She didn’t acknowledge my comment.
“Dr. Friedman says you’ve got to talk to me.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” Coop said.
“You didn’t let the docs do a rape evidence kit.”
“I keep telling you, Mike. They didn’t touch me. Not sexually.”
“You’d never believe a woman who was held for two days and nights by a gang of men and then told you that. You’d make her submit to an exam and figure she’d give it up eventually.”
I moved onto her bed, sitting on top of the covers, face-to-face with her.
“Nobody touched me like that,” she said. “He just wanted to kill me. Renner wanted you to watch them kill me, and then he’d have killed you, too.”
“Dr. Friedman says I have to give you more time to deal with it.”
“That’s not what I need, Mike. I’m done with thinking about that.”
“What do you need, babe?”
“The toxicology results,” she said. “I’m pretty sure they used chloroform to get me into the car, but the next day they gave me shots of something that put me in the twilight zone. Everything was spacey and vague.”
“Some kind of tranquilizer, Dr. Friedman thinks,” I said. “Just to keep you subdued.”
There were red marks and abrasions on her wrists, where she had been restrained. But she didn’t want to get into that yet, either.
“Who is this Dr. Friedman you keep talking about?” Coop asked, resting her head back against the pillow. “I’m out of your sight just forty-eight hours and you’re taking advice from someone I don’t even know.”
“There’s a good sign,” I said, leaning forward to kiss her on the forehead. “The control freak in you is coming back fast.”
“Who is she?”
“The shrink the commissioner hooked me up with yesterday morning. She’s the woman I was talking to in the ER while you were being treated,” I said. “Anyway, she was using me to try to get inside your head. Figure out whether you took yourself out of the action because I’d been mean to you or-”
“That’s crazy, Mike.”
“She’s smart. It was Dr. Friedman who had the idea that the abduction was all about me.”
“About you? I’m the one who was kidnapped.”
“Because of me,” I said, taking both her hands in mine. “You were kidnapped because of me. Because I love you.”
I didn’t expect Coop to start to cry when I said that. But she did. I was dealing with some sort of post-traumatic stress situation. Coop knew more about that kind of thing than I did.
I grabbed the long string behind the bed and pulled on it to turn out the overhead light.
“Please don’t cry, babe,” I said. “I don’t know what to do for you.”
It was some kind of release, I guess. She just cried and cried and cried.
“I was all over the map, Alex. I was ready to lock up the Reverend Shipley ’cause I thought he was messed up in this.”
She wiped her nose and looked at me. “Really? Shipley and me?”
“Yeah. That crap with Estevez the day you disappeared. How he was tied into Shipley,” I said. “Has anybody told you that they grabbed that Josie Aponte broad?”
“No.”
“Her real name is Rosita Quinones. She took off for Philly right after she did her computer magic. Left the groom all by himself.”
Coop put the tissues down and started asking questions. That was another good sign.
“Who’s going to handle the case?”
“I’ll get that answer for you by daybreak,” I said. “Is that good enough?”
She forced another smile.
“Next one to nab is Shipley’s pal Takeesha Falls, right, Coop?”
“Who’s Takeesha Falls?”
“Whoa, it’s been a long couple of days. I forgot you were gone before I even heard her name. Seems like forever ago,” I said. “Do you remember, when I left Primola Wednesday night, I’d just gotten called on a homicide case? A male victim in a domestic?”
Coop nodded. I was glad of any conversation to take her out of herself.
“It’s the girlfriend we’re looking for. The dead man’s girlfriend, Takeesha Falls. She runs with the Reverend Shipley, too.”
“Oh.” She sounded as though she was getting drowsy.
“Just so you know, I think the commissioner has it in for your boss.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not alone in thinking that Battaglia has an unholy alliance with Hal Shipley. It all started to come to a head in the meeting we had in Scully’s office yesterday.”
Coop’s eyelids fluttered. “Tell me more.”
“In the morning. I’m just saying that when the next election rolls around, District Attorney Paul Battaglia may not be the man on the ballot.”
“That’s okay with me, Mike.”
She was rolling from side to side, unable to find a comfortable position.
“The docs gave you medication to make you sleep, Alex,” I said. “Don’t fight it.”
She looked at me and took hold of my hand. “I’m afraid to go to sleep, Mike. I’m afraid of what I see when I close my eyes.”
I pulled back the covers and climbed in beside her-careful of the IV tube-slipping my arm beneath her neck.
“You know to expect that, Alex. You tell your victims that all the time,” I said. “Flashbacks, nightmares. Dr. Friedman said it’s only natural that you’re-”
“I don’t want to hear another thing about what she thinks, Mike, okay? I’m not all that interested in your Dr. Friedman,” Coop said, sounding much more like herself. “I can’t get warm. What do I do about that?”
I held her closer to my side and stroked her arm, bringing the blanket over both of us.
“What’s with the Alex stuff?” she asked. “Why are you suddenly calling me ‘Alex’?”
She turned on her side and settled into place with me.
“I can’t tell you,” I said.
“What do you mean? Why not?”
“Because it’s about Dr. Friedman,” I said. “She thinks it’s a bad thing that I use your surname. That I’m your lover and I can’t even manage to call you by your first name. She thinks it’s another one of my failings.”
“But I am Coop,” she said, smiling up at me. “That’s who I am.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This is a book I have wanted to write for a very long time. I’ve been interested in looking at Alexandra Cooper through the eyes of Mike Chapman, professionally and personally. The change in the nature of their relationship seemed to provide the perfect moment to do it.
One inspiration for the setting is The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge, a much-loved children’s book by Hildegarde H. Swift and Lynd Ward. For information about my favorite lady, The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World, I relied on Elizabeth Mitchell’s excellent book Liberty’s Torch.
My investigative skills were enhanced by conversations with one of the smartest men I know: Lieutenant Jimmy West, head of the NYPD’s Cold Case Squad. He is a great friend and a brilliant detective.
As always, my real-life heroes are the women and men who work in the NYPD; former colleagues who now distinguish the judicial bench, such as Ann Donnelly; and prosecutors under the leadership of District Attorney Cyrus Vance. They include Melissa Mourges, Martha Bashford, Karen Friedman-Agnifilo, Audrey Moore, Kerry O’Connell, Elizabeth Lederer, Larry Newman, and John Temple. I miss that office every single day.
My Dutton family is a happy, steady professional home for me. Ben Sevier greeted my idea for Coop and Chapman with great enthusiasm. My thanks always to Christine Ball, Jamie Knapp, Stephanie Kelly, Jessica Renheim, Carrie Swetonic, and Andrea Santoro. Best to Brian Tart on his new duties. Gratitude, also, to my Little, Brown UK team as well.
Laura Rossi Totten is my social media guru. She has amazing talent and style and manages to communicate with the world in ways that baffle me.