by Ellery Adams
She lingered a while longer in her pajamas until she worked up the gumption to change and get going. When she opened the garage door to get started on a new birdhouse project, she was just in time to see Grammy getting into the passenger side of an old Chevy Caprice.
From her vantage point in the garage, Cooper could see a man with thick white hair and an equally white smile sitting behind the wheel. His face was unfamiliar, but Grammy seemed happy enough to go with him. Cooper took a few steps closer and waved, hoping to catch Grammy’s eye and ask a few questions, but she was too slow. Before she could flag them down, Grammy was in the car and the Caprice was headed down the road.
Cooper watched the car shrink in the distance as her curiosity grew. Grammy hadn’t mentioned going anywhere today, and she hadn’t mentioned a gentleman friend. Where was she off to on a Saturday morning? And who was the man behind the wheel? Then, what began as simple curiosity became something more. It became concern. Was everything all right with Grammy? Was she lonely? And was the man trustworthy? Was he a good man?
Grammy had always made a habit of prying into Cooper’s life, not simply to satisfy curiosity but to take care of her. Maybe it was time for Cooper to return the favor.
• • •
A few hours of working and wondering later, and Maggie and Earl pulled into the driveway.
Cooper followed them inside. “How’d the deliveries go?”
“Just fine, thanks for asking,” Maggie replied, taking a seat on the couch and picking up a book off the coffee table. “Your daddy was a big help.”
Earl disappeared into the other room and returned with some kind of circuitry. He sat at the other end of the couch and tinkered. Cooper sat between them. “So . . . who was Grammy with?”
“With?” Earl glanced up. “Who was she with?”
“That’s what I want to know. She left with a man.”
“Oh, did she leave already?” Maggie asked. She closed her book and set it in her lap. “I don’t suppose you saw if she took her lunch with her. I packed it last night. Sure hope she didn’t forget it.”
“So do you know who she’s with?”
Maggie shook her head. “No idea. Ask your daddy.”
Before Cooper could direct the question to him, Earl shook his head and without looking up said, “No idea.”
Cooper looked from one to the other. “Neither of you knows where she’s going or who she’s with.”
“I guess not,” Maggie replied.
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
At this Earl looked up from his work and laughed. “Cooper, she’s not our teenaged daughter! We don’t track her every move. She’s my mother, and she’s entitled to her privacy. She asked Maggie if she could take some leftovers for lunch today, and so Maggie packed them up. If your Grammy had wanted us to know her plans, she’d have told us.”
That didn’t even begin to satisfy. Cooper was about to press the issue further when Maggie turned the page of her book and casually changed the subject. “Coop, aren’t you meeting Nathan?”
Cooper looked at the clock. It was well past time to get ready to go. She hurried off to her apartment to change out of her dirty clothes, her curiosity about Grammy gnawing at her. If Cooper was running around with an unknown person doing who knows what, Grammy wouldn’t rest until she had all the details.
This time it was Cooper’s turn.
• • •
With a bag of Magnolia’s Marvels cookies and the Sphinx Digital Systems and Solutions financials in her purse, Cooper drove to the hospital to meet Nathan and Quinton. Her grammy’s mysterious friend was just one more of the many problematic thoughts swirling around in her mind, but for the time being it was the most prominent. Questions about Grammy’s company were a welcome break from fears about Christine and worries over work.
As Cooper pulled into a space on the third floor of the hospital’s parking structure, she spotted Quinton walking toward the stairwell, a Tupperware container in his hands. She quickly opened her door and stepped out.
“Quinton!” she shouted.
He spun around as he was opening the stairwell door, and seeing it was Cooper, strolled over to her truck.
“Glad you could make it,” he said. “Did you have a good morning?”
“Not too bad. I have something for you.”
“A present?” His smile disappeared when Cooper handed him the ledger and financial printouts from Sphinx. “I might have preferred a new cake plate.”
Cooper chuckled. “It’s financial information from Christine’s office. But I’ll keep the cake plate in mind.”
“What am I supposed to be doing with this?” He arched a curious brow and set his Tupperware container on the hood of Cooper’s truck so he could thumb through the ledger. “Do they need help with their taxes?”
“Not exactly,” Cooper replied and then proceeded to explain what Kenneth had told her about the missing funds.
Quinton’s face brightened. “I’ve always wanted to try my hand at forensic accounting.”
“I’m glad you feel that way. Kenneth will be very grateful to know what you find. He’s pretty worried about all of this.”
“I’ll get right on it this weekend. Mind if I leave it with you until we’re done here? I don’t really want to carry the company’s financial information around the hospital.”
Cooper’s cell chimed, and she looked to see a text message from Nathan. Am in lobby. Where r u?
“Nathan’s already inside,” she said, grabbing her purse. “Shall we?”
The two of them met Nathan in the lobby and made their way up to John’s room. Nathan’s complexion was marked by gray undertones, suggesting not only a lack of sleep but also an abundance of worry. His thin smile when he greeted her was obviously forced. He had spent his morning at the station, but he made no indication that he wanted to discuss it.
Cooper wanted to ask him about it but decided it would be better to wait until after the visit with John. Discussing Christine might take quite some time.
All the way up to John’s room, Cooper thought about the possibility of seeing John awake and hearing about his ordeal in the restaurant parking lot. However, since every other visitor from the group had only seen him in a drugged sleep, she expected no change. That’s why, when the three of them entered his room, Cooper was surprised to see John sitting up in his bed, watching TV. He cast a disinterested glance in their direction.
“You’ve got the wrong room,” he said simply.
Nathan looked at Cooper and Quinton, confused. He took a step closer to John. “Beg your pardon?”
“I said you’ve got the wrong room. Whoever you’re here to visit isn’t here. It’s just me.”
“We know,” Quinton said, approaching the bed and setting his Tupperware container on the bedside table. “We came to visit you.”
John eyed them suspiciously. “Why?”
“We’re the ones who found you after you were injured,” Cooper explained. “Well, us and a few others. We called the ambulance. We’ve been taking turns checking in on you all week.”
“All week?”
Cooper nodded. “This is the first time we’ve seen you awake.” John’s dubious stare continued to bore into her as she continued. “I’m Cooper. This is Quinton and Nathan. No one knew your name, so we’ve been calling you John.”
“As in John Doe.”
“Just plain John seemed more personal.”
He adjusted his pillows. “The name’s Danny. They took me off the strongest of the painkillers last night. This is the first morning I’ve felt coherent since the accident. You know, you didn’t have to visit me. I’m fine.”
“We wanted to,” Quinton declared. He opened up his Tupperware box, and immediately the room filled with the rich, sweet smell of cocoa. “Brought you a little something. Figured you might want some non-hospital food.”
Danny eyed the cupcakes, but when Quinton handed him one, he looked it over, as if inspecting it fo
r explosives.
“I made them this morning,” Quinton said. “I hope you like chocolate.”
Finally, Danny took a small bite. He closed his eyes and sighed in gastronomic bliss.
“I’d say chocolate was a good call,” Nathan quipped as Danny devoured the rest of the cupcake in two large bites. Quinton was ready with another, which Danny gladly took.
Cooper reached for the bag of cookies in her purse. “Well, Danny, I hope you also like coconut cream thumbprint cookies, because my mama made these, and they’re the best.”
When he’d finished his second cupcake, Danny accepted one of the cookies, which he ate equally as happily as he had Quinton’s treats, downing a second, a third and a fourth in record time. Finally, he refused to take any more, and Cooper set the cookie bag on the bedside table, next to the rest of the cupcakes.
“I didn’t bring anything, I’m afraid,” Nathan said. He reached out his hand and shook Danny’s. “But I hope you know it’s still nice to finally meet you.”
Danny smiled. “Yeah, you, too. It was real thoughtful of you to come here. And I owe you guys for calling the ambulance. I don’t know what would’ve happened if you’d left me there like the other guy did.”
“Other guy?” Quinton asked. “Someone else found you before we did?”
“I meant the guy who ran me down. I’m not sure if he meant to or not, but I saw taillights booking it for the road, and then it was dark. Given the circumstances, I’m guessing it was intentional.”
“I don’t suppose you remember any specifics about the circumstances,” Nathan said.
Danny’s suspicious brow returned. “Are you guys with the cops or something? Because if you are, you should know I already talked to that inspector this morning. Mac-something.”
“McNamara?” Cooper asked.
“So you know him.”
“He’s a good detective, but we’re not connected to him . . . not officially, at least.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we cross paths with him more than he’d probably prefer. We like to help people when we can, and sometimes that means we’re peripherally involved in McNamara’s cases. Would you mind talking to us, even though you’ve already talked to him?”
Danny shrugged. “I guess not. What do you want to know?”
“Anything you can remember,” Nathan replied. “Do you recall what the guy looked like who hit you? Did you get a good look at the car? Did you catch the make and model?”
“No, no, and no.”
Nathan took a step back, deflated. Quinton offered Danny another cupcake, which he wolfed down, much to Cooper’s surprise. He wasn’t slowing down at all.
“Why don’t you just tell us what you can remember,” Cooper said. “Maybe we can piece something useful together.”
Danny licked the chocolate frosting off his fingers and began. “I’m not sure what time it was, but it was a few hours after the sun went down. I was out in back of the restaurant.”
“What were you doing back there?” Quinton asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“When people send back food, the kitchen usually throws it into the trash. But Tara—she’s one of the waitresses there—knows me. She brings it out back in to-go boxes and leaves it right by the door for me. Anyway, while I was back there, I heard a window break. I was curious, so I came around to the side of the parking lot. Somebody was taking something out of a truck.”
Cooper winced at the memory of her truck’s smashed window.
Danny paused. “Did I say something?”
“No, no. It was my truck that got the window smashed,” she explained. “It’s certainly not as important as what happened to you, but I was just remembering what it felt like to see that broken glass strewn everywhere.”
“Sorry about your truck.”
“You said you didn’t get a good look at the guy,” Nathan said. “Is it because it was so dark out?”
“In part. The streetlamp over the truck was broken, so there wasn’t much light. But mostly I couldn’t get a good look, because he was wearing a jacket with a hood on it, so there was a shadow over his face.”
“What else did you notice about him?”
Danny closed his eyes, remembering. “He was average height, I guess. Kinda skinny. He saw me and ran to his car—some kind of sedan. I chased him, and before he could get away, I got hold of what he’d taken.”
“A camera,” Cooper said.
Danny nodded. “That was it. He cut my arm. Then he kneed me. Hard. I fell over and hit my head on the pavement. Things went a little blurry. I tried to stand up, and that’s when he pushed on the gas.” He paused, visibly shaken by the memory. “After he hit me, I was awake for just a few seconds. I could see him drive away.”
He reached for the cookies and ate two more.
Gently, Nathan asked, “Do you remember anything else?”
Danny shifted in the bed and grimaced, catching his breath. “Stupid ribs just aren’t healing fast enough for my taste.” After a few seconds, the grimace disappeared, and he breathed normally again. “Sorry about that. I don’t remember anything else.”
Another cupcake down the hatch, and he laid his head back. Cooper hoped all those sweets weren’t going to give him a horrible stomachache.
“You know,” Danny said, eyes closed and a peaceful expression on his face. “I shouldn’t be eating so much, but I can’t help it. Those cupcakes taste just like ones my aunt used to make.”
Cooper’s ears perked up at the reference to family. She’d assumed he had no family. Maybe she was mistaken. Maybe there was someone else who was wondering where he was and how he was doing. “Is your aunt in Richmond, too?”
Danny flashed a little smile. “I don’t have any family, if that’s what you’re getting at. My folks are both gone, and my aunt is in a nursing home in Montana. She doesn’t remember her own name half the time, let alone mine. I’ve got no siblings. No wife. No kids. It’s just me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“No harm done. Besides, being alone isn’t all bad. You get used to it after a while.” He shifted again, unable to get comfortable, and Cooper saw a glint of silver at his neck. It was the chain Cooper, Savannah and Trish had seen in his bag on Sunday.
“Were you in the military?” she asked.
Danny stretched out his arm, and Cooper could see the military tattoo that wrapped around his forearm. He removed the chain from around his neck. “When I came to in the hospital, the chain was here, but the tags weren’t. I feel naked without ’em, you know?”
Cooper twirled her engagement ring around her finger. “I have some idea of what you mean.”
“At least when I’m wearing the chain, I forget the tags are gone.” He slipped the chain on again. “Doc says they weren’t with the rest of my stuff. Guess they fell off when that car hit me.”
“A friend of ours looked for them,” Cooper said. “Trish. She and her husband made a trip out to the restaurant to try and find your dog tags, but no one had seen them. I’m sorry.”
“I appreciate you trying. There’s probably as much of a chance of finding those tags as there is of finding the guy who ran me over.”
Quinton put his hand on Danny’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Don’t say that. The police are working hard to find—”
Danny shook his head. “Save the speech,” he said curtly. “I know how these things go. Besides, I asked that inspector what the chances were of catching the guy.”
“What did he say?” Nathan asked.
“He skirted the question, which was answer enough.”
“I realize the prospects aren’t great,” Cooper said. “But if anyone can find the guy, it’s Inspector McNamara. He takes his job very seriously.” She could see Nathan bristle beside her; McNamara might take his job seriously, but he’d also arrested Christine. Cooper quickly added, “He’s not infallible, but he’ll do his best.”
“
And we’ll help you out in any way we can,” Quinton added. “Whatever you need. Just let us know.”
“That’s nice, but I’m not sure how you can help.”
“We can bring desserts.” Quinton grinned and offered Danny another cupcake. Danny declined.
“More importantly, we can be here for you,” Nathan said, having shaken off his obvious discomfort at Cooper complimenting McNamara. “You said before that being alone isn’t all bad, and maybe that’s true. But you’re not alone. You’ve got us, the whole group. We’re here for you. You don’t have to go through this by yourself.”
The corners of Danny’s mouth turned up ever so slightly in a little grin. “It’s been a long time since I got an offer that good. Thanks.” The smile disappeared in a yawn and then a grimace. The time for visiting had come to an end, and the time for rest had come.
“We should probably go,” Cooper said. “If you remember anything else from the attack, please let us know.”
Quinton put the lid on the Tupperware container and left it on the bedside table with the cookies. “Hope you enjoy the food. When I come back for the container, I’ll bring something else tasty.”
“And I’ll bring some more of my mama’s cookies,” Cooper added.
“I won’t say no,” Danny replied. “Look forward to seeing you.”
Nathan pulled one of his business cards out of his pocket and set it beside the cupcakes. “If you need anything in the meantime, let me know. My cell is usually on.”
Once Cooper, Nathan, and Quinton were in the lobby, Cooper decided the time had finally come to broach the topic of Nathan’s morning visit. Considering his reaction when Cooper had said something nice about McNamara, she guessed the visit hadn’t gone well.
“So . . .” she began cautiously. “How was your morning, Nathan?”
He looked down and rubbed his eyes hard. “Not the best.”
Quinton and Cooper exchanged a pained look. They both cared about Nathan, and seeing him hurt was almost as bad as being hurt themselves.
“Did you see the hospital garden?” Quinton asked. Cooper wondered why he was changing the subject, but allowed him to continue. “It’s really beautiful. Well-maintained. Clean. A good place to talk, if you’re interested.”
