“I’ve seen you drive,” Coop said with a forced smile. “I believe you.”
“I saw headlights behind me, but I didn’t pay much attention. It happened so fast. The headlights came closer, and I slowed down so the driver could pass. He pulled out, and- He must have turned off his lights because everything went dark. His car swerved and hit the side of the Audi. Hit hard. I… I lost control. I skidded and hit something. What did I hit?”
“A utility pole,” the taller cop said.
Karah’s hand went to her cheek. “Whoever hit me didn’t even stop to see if I was okay.”
Piper and Coop exchanged glances, then Piper moved closer to the bed. “You said ‘he.’ Did you get a look at the driver?”
“No. I don’t know for sure it was a man. That’s a country road, and there aren’t any streetlights. It was too dark to see anything.”
Piper glanced over at Coop, who threw her a keep-your-mouth shut glare in return. The police needed to know about the attacks on him, but she was smarter now than she’d been a few days ago, and she’d talk to him first.
The police continued to question Karah, but other than a vague sense that the car was large-maybe even a truck-she didn’t know more.
She wouldn’t be released from the hospital until the next day, and Piper told her she’d sleep at their place tonight to be with Jada.
Coop had to get back to the club for the reopening, and Piper followed him out into the hallway. The ding of call buttons and beep of monitors, the smell of antiseptic and sickness brought back those awful weeks before Duke had died.
“I want you on the floor tomorrow night,” he said.
She shook off the memories. “I… still have a job?”
“You’re the only female bouncer I have,” he said grimly.
That wasn’t what she was asking, and he knew it. She dodged a food cart. “I’m taking your advice about being a team player,” she said more firmly.
He headed toward the elevator bank. “Glad to hear it.”
“I’m giving you a chance to tell me why I shouldn’t talk to the police about the attacks on you before I go ahead and do it.”
He jammed his finger at the elevator button. “That sounds more like an ultimatum than being a team player.”
“Baby steps.”
A long exhale. “I’ve had enough bad publicity with the bug infestation. I don’t want this splashed all over the papers, too.”
“I understand. But the Audi has tinted windows. The road was dark. We both know what happened tonight was intended for you.”
His jaw set. “I should have anticipated something like this. Instead, I lent her my car. If I’d thought for a minute…” The elevator doors opened. “Leave the police out of this. That’s an order.”
The doors slid shut between them.
Piper got Jada off to school the next morning, then called Eric. He still hadn’t caught on to the fact that she wasn’t interested in dating him, and he agreed to take her to the lot where the Audi had been towed. As she photographed the streaks of black paint the mystery vehicle had left behind, she knew that Karah’s accident was all that had kept Coop from firing her. As it was, she didn’t know whether he only intended her to work as a bouncer. Not that it made any difference. Nothing could make her give up now.
Eric propped his elbow on the Audi’s undamaged roof, the morning sun glinting off the lenses of his aviators. “There’s this new Italian place I like on Clark. How about it?”
He was a nice guy, and she needed to be honest. “I can’t date you, Eric.”
“Whoa…”
“I’m an idiot, okay? Instead of being attracted to a solid, gorgeous guy like you, I got myself involved with a-a-” A solid, gorgeous guy like Cooper Graham… “… with someone else. It’s over, but I need some space. As I said, I’m an idiot.”
He squinted against the morning sun. “Cooper Graham. I knew it.”
She swallowed. “Do you seriously think he’d be interested in me?”
“Why not?”
This didn’t seem the time to talk about men being attracted to her merely because she was one of the guys. “I’ll fix you up with someone.”
That was one too many blows to his ego. “I don’t need anybody fixing me up.”
“Not even with Jennifer MacLeish? Chicago’s favorite meteorologist?”
“You know her?”
“Yep.” She’d have to persuade Jen, but they just might hit it off. “We can still help each other out now and then, though. Don’t you agree?”
“How do you mean?”
She hoped she’d read his ambitious nature correctly. “I’m an ordinary citizen. I can legally go places a police officer can’t, and that might be useful to you someday.”
He was listening. “Maybe.”
“And I’d like to be able to call on you occasionally. This accident, for example… I’m concerned about Coop.”
Eric wasn’t all good looks. He also had a brain. “You think whoever did this was after Coop?”
“I’m keeping an open mind.” Not so very open.
“Intriguing.” He stuck his thumb in his belt. “About this date with Jennifer MacLeish…”
The former air duct cleaning employee she was supposed to be investigating lived with his girlfriend and baby in her parents’ home. Piper followed the family to Brown’s Chicken, but as they went inside, she started worrying about Coop. He should be at the gym now, right on schedule. A schedule anyone with half a brain could figure out. Her anxiety got the best of her, and she hurried back to her car.
His Tesla was in the gym lot. She took a broken-down baby stroller somebody had put out at the curb from her trunk and pushed it, wobbly wheel and all, across the street. When Coop finally came out, she watched his reflection in a music store window. The stroller had done the trick, and he didn’t spare her a look.
She trailed him to Heath’s house, not caring if he spotted her. Once he was safely inside, she returned to her South Side stakeout and found the family in a hardscrabble neighborhood park.
She settled on a bench and watched them. Only the mother picked up their toddler, but that might only prove Piper’s target was a tuned-out father. Still, her gut told her the guy’s injury was real, and sure enough, when the toddler took a tumble, he swooped up the baby, then clutched his back.
The owner of the air duct cleaning company was as much of a jerk as she’d originally suspected, and he wasn’t happy with either her report or the single photo she’d managed to take. She could easily have stretched out the job by playing on his suspicions, but instead, like the great businesswoman she wasn’t, she convinced him he’d be wasting his money.
A few hours later, she picked up Karah from the hospital and drove her home where she fixed them all dinner. A couple of Band-Aids had replaced the bandage around her head, and her arm was sprained, but not broken. She could have been hurt so much worse.
As they ate, Jada talked about a report she was doing on child sex trafficking. Karah wasn’t happy to learn that the curriculum at her daughter’s parochial school included the seamiest side of street life, but Jada kept going. “Do you know there are, like, girls younger than me right here in the United States that are-”
Karah reached out to brush a lock of hair from Jada’s cheek. “Let’s talk about this when we’re not eating dinner.”
“But, Mom…” Jada’s amber eyes flashed with outrage. “Some of these girls are, like, being raped a bunch of times every day by these old guys, but when the police show up, they arrest the girls for prostitution. Girls my age!”
Piper had done some reading about child sex trafficking and found the subject so disturbing that she’d pushed it into her mental back closet. But witnessing a fifteen-year-old’s outrage made her ashamed of her apathy.