach demanded.

“Huh?”

“That noise? What is that?”

“Nothing.” Coop stopped petting. “A cement truck out on the street.”

“Christ, what the hell are they using in the mix, rocks the size of ping-pong balls?”

“Sounds like it, doesn't it?” Grinning, he scratched beneath Boo's chin and the volume of the cat's purr immediately cranked up.

“I always had this vision of small towns as peaceful and bucolic.”

“Yeah,” Coop agreed amiably. “There's another piece of Americana folklore shot to hell.”

Zach laughed wryly, then immediately sobered. “So you're not getting anywhere?”

“So far everything I've done has turned out to be a case of too little, too late. I'm here now, but I should have been here
before
Eddie went on the lam. I bought this phone we're talking on too late. If I'd had a cell phone last month, he wouldn't have had to leave increasingly frantic messages on my answering machine. And that's not even mentioning his daughter. I'm keeping an eye on Lizzy as best I can, but how effective can it be when I can't even tell her who I am?”

“Not informing everyone and his uncle that you're Eddie's brother was a good call, Coop,” Zach said flatly. “Whoever actually did the kid's mother would be that much more on guard if they knew your relationship to him. At least this way you've got a fighting chance of someone slipping up and maybe giving you something to work with.”

“Yeah, and I even still agree with that plan, in theory. Except Lizzy isn't ‘everyone.' She's a sweet little kid who's lost both her mom and her dad in one fell swoop. And that's another worry. I mean, since the
day she was born the one thing I could count on in every conversation I had with Eddie was that I'd hear all there was to hear about Lizzy—how much she'd grown, what clever new thing she'd done since the last time we'd talked. He's crazy about her, Zach, and if I don't know anything else in this world, I can be absolutely sure that he'll be back for her, come hell or high water. He's incapable of staying away from her for long.”

“And that worries you?”

“It worries me a lot. Because if he grows careless in his need to see her, he could easily find himself cooling his heels in a state pen for so many years that Lizzy will be thirty years old before her daddy ever sees the light of day. And meanwhile, I'm sure as hell no big help, if I can't even tell her who I am.”

“Then maybe I'm wrong here. Maybe it's more important for you to come clean, particularly if she doesn't have anyone else.”

Coop sunk his fingers in Boo's fur. “Well, she does have her Aunt Ronnie.”

“The mother's sister?”

“Yeah.”

Zach made a rude noise. “There's a big fucking deal. If Aunt Ronnie's anything like Crystal was reputed to be, that's not saying much.”

“No, actually, Veronica's not like Crystal at all. I thought at first that she was, but…she's really good with the kid. Lizzy likes her.”

“And?”

“What do you mean,
and
? And what?”

“I don't know—your voice changed.”

“Like hell.”

“No, it did. I can't quite put my finger on it, but…” Zach's voice trailed off. Then the sound of snapped fingers came down the line. “Oh, man, I know what it is—you've got the hots!” He chortled. “That's it, isn't it? Damn, this is just too beautiful for words. The Iceman wants to get in Aunt Ronnie's pants!”

Something about hearing his Marine handle linked with his yearning for Veronica of the lily white skin made him say a bit too forcefully, “Bullshit.”

“Now, now, Blackstock. You might want to consider very carefully before you go into full-scale denial here. Remember Pinocchio, who wanted to be a real boy, and his lie-detector nose? Well, Geppetto never told him that real boys have a few growing parts of their own, only their woodies
shrink
every time they tell a lie.”

It was an automatic reaction to squeeze his thighs together, but Coop countered with a rude noise. “Yeah, right,” he scoffed. “If that were the case, we'd have to change your name to Zelda, since a bigger liar never lived.”

“Aw, you sweet-talker, you. But see, that's just what I'm talking about. Real boys can lie to their wives, they can lie to the government. But they never ever lie to another jarhead when it comes to matters of the dick. Lie to the guy who's covered your back, and that nasty little reverse Pinocchio factor is just guaranteed to go into effect. Trust me on this.”

“Okay, fine,” Coop admitted. “So maybe I did wanna get in her pants. But that was yesterday. I'm over it now.”

“Careful, boy—you just lost an inch.”

“Well, lucky for me I've got it to spare.”

“We ain't talking about your
ego
here, Ice. Your dick could be swingin' to your knees—and remember, boy, I've shared barracks with you, so we both know that's a pipe dream—but keep up the lies and you won't have enough left to show the little lady a good time should she ever decide this is going to be your lucky day.” Clearly pleased with his allegory, his chuckle rumbled through the line.

“Great, yuk it up,” Coop said sourly. “I'm glad you're so amused. I'm trying to function around the fact that I'm one big, raging hard-on these days, and you think it's a real knee-slapper.”

Zach roared with laughter.

Coop allowed him a minute to knock himself out before he said, “You got that out of your system, now?”

“Almost.” His friend's voice was full of amusement.