Head Over Heels

by Susan Andersen

  Twenty minutes later, he was back. He blew out a frustrated breath, glaring at that mocking cursor. Fuel apparently wasn’t the magic bullet, either. Shitfuckhell. He needed to concentrate, but he couldn’t seem to keep his mind from wandering. It was just too frigging quiet around here.

  Lizzy was hardly the noisiest kid in town, but there were certain sounds he’d grown accustomed to hearing, and he found himself listening for them in the quiet house. Worse, he paused every few minutes to listen for Ronnie.

  Dammit, he’d promised himself he wouldn’t do this. She didn’t want him—not without a host of qualifications to test his worthiness, at any rate—and that was that. He wasn’t going to beg for her love. Face stony, he once again tried to focus on getting some work done. At this point he’d settle for one usable page.

  He finally gave up around ten o’clock and picked up a book to read. Fifteen minutes later, he threw it aside. For this, they were paying the author the big bucks? What tripe. He didn’t know why the hell it had seemed so intriguing the other day.

  He went downstairs and turned on the television, but there wasn’t a damn thing worth viewing. How was it the cable company could charge their customers through the nose, offer a hundred and fifty stations, and still not manage to put out one single program worth watching?

  Well, the hell with it. He dumped Boo, who had climbed up onto his thigh, and climbed to his feet. He might as well go to bed. He could stand to catch up on his sleep, anyhow.

  But that apparently wasn’t in the game plan, either. Instead, he tore the bed apart tossing and turning. Finally, around five in the morning, he got up and went into the bathroom in search of some aspirin. He knocked back a couple and considered tromping across the street to the Tonk to get himself a bottle of bourbon. But damned if he’d let any woman reduce him to that. He was an ex-Marine, dammit. One of the few, the fuckin’ proud.

  He returned to the bedroom and hung a towel over the window in hopes that if he ever did get to sleep, the morning sun wouldn’t wake him up again an hour or so later. Then he climbed back into bed, punched his pillow into submission, and concentrated on breathing in and out very slowly. When last he looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table, it read a quarter to six. Some time after that, he finally dozed off.

  The sound of the door snicking open at the bottom of the attic stairs awakened him what seemed mere minutes later. But when he looked at the clock, he saw it was nearly eleven in the morning. Quiet footsteps started up the stairs, and Coop’s mood took a huge upward swing for the first time since Thursday night. Ronnie was back, and she must have had a change of heart. Otherwise, he was pretty sure she would never come within fifty feet of his bedroom. He pushed up on one elbow.

  But it was golden hair, not shining black, that crested the balustrade, and a male voice that said so low as to be almost inaudible, “James? You up here?”

  Shock, welcome, and a crushing disappointment all coursed through Cooper’s system. “Eddie?” He threw back the covers and climbed to his feet, reaching for a pair of khakis. He was pulling them up his bare flanks when his half-brother reached the top of the stairs. Hastily fastening his pants, he took an eager step forward, then hesitated. He wanted to hug his brother, but he’d lived so long in a world of men discouraging of such actions that self-consciousness froze him in place.

  Eddie took the step that bridged the gap between them and threw his arms around Coop. They clasped each other fiercely, then, with mutual slaps on the back, stepped back.

  Coop looked at his half-brother, who was several inches shorter than he. Where Coop had taken after his father, their mother’s genes dominated Eddie’s makeup. He was built along slighter lines, lean and graceful, and even in exile managed to look like a GQ cover model. His golden hair shone in the weak light that filtered around the edges of Coop’s towel-covered window, and his cheeks sported the gleam of the freshly shaven.

  It had been months since Coop had seen his brother, and Eddie’s situation was about as serious as it could get. So he meant to say something profound—or at least pertinent. Instead, he heard himself say, “Jesus, your shoes are even shined. Pretty damn spiff for a guy on the run.”

  “Hey, one can’t let a little thing like being accused of murder lower one’s standards.” Eddie’s self-deprecating smile came and went, a brief showing of white, even teeth. Then he sobered. “It’s really good to see you, James.”

  “It’s good to see you, too, little brother. But you’re taking a helluva chance, coming here.”

  “I had to see Lizzy, to make sure she was okay. I’ve been watching the house off and on since yesterday, but while I was surprised as hell to see you living here, I never caught so much as a glimpse of her. Where is she? Does Veronica have her? Did she take her to Seattle or something?”

  Ronnie’s name coming out of the blue made Coop flinch, and he set his shoulders against the flick of pain abrading his raw nerves. “Not yet, but she’s getting ready to.” Keeping his voice level, he explained how she’d been taking care of Lizzy and was across the mountains making arrangements to move them both to her home. “Lizzy spent the weekend at Marissa’s. She’ll be home after school, and Ronnie even sooner, so we’d better make use of this opportunity. You hungry?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Come on down to the kitchen. We can talk while I throw together some breakfast.”

  He retrieved the towel he’d hung over the window and carried it with him downstairs. He tossed it to Eddie, with instructions to pin it over the door window to block the view should anyone come calling. While his brother did that, Coop pulled out frying pans, fired up a couple of burners, and gathered provisions from the fridge.

  Then he wrestled with his conscience. Feeling torn between the concerns Veronica had put in his head and the old familiar need to take care of his baby brother, he finally said, “You do realize you can’t actually speak to Lizzy, don’t you?” He looked up from cracking eggs into a hot pan to gauge his brother’s reaction.

  Eddie clearly wasn’t thrilled, but he nodded. “Yeah. I’d give my left nut to hug her for a minute and find out for myself how she’s holding up, but I know it’d be too painful for her if I turned right around and disappeared again.”

  “Not to mention dangerous for you. You can’t expect a six-year-old to keep that sort of secret.”

  “I get it, James, all right?” Eddie paced to the living room doorway and back. “I can’t believe I’m in this house.” He disappeared into the front room on his next circuit and returned with a framed snapshot of Lizzy in his hand. When he caught Coop watching him rub his thumb over the two-dimensional image of his daughter’s face, he jerked his head in the direction of the living room and said with studied carelessness, “What happened to all the Happy Hooker shit?”

  “Veronica packed most of Crystal’s stuff away.” He scooped the eggs onto plates, fished bacon out of the pan on the back burner, and carried everything over to the table. “Grab some juice or milk outta the fridge, will you?” The toast popped, and he went back to get it.

  Passing a piece to his brother a moment later, he took his seat and looked across at Eddie as his brother stared moodily at the photo he’d propped in front of him on the table.

  “I’m sorry about the Lizzy thing,” he said. “Veronica’s been carping at me about you—she’s worried sick about the quality of Lizzy’s life if you were to snatch her and take her on the run with you.”

  Eddie shrugged, pushing his food around his plate. “Her concerns are legitimate. I did intend to grab Lizzy and run, but with all the time I’ve had to think things through, I’ve seen that’d be dumb.” He touched his fingers to the photograph again. “She’d be miserable. She looks pretty happy here. Veronica’s good for her, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah. She cares about her, Eddie. A lot.” He pointed his fork tines at Eddie’s plate. “Quit playing with your eggs and eat the damn things. You’re gonna need your strength if we’re going to figure out ho
w the hell to get you out of this mess.”

  Eddie took one bite, then another. Moments later, he was using the last of his toast to mop up the egg yolk on his plate. He looked across the table at Coop.

  “I didn’t do it,” he said in a low, fierce voice. “I mean, sure, Crystal and I fought that night—she’d been milking me for years, using Lizzy as a bargaining chip to get more and more money out of me, and I was fed up and pissed off when I came by the Tonk to tell her she’d never see another penny once I got custody. But I sure as hell didn’t kill her over it. And I can explain about my jacket—”

  “Jeez-us,” Coop said, insulted. “I know damn well you didn’t do it.”

  “I left it somewhere,” Eddie went on, oblivious. “You know how I’m always doing that. What was it Mom used to say, that if my head wasn’t screwed on, I’d manage to leave that behind, too? I’ve wracked my brains trying to recall where I left the coat, but I just can’t remember. You can bet the bank, though, that whoever killed—” He stopped, blinked once, and then stared at Coop. “You believe me?”

  “Hell, yes—I know you, Eddie. It never even occurred to me you might have done it. I haven’t had a lot of luck discovering who did, but I found out from Veronica that Crystal had some secret honey she went to Hawaii with last fall. Someone ‘influential’ is how Ronnie said she described the guy. Find him and we’ll probably have found the killer. For a while there I was pretty sure it was Troy Jacobson, but he’s been cleared.”

  “Why Troy? Because of those rumors that were going around last fall that he was seeing someone on the side? I never believed that.”

  “Holy shit. What is it about this guy that inspires all this fucking loyalty?”

  Eddie shrugged. “He’s pretty decent. Besides, you’d have to be blind to miss the fact that he’s carrying an Olympic-sized torch for his wife.”

  “So I’ve been told.” Coop shrugged aside his rancor. “You have any ideas who it could be?”

  “Not a one. But at least it’s a place to start—that’s more than I’ve had up until now.” He gave Coop a sober look. “I really fucked things up, didn’t I? Not the least of which was telling Lizzy I’d be back for her. I never should have made a promise I had no idea if I could keep. She deserves better.”

  “I imagine you were flying blind, and it didn’t help that I wasn’t around for you when you needed me. I’m sorry about that, Eddie.”

  His brother shrugged. “It was my problem. I’m a grown man, and you’re not expected to sit by your phone on the off chance your little brother might need to be bailed out of jail.”

  “Still. I wish I’d been there for you. Maybe if I’d been around, we could have figured a way out of this mess that didn’t entail running. That was your worst mistake, I think—people took it as a sure sign of guilt. What the hell possessed you to do it?”

  “I don’t know; I just panicked. My lawyer—”

  “Neil Peavy,” Coop said.

  Eddie gave him a curious look. “You know Neil?”

  “‘Know him’ might be stretching it a bit, but I’ve talked to him about your case.”

  “Then you must understand why I panicked. When he told me at my bail hearing that things were about as bleak as they could be, but that maybe he could plead me down to a lesser charge, I freaked. All I could think of was that they were going to take me away from Lizzy for years. I didn’t expect to get bail at all, so when I did, I took it as a sign that I’d better get the hell outta Dod—”

  “Wait a minute.” Coop sat forward. “What do you mean, Peavy told you your case was bleak?”

  “Just that. He said the evidence was stacked so high against me he could barely see over the top.”

  “That can’t be right; he told me he didn’t know why you’d run because your case was wholly circumstantial and very weak. And the fact they gave you bail seems to support that.” Coop rubbed his fingers over his forehead while he stared across the table at his half-brother. “Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand?”

  “Hell, no, I didn’t misunderstand! He said I’d most likely be sent away for years. That Lizzy would be graduating college by the time I got out again.” Eddie rubbed his own forehead. “Why the hell would he tell us two different stories?”

  Coop’s hand dropped down to the tabletop. “There is no good reason. Unless he had a vested interest in seeing you take the fall.”

  Eddie stared. “Neil…and Crystal?”

  “You know the players a helluva lot better than I do. Is it possible?”

  “Jesus. I can hardly wrap my mind around the idea. But…sure. Anything’s possible.” He sat straighter. “In fact, that would explain how Crystal always seemed to know just how far she could go to squeeze an extra dime out of me.” He pushed his chair back from the table. “That son of a bitch! Wait until I get my hands on him. If I’m going to jail for murder anyway, it might as well be for one I’ve actually committed.”

  Coop reached out to touch Eddie’s arm. It was rigid as steel beneath his soft sweater, and the younger man all but shook with fury. “This is no time to fly off the handle, little brother. You gotta keep your cool and help me think this through.”

  Little by little the tension drained out of Eddie, and he resumed his seat. “That Hawaiian trip with Crystal must have left some sort of trail,” he said in a hard voice. “Maybe we can nail his ass by following that.”

  “I’ve got a private detective on it now; it should take him no time at all to find some definitive proof. I’ll give him a call.”

  He was halfway to the phone when a thought suddenly struck him and he froze. “Oh, shit, Eddie! Veronica!”

  His brother twisted around to look at him. “What about her?”

  “She has a noon appointment with Peavy to talk about the legality of taking Lizzy out of town.” He checked his watch. “That means she’s with him right now.”

  There was no reason the knowledge should make cold dread swim in his gut. Logic said she’d be okay—Veronica had no reason to suspect Peavy of any wrongdoing, and the chances of her tumbling to his involvement in her sister’s death were nil. Yet Coop’s Marine instincts had the short hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, and he grabbed his keys.

  He didn’t care how safe it ought to be. He didn’t want Ronnie within ten miles of that guy.

  24

  “I’M SO SORRY TO BE LATE,” VERONICA SAID BREATHLESSLY as she followed Neil Peavy into his office. “A tanker truck jackknifed up on Snoqualmie Pass, and traffic was at an absolute standstill. But I should have allowed more time—I know you’re giving up your lunch hour for me.” She set her purse on his desk and began pulling off her good wool coat.

  “Don’t worry about it,” the lawyer said easily. “I eat lunch at my desk half the time, anyway, and I let my girls go out for theirs, so you’re not disrupting a thing. Have a seat and catch your breath. Can I get you anything?”

  “A glass of water would be great.” She still felt frazzled as she sat down in the mauve upholstered chair that faced the gleaming oak desk. She hated being late for anything.

  She looked around for a place to put her coat and purse, and finally piled them in her lap. Then, while Neil went down the hallway to the water cooler, she checked out the office with irrepressible professional interest.

  A narrow, fenced rock garden outside the wall of low windows to her right provided privacy and light. And while she saw room for improvement in the office’s professional appointments, she shrugged that aside. What interested her more were the personal touches that said something about the owner.

  Neil Peavy’s personal effects said he was very neat, had a strong interest in the importance of his position in Fossil, and played tennis to win. Two trophies from the Fossil country club stood in a place of honor on the credenza behind the desk, and several photographs shared space with the requisite framed diplomas and awards that graced the walls. Neil was featured in most of them with people whom Veronica assumed to be captains of ind
ustry or other prominent notables, since she recognized Troy Jacobson in one and Fossil’s mayor in another. She reached out to nudge the small oak frame on the desk around in order to get a peek at what it displayed, only to pull back as the lawyer came back into the room.

  He handed her a cup, and Veronica sat back in her chair and sipped her water as he rounded the desk and took his seat. He waited politely for her to swallow, then smiled. “What can I do for you?”

  She lowered the cup and gave a rueful shrug. “I don’t actually know if you can help me. But I figured that since you’re Eddie Chapman’s lawyer and you know the history between him and Crystal, you’d at least be the person to ask.” When Peavy regarded her with attentive interest, she explained, “I’m moving back to Seattle at the end of the week and plan on taking their daughter Elizabeth with me. So I need to know about the legality of simply packing her up and taking her out of town. Also, I know Eddie paid child support, which of course Lizzy hasn’t received since he skipped bail. I’d like to know if his estate, or whatever you’d call it, can reinstate that. I can afford to take care of her without it, but it would be nice if the money she’s due could be put in a trust fund for college or something.”

  Neil reached for a navy folder. “I reviewed Eddie’s file when Margaret told me you’d made an appointment.” He set the folder on the pristine desk before him, but didn’t open it. Instead, he rested his fingertips on its cover, regarded the file’s clearly marked name tab for a moment, then looked up at her. “Your questions touch on two separate areas of the law, so let’s take it one step at a time. The short-term answer to your first inquiry is, yes, you may take your niece to Seattle. That’s one advantage of a town this size—no Child Protective Services to impose restrictions on your guardianship. Not that CPS would likely stand in your way, since everyone knows you’re devoted to the child’s welfare. As for the long term…did your sister leave a will?”