It wasn’t until Coop received the head in the box that Humpty had stepped back in. But this time, he was working hand-in-hand with whoever this was.
Joshua rubbed a hand across his face, and Bella bumped into his leg, making a sound deep in her throat. She could tell that Joshua was upset and was doing what she could to comfort him. As for him, he could tell that he was upset by the thirst that crept back in. It prickled at his throat, at the back of his mouth, making him salivate. It wasn’t a physical thirst, but at the same time the sensation was definitely rooted in his body.
But at its core, Joshua knew his desire to be the urge to numb the pain.
Every time he thought about Humpty. Every time they took a step on the case. Every time they hit a dead end. Pretty much every time anything involving this man who had butchered his family came up, Joshua wanted a drink.
Made working with this team a real joy and pleasure.
“Got anything yet?” Reggie asked as she swayed into the room, her long hair swinging behind her as her hips swiveled with her stride. There was nothing overt or deliberate about the way that she walked, but a blind man could see what made her attractive. Joshua cleared his throat, averting his gaze. This was not what he needed to be thinking about right now.
“Nothing. You and Had?” Joshua had sent the two over to the crime scene again, just to comb through the rubble and see if they could stumble upon something. Joshua himself had spent hours searching after everyone else had gone home, practically sneaking back into the crime scene to do so.
And if he and Bella couldn’t uncover another clue, it was unlikely anyone else would. Still, there was the hope.
That hope died as she shook her head. “Not a thing. We looked for patterns, we looked for hidden compartments, anything we could think of.”
“Yeah,” Joshua groaned, stretching out his stiff limbs. Maybe getting more than a couple hours of sleep per night would be a good thing. Since Bella had come around, he’d managed to get rest without it being alcohol induced. But since he’d taken de facto control of the team, he’d gone back to old patterns a bit.
It was starting to feel like the way he’d acted back when he was tracking Humpty the first time around. Before his life had been shredded into a billion tiny fragments.
Before the wood chipper.
Reggie shrugged. “It feels like if Humpty wanted to leave us a note, he wouldn’t hide it this well.”
“You’re probably right,” Joshua admitted. “He would want to make it just hard enough to have us feel a little clever, but easy enough that it wouldn’t be hard to knock us off our own pedestal.” He glanced around. “Where’s Had?”
A tiny smirk appeared on Reggie’s lips. “Out talking to Nadira.”
“You went over there with her?” He tried, and failed, to keep the shock and horror out of his tone. But Reggie just laughed.
“You think he would let us be driven by anyone else?” she snorted. “Please. Not only would he do it as a personal favor to Bilal, but he’s totally smitten. Don’t know if you noticed.”
To be honest, Joshua hadn’t, but that wasn’t all that surprising. With as friendly as Had was most of the time, he might as well have been smitten with everyone he talked to. Plus, Joshua’d been more than a little preoccupied as of late.
“What about Coop? Did you stop by?”
Reggie’s smile died on her face. “Yeah. We stopped by for a few minutes. She’s doing okay. Well, according to Had, that is.”
Joshua nodded. Coop had been holed up in her hotel room since the bomb. Once she’d been cleared by the paramedics, she’d entered her little space at the local Holiday Inn and hadn’t really come out. The only one she’d let in to talk to her was Had, and who knew how accurate the young officer’s reports on her really were. Had loved Agent Cooper, and if there was anyone who might oversell her state, he was the one to do it.
“She’s going to have to figure this out soon. We need to pull up stakes here, I think.”
Reggie’s face registered surprise. “I thought we’d been reassigned here.”
Joshua frowned. “Yeah. I talked to Tanner. Explained the situation.”
“You mean you told him about Coop?” she asked, and Joshua couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like he detected a note of hostility there.
“I didn’t have to,” he answered, doing what he could to keep any defensiveness out of his voice. “The fact that I was the one calling told him a lot. Plus, he’s not an idiot. He’s seen what’s going on with her as of late.”
“Well, you know my opinion on it,” she murmured, and Joshua felt his gaze shift to the floor. They hadn’t spoken much of it since, but her impassioned plea for him to take up the leadership of the team hadn’t been forgotten.
He didn’t know what she expected of him. Wasn’t he essentially leading the team now? No one else was taking care of all the little details. It was all falling on his shoulders. What else did she want of him?
Reggie must have seen some of that play across his face, as her face softened, and she placed a hand on his arm. He felt the contact in his gut, and he would have sworn his face heated up by a good ten degrees. Celsius.
“You’re doing fine, Joshua.”
Fine. Fine? What the hell did that mean? He shook his head, driving the questions away. They weren’t doing him any good right now.
“I’ll call Agent Tanner and give him an update. Maybe check in with Salazar.” Joshua stood by one of the few windows in the Police Headquarters and could feel the heat pounding at him through the glass.
Texas heat was a bully. Big. Strong. No subtlety whatsoever. Just a really big stick the Lone Star State would use to beat you over the head.
“Don’t let that Salazar give you any shit,” Reggie said with a grin. “I’m going to head back to the hotel, try one more time to talk to Coop.”
“Good luck.”
She gave him another smile, and he felt his temperature rise again. Bending down to scratch at Bella’s ears, she directed her words to the dog rather than to him.
“I’ll take Had with me. She can’t say no to him. Then maybe I can sneak in while she’s distracted.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Joshua said, and watched her as she retreated.
Plan. That’s just what they were lacking.
* * *
In retrospect, the idea might not have been the best or brightest. Reggie was willing to cop to that.
Coop hadn’t liked it. Not one little bit.
It’s not like Reggie had been all that tricky about it. She’d waited until Coop had opened the door up for Had and then slipped in right behind. Coop’s mouth had gotten all prim and proper, looking a bit like she had just sucked on a lemon.
So she didn’t like having Reggie around? Too bad. It was time for them to have a heart-to-heart, and Coop was going to take it, and she was going to… well, she was going to take it, at least.
Then why was Reggie’s heart thumping so hard? She cleared her throat and faced off with Agent Cooper, who had flopped back onto her bed. But then she found she couldn’t go any further.
Coop was a mess. Correction. She was a mess by Agent Cooper standards. Her hair, normally kept cropped close to her head, was beginning to grow out, and was sticking up in several places. Reggie had to still the desire she’d had to run her hands over Coop’s scalp that had done nothing but grow stronger during the time they’d known one another.
She was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. Reggie hadn’t realized that Coop owned either article of clothing. The shirt had a Rutgers University logo on it, and the sweatpants said JUICY on the butt. There was something so incongruous about this that Reggie couldn’t find it in herself to think it funny. It just made the whole situation sad.
The hotel room was trashed. Both beds were not just unmade but undone. Sheets and covers were scattered around the room like someone had gotten pissed off at bedding and was out for revenge. It wouldn’t have shocked Reggie to see that someone had tak
en a knife to the mattresses.
There were the remains of room service that looked to have been there for quite some time. Reggie would have taken that as a good sign, one that Coop was still eating, if it weren’t for the fact that none of them appeared to have been more than picked at.
This was not good.
Clearing her throat again, Reggie realized that too much time had passed. Agent Cooper wasn’t doing well, and it had been important for Reggie to ignore that fact. Now it was clear that she hadn’t. The messy room and Coop’s current state hung between them like a pea soup fog, thick and impenetrable.
Oh well. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
There was an intake of breath from Had, and Reggie realized that she was the one who had said it. She hadn’t been aware that Coop’s face plant had made her quite so angry. But now that it was out there, she couldn’t take it back. Didn’t want to.
Coop had turned over on the bed and was now looking straight at her. Her face registered nothing. It was like a blank canvas, waiting for Reggie to paint a masterpiece.
“You know why I’m here?” Reggie pressed on. “Why I’m in this hotel room with you, here in this Godforsaken desert of a city?” Actually, Reggie quite liked Austin, but it was hot, so she didn’t feel any twinges of conscience. Well, not much, anyway.
No change registered on Coop’s face. It was like Reggie hadn’t even spoken.
A rage built up inside her, one that she felt build up from her toes and slowly rise through her body. It was like some kind of cartoon character. She’d heard the expression seeing red, but she’d never really experienced it until today.
Her whole life, people had assumed that because she was pretty, she couldn’t be intelligent. Couldn’t have an original thought in her head. Couldn’t be creative, or dark or interesting, or, or, OR… And what had she gotten any time she’d shown any of those different qualities?
That look.
That slack-eyed, slack-jawed, empty look.
Coop didn’t mean it that way. Reggie was sure she didn’t mean it that way.
Didn’t matter one bit.
Had must have seen something in her face, as he stepped forward with an arm outstretched. “Um, Reggie…?”
She held him back with nothing more than the force of her gaze. Then she stepped forward, grabbed Coop by the foot and dragged her toward the end of the bed.
For a split second there was no reaction from the agent. But then, as soon as she realized that Reggie wasn’t going to stop, Coop started flailing.
Reggie was merciless. She pulled Coop out and off of the mattress, and the disheveled agent ended up on the floor at the end of the bed, cradling her head, which had struck the floor with a bit more force than Reggie had intended. But she didn’t stop there. Couldn’t.
Leaning in close, Reggie spoke in a tone that was little more than a whisper. “Get your shit together. Now.”
Without another word, or even a look to Had, Reggie turned and stalked out of the hotel room. She had no idea what Coop was going to do from here, but she did know one thing for sure.
Reggie was done being treated like she didn’t count.
* * *
Had stood on the curb of East Avenue, looking out over the Colorado River. For some reason, Had found it strange that he was in Austin, Texas, staring at the Colorado River. That somewhere, far distant from here, a trickle turned into a stream which grew into a river that ended up here in the land that water seemed to have forgotten. It was odd. The sounds of the water mixed with the sounds of the I-35 behind him, making it hard to distinguish one from the other.
Kicking at a patch of dried brown grass that the sprinklers had missed, Had waited for Nadira to come pick him up. She was at the end of her shift, and when she’d gotten his call, she’d offered to take him to lunch over on Guadalupe, known by locals and the students over at UT Austin as the Drag.
They were spinning their wheels. Had knew that everyone else was feeling it, because they were all showing him in their own special way. Joshua was barking more often than his dog these days. Reggie had gone full out bat guano crazy on Coop.
And then there was Coop herself.
He’d never seen her like this before, and they’d been in some pretty horrific situations together. One thing that he’d always been able to count on with Agent Cooper was that, no matter how bad things got, she would at least appear to be on top of things.
Lately that appearance had been more and more skin deep, and anyone who knew her intimately, knew that she wasn’t doing well at all. But she’d been able to fake it in public. A few awkward moments in front of detectives notwithstanding.
But now?
Had didn’t even have a name for what was going on in that hotel room. Joshua at his stinking, alcoholic, homeless worst had never trashed a hotel room quite like that. Okay, close, but still… this was Coop they were talking about.
The squeal of tires came from a distance, and Had felt an involuntary grin creep over his face. That had to be Nadira. Sounded like she was a couple of blocks away, maybe. He felt bad about leaving the others, but nothing was happening and he was hungry. Plus, he was going to be with Nadira, so there was that…
Besides, it’s not like he was skipping out without telling anyone. He’d texted Reggie and told her to let Joshua know. It was time to get the former agent a phone. Now that he was taking on more and more of the responsibilities of leading the team, he couldn’t keep pretending to be the guy with no ties to the rest of humanity.
A smartphone, maybe? Joshua wouldn’t have any idea how to use it, but that might be part of the fun. Something in pink. With rhinestones.
He was staring down the road, watching for Nadira to zoom in, when his phone rang. Psycho.
Man. His mama had the worst timing ever. He was pretty sure that if he ever got married, she was going to call him on his wedding night. She’d certainly interrupted more than her fair share of make out sessions up to this point. The woman was uncanny.
“Hey, Mama. Can’t talk. I’m about to… meet someone for a lunch meeting.”
His mama snorted. “Oh, turtle, don’t lie to your mama. You’re in Texas, marshmallow. No one has lunch meetings in Texas. Unless they’re going to Hooters.” Her voice hardened. “You’re not going to Hooters, are you?”
“No, Mama. Places like Hooters…”
“Are degrading to men and women both.” It was the completion of a ritual with them. The first time they’d passed by one of the “family” restaurants, she’d given Had a two-hour lecture on how to treat women.
He’d been five.
For a brief, insane moment, Had wondered what would happen if he were to tell his mama that he was in a strip club. But the second the idea translated itself into a real image in his mind, so many alarm bells went off in his head that he felt his throat start to swell shut in a panic response.
“I know, I know,” Had managed to choke out past the obstruction in his trachea. “Don’t worry. I have no desire to eat wings while ogling busty women in tight shirts.”
“Hmmm,” she muttered. “Maybe you should do a little more of that, come to think of it.”
This would have been a shocking statement, coming from his mama, if it weren’t for one fact. There was a war being waged inside the woman who had given him birth.
The battle lines were drawn but were constantly being shifted. What might seem inconsistent to any outsider made perfect sense to Had.
Had’s mama wanted him to grow up to be a gentleman. That was true. But even more important to her than this worthiest of worthy goals was her vision quest to get her son married. And beyond even that? Grandbabies.
As much as his mama valued things like respect for women and having her son enter into the bonds of holy matrimony, Had was pretty sure that all of that would go out the window the second he told her he’d gotten some girl pregnant. Would there be scoldings and repercussions? Certainly. But all would disappear the moment she was holding an i
nfant in her arms.
But there was a more pressing issue right now. And that was that Nadira had rounded the corner and was barreling straight toward Had at close to the speed of sound.
He liked Nadira. A lot. And he had no interest in having her meet his mother. Not this early on. And not over the phone.
He admitted it, the act was not one of his finest. In his defense, it was made under duress, in a moment of panic. He blurted. More apropos of what was really happening, he word vomited.
“Hey-mama-sorry-lunch-meeting’s-here-gotta-go.”
And then he hung up.
Yeah. He was going to be paying for that one for years to come. It might possibly end up being one of those stories he would tell his children, those grandbabies his mother so desperately wanted. He soothed himself with the thought that he was just trying to give his mama what she wanted.
Problem was, even he didn’t believe himself.
Nadira’s cab was jetting along the opposite side of the street, coming ever closer. Had was in the awkward process of trying to figure out where to stand to best meet her, when, with little to no slowing down, the taxi took a hard left turn, wheels screeching, to wind up flush with the curb right in front of Had.
That was so cool.
Okay, so Had was at a little bit of a loss here. Being a kick-butt driver wasn’t on his list of must-haves when it came to women. As far as he’d been able to find out so far, Nadira fit all of his parameters. But this whole kamikaze taxicab driver thing was throwing him for a loop.
He thought it was hot, but part of what the list was about was sustaining a long-term relationship with the woman of his dreams. Meringue created a flame that would smolder and cook for a long time. But this? Extreme driving hadn’t really been factored into the whole equation.
She leaned over to open up the passenger side door for him, and Had caught a glimpse of caramel colored skin as she straightened back up again. He felt his face flush.
This woman was easily one of the most attractive women he’d ever come across in his life. Her being an adrenaline junkie was something he could live with.
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