Authors: Stephanie Bond
Oxy was the burden that came with thinking clearly.
Where was Coop? How could the man who had raked him
over the coals for conspiring to have a body stolen do all
the things he’d been accused of? It just didn’t add up. But
if Coop was innocent, why run?
Just like his own father…
Then he was tormented by images of Meg with that other
guy. He’d totally blown it with her.
He needed to cal Liz.
And repair the townhouse.
And thank Mouse.
At this point, he was glad that the identification of the
headless corpse in the morgue had gone cold. Because if
one of the three names on the list he’d sent anonymously
to the APD actually panned out, they might link the dead
guy back to Mouse. And he owed Mouse one. A big one.
He finally managed to doze for a couple of hours, then
showered and took the vitamins and minerals that were
supplementing his energy and his ful recovery. When he
went upstairs, Carlotta and Peter were having brunch out
by the pool. Through the glass door he watched them
interact for a few minutes, nursing guilty pangs about
pushing Peter on Carlotta when it was so clear to him her
heart was elsewhere. He’d explored the rest of the house
and suspected their separate sleeping arrangements had
little to do with appearances.
But Peter had really helped him out of a jam, and he did
seem to care for Carlotta. He would give her the life she
deserved, the one their parents had yanked out from
under her.
Wes walked outside and joined them. He snagged a strip
of bacon and a banana, then noticed the brochures they
were studying.
“Who’s going to Vegas?” Excitement stirred in his stomach
as he picked up one of the flyers.
“Peter bought a trip to Vegas for charity. We’re leaving
Tuesday for five days.”
“You’re welcome to stay here while we’re gone,” Peter
added.
Envy stabbed Wes. He’d always dreamed of going to
Vegas. Any poker player worth their salt played the strip.
“Thanks for the offer, Peter, but I’m heading back to
Chance’s place tonight.” He glanced at Carlotta. “I’m going
with Kendall Abrams on a few body pickups this afternoon.
I’l have him drop me off there when we’re done.”
She looked sad, but she nodded. He wondered briefly if
she was lonely living with Peter. There was a feeling of
detachment here in the suburbs that didn’t seem to fit his
sister’s personality.
“Have you cal ed Liz?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
“So…” Carlotta grinned. “How did it go with Meg
yesterday?”
Wes frowned. “It didn’t. She’s going out with someone
else, someone in her own league.”
“Wel , if you’re giving up, that wil definitely make her
decision easier,” Carlotta said lightly.
A honk sounded from the front of the house.
“That’s my ride,” Wes said. “Later.” On impulse, he
dropped a kiss on his sister’s cheek, then bolted.
The body pickups were rote—four nursing homes and the
veteran’s hospital, six trips to the morgue. Kendall Abrams
was as morose as the country songs he insisted they listen
to. Dr. Abrams wasn’t at the morgue, so the dreaded, “I
gotta be me,” meeting with Kendall and his uncle was
postponed. As Wes maneuvered around Kendall’s
shortcomings on the job, he realized how much he’d
learned from Coop. But it wasn’t the same making calls
without him.
The afternoon turned into evening and they were stil
stacking bodies in the back of the van. An influenza
outbreak in one of the nursing homes had taken its tol .
They were completing their final run to the morgue when
his cel phone rang. At the sight of Meg’s name on the
screen, his pulse kicked up. Uncaring of how uncool it was,
he answered on the first ring.
“Hi, Meg.”
“Hi. Are you busy?”
“Just moving bodies.”
She grunted. “Are you going to be busy all night?”
Hope stirred in his chest. “No. We just finished.”
“Why don’t you come over?”
“To your dorm?”
“Yeah. My roommate’s gone. We can hang out and watch
TV.”
“I thought you girls weren’t allowed to have guys in your
room this late.”
“We’re not. If you want in, you’l have to think of
something creative. Room 2011.”
He swallowed hard. “What time?”
“That’s up to you,” she said, then clicked off.
He snapped the phone closed and looked at Kendall.
“We’re done. I’l buy pizza.”
Twenty minutes later, Kendall dropped him off in front of
Meg’s dorm. Wes pul ed out the hat he’d bought from the
guy at the counter of the pizza joint and walked in with a
pie propped on his shoulder. “Pizza for room 1911,” he
told the dour-faced woman manning the lobby desk.
“The girls have to come down and pay for it here,” she said
primly, as if she were personally responsible for guarding
their hymens.
“I’ve been calling and calling from the parking lot, and it’s
busy.” He tried to look pitiful. “Please, ma’am. I got fifteen
more of these things to deliver in the next forty minutes,
or it all comes out of my paycheck.”
She frowned. “Al right. But if you don’t come back, I know
which room you’re in.”
“That’s what you think,” Wes muttered under his breath
as he stepped onto the elevator.
When Meg answered the door, she burst out laughing. “I
knew you’d think of something.”
He was kissing her before the door closed.
She kissed him back, then lifted her head. “No sex, do you
hear me? This is stil our first date.”
He nodded. He just wanted to be in the same room with
her.
They sat on the couch watching TV and sharing the pizza
with her leg crossed over his, and his hand on her knee. In
between talking, they kissed and petted, but despite a
persistent hard-on, Wes didn’t let things go too far. He
didn’t want to mess up again.
Around two in the morning, they stretched out on the
couch, their warm bodies pressed together. She had her
hand under his shirt, caressing his stomach. As Wes
stroked her hair, a fierce possessiveness welled in his
chest.
“So, what’s up with you and this Mark guy?” he asked.
Meg’s hand stil ed, and for a few seconds, he thought he’d
angered her. Then she sighed. “Mark was my brother’s
best friend.”
“Was? Meaning they’re no longer best friends?”
“Meaning, I no longer have a brother.”
Wes twisted to see her face. “What happened?”
Her eyes shimmered with tears. “He died of a drug
overdose about three years ago.”
So that explained why she’d given him such a hard time
about the Oxy. It also explained the air of fragility he’d
detected around Meg’s mother when he’d met her.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “That must have been awful.”
“It stil is. I’m glad you decided to get clean.”
“Me, too,” he said, and meant it. He felt like he had a new
lease on life.
She snuggled closer and that odd pain stirred in his chest
again. An alien thought invaded his mind, but he pushed it
away. No, he was not in love with Meg Vincent. He just
wanted in her tight pants.
“I’m going on vacation with my folks for a few days,” she
said. “I’l miss you while I’m gone.”
Christ, he missed her already. With a sinking sensation, he
conceded that this miserable anguish wracking his body
must be love. Like a drowning man, Wes closed his eyes
and gave in.
29
“Last day before vacation?” Patricia Alexander asked
Carlotta.
“That’s right,” Carlotta sang, walking through Shoes on her
way up to her department. “Have fun doing inventory.”
Patricia stuck out her tongue good-naturedly.
Carlotta frowned at Patricia’s bare wrist. “Hey, where’s
your charm bracelet?”
“Oh…I just realized how sil y it was to believe that a bunch
of random charms can predict the future.”
“Did you break it off with Leo?”
Patricia nodded. “I don’t know, Carlotta. There’s just
something about him that I can’t put my finger on. It’s like
he’s keeping something from me.”
“You did the right thing,” Carlotta assured her. Then she
held up her own bracelet with a smile. “But who cares
whether the charms can predict the future? It’s a pretty
bracelet.”
Patricia laughed. “You’re right. I’l start wearing mine
again.” She gestured to the array of fall shoes that had just
arrived. “Have you seen the Valentino leopard-print
platforms?”
“Yes,” Carlotta said wistful y. With a pang she
remembered how much Maria Marquez had admired her
silver Valentino sandals.
She glanced at al the beautiful, shiny shoes that bloomed
like flowers in a garden. She’d love a new pair of sandals
for the trip to Vegas, but resisted, knowing she and Wes
would need money to repair and repaint the townhouse.
Besides, she had plenty of shoes. She planned to stop by
the townhouse tomorrow on the way to the airport to
pack some of her more dressy clothes.
“Maybe later,” she said to Patricia with a goodbye wave.
“Have fun in Vegas,” the blonde said slyly.
Carlotta returned with a smile, then turned toward the
escalator. She was looking forward to getting away, she
just wished it were under different circumstances. She
couldn’t shake the feeling that she was abandoning the
situation here in Atlanta when too many ends were stil
loose.
Which was ridiculous, since Jack and everyone else had so
often reminded her that it wasn’t her place to try to fix
things.
“Carlotta Wren, line two,” said a voice over the P.A.
system. “Carlotta Wren, line two.”
Carlotta hurried to her station and picked up the phone.
“This is Carlotta.”
“Hel o,” said a quiet, warm voice she recognized with a
thril .
“Coop?” she asked, stunned. She turned her back to Herb,
her bodyguard. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. How are you?”
“Worried sick about you,” she whispered. “Where are
you?”
A rueful noise sounded over the line. “I can’t tel you
where I am, but I’m okay. A friend of mine died.”
“Sarah Edlow?”
“I see you’ve been keeping up with the media coverage.
Yes, Sarah—the woman I almost kil ed because I was so
drunk on my ass.”
“She recovered, Coop.”
“Only to get a brain tumor. That doesn’t seem fair, does
it?”
“No,” she agreed, marveling over how calm, how normal,
he sounded in the wake of the accusations against him.
“I even wondered if something about her injuries, or the
medicine she had to take because of them could’ve caused
the tumor.”
“No one could know that,” she murmured.
“Stil , after I was arrested, I started thinking all these
horrible things were happening to me because of what I
did to Sarah, like karma. Some part of me thought I
deserved it.”
“But you didn’t kil those women, Coop.”
“No, I didn’t.”
She closed her eyes in abject relief just to hear him say the
words. “Then why did you leave?”
“Because I promised Sarah I would do something for her,
something she wasn’t able to do herself. I’l be back
tomorrow to face the music. And I’l cal Liz later, but I
wanted to talk to you first. I miss your voice.”
Carlotta smiled into the phone, then looked up and saw
Jack striding toward her.
“Jack’s here,” she whispered. “I have to go. Take care of
yourself.” She replaced the receiver just as Jack walked up.
“Who was that to put such color in your cheeks?” Jack
asked.
“Uh…it was Wes.” She clasped her shaking hands behind
her back.
“How’s he doing?”
“Great, just great.” Then she angled her head. Jack had a
sparkle in his eye. “Speaking of color in your
cheeks…What’s up?”
“Wel , it’l be all over the news soon, but I thought you
should be the first to know. This morning Rueben Garza
confessed to Maria’s murder.”
She gasped. “You’re kidding.”
“No. We questioned him and it wasn’t long before his
story fel apart. You were right—Maria must’ve known she
was being stalked. I’m just sorry I wasn’t as astute as you
were in picking up on it.”
“Jack, you can’t blame yourself.”
He pressed his lips together. “No. But I shouldn’t have
blamed you, either. I’m sorry I lashed out.”
“I know you didn’t mean it. We were all grieving.”
He nodded, then he gave a little laugh and shook his head.
“I feel like a cheesy TV pitch guy, but…wait, there’s more!”
She smiled. “What?”
From his pocket he removed a small plastic bag. In the
corner was a square black chip, less than half the size of a
postage stamp.
Carlotta squinted. “What is it?”
“A GPS chip found attached to the inside fender wall of
Coop’s van.”
She covered her mouth with both hands.
“The van had already been processed,” he said. “The chip
would’ve never been found if we hadn’t been looking for
it.”
“So someone was keeping track of Coop’s movements?”