“Not to me, apparently.” Peavy shrugged. “Ah, well. Intelligent conversation would be a bonus, but I don’t actually require it. Turn left at the next light.”
That would put them on Orchard Road, which for one short block housed Fossil’s answer to Rodeo Drive: a row of upscale, expensive shops that catered to the Bluff crowd. Veronica had the feeling Peavy wasn’t going to suggest they go shopping.
More likely he’d direct her beyond town to either the Hawthorn or Bagley orchards, both of which were on this road. The very-isolated-this-time-of-year Hawthorn or Bagley orchards, she thought, and shivered. She’d better make her move fast if she planned on saving her ass anytime soon.
It would help, though, if she had some inkling of what that move might be.
Her senses felt heightened as she made the turn, and she was extraordinarily aware of the elegant gold lettering that spelled out TOUCH OF CLASS (FINE ACCESSORIES FOR THE DISCERNING HOMEOWNER) on one of the storefronts, and of the bare-branched birches reflected off the black-tinted picture window of the Natural Touch Day Spa next door. She recognized Darlene Starkey, who was loaded down with packages bearing distinctive logos from specialized shops, her pageboy hairdo looking freshly done as she strode briskly toward her prized Mercedes-Benz parked in front of Tout Suite’s Fine Apparel.
And suddenly Ronnie’s brain started to function once again.
Oh man, oh man. The only way Peavy had any chance of pulling this off was if his anonymity remained intact. He’d appeared so confident lounging in the seat next to her that the fear hazing her ability to reason had equated it with invulnerability. But her car had tinted windows—otherwise, he’d undoubtedly be slouched down to avoid detection. Well, it’s time to burst your balloon, you murderous bastard.
Adrenaline suddenly roaring in her veins, she changed lanes. She had the satisfaction of seeing Peavy jerk upright from his indolent pose as his side of the car drew nearer and nearer to the row of cars parked along the curb. With a horrendous screech of metal on metal, she sideswiped Darlene Starkey’s much-loved pearl-gray Mercedes-Benz, jammed on the brakes, and threw the gearshift into park. In the next instant she was out of the car, leaving Neil Peavy trapped in the passenger seat.
“Hey, Darlene,” she called to the horrified woman who’d stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk with her packages in a heap at her feet as she gaped at the wreckage. “Have I got a scoop for you!”
“Yes!” The awful headache-producing tension loosened its grip on the muscles in Coop’s neck the moment he drove around the corner and saw Veronica standing safely on the sidewalk, contemplating her car squeezed up against a badly creased Benz. When he saw who stood next to her, he put two and two together and laughed out loud in relief. “That’s my girl.”
“She is?” Eddie gave him a startled look. “Get out! You and Veronica?”
Coop merely gave him a huge grin. He drove up the avenue, intending to pull alongside Veronica’s car to block the driver’s door. Before he could do so, however, Peavy suddenly slid from her car on that side and hit the street running.
Eddie swore. “The son of a bitch is getting away!”
Coop rocked to a halt at the curb. “Don’t go after him,” he commanded as they tumbled out of the car. He headed straight for Veronica but said over his shoulder, “Cops see you running down the street with bloodlust in your eyes, and they really will shoot first and ask questions later.” Then he shrugged. “Besides, where’s he gonna go? The guy’s miles from home, and between Ronnie and us, we should have enough to convince the police to keep an eye on his bank account so he can’t lay hands on any ready cash.” But that could come later.
He strode up to Veronica and hauled her into his arms, satisfied when she immediately wrapped her own around his neck and clung. Feeling the tremors that pulsed through her body, he tucked his chin to get a good look at her, but she was firmly burrowed into his chest. “Are you all right?”
“Is she all right?” Darlene Starkey, puffed up like an outraged cat, threw down the cigarette she’d been dragging on furiously and glared at them. “She’s a goddamn crazy woman, is what she is! Did you see what she did to my car?” Then she caught sight of Eddie and gave such a high-pitched shriek that Cooper half expected dogs to start barking. “Ohmigawd! It’s her sister’s killer! Call the police!” She started fumbling her own cell phone from her purse.
“Yes, do call the police,” Veronica said firmly. Coop felt her turn her cheek against his chest to look at the other woman. “But tell them to arrest Neil Peavy. He’s the one who killed Crystal, and he planned to kill me, too. He admitted as much.”
Avid interest replaced Darlene’s fury.
Coop wrapped his hands around Veronica’s shoulders and stepped back to hold her at arm’s length, where he could get a good look at her. He blew out a breath when he saw for himself that she truly was all right. “It scared the hell out of me when I saw you with that murderin’ son of a bitch,” he told her. “Eddie and I had just figured out he was responsible for Crystal’s death when I remembered you had an appointment with him. Then, when I saw he was in the damn car with you, my heart about stopped.” Taking a deep breath, he loosened the stranglehold he’d had on his pride these past several days and admitted, “I’ve been an idiot, Ronnie. I should never have withheld what I do for a living from you.”
“I don’t care what you do,” she replied. “I can’t believe I thought it was so important in the first place.”
“Yeah, nothing like a little brush with death to drive home what’s really—” He suddenly became aware of blood trickling down the side of her neck, and it chopped his thought right in two. Reaching out, he wiped the rivulet off her skin with a fingertip, and red-hot anger rose in a scalding tide as another trickle immediately took its place. He swore viciously. “What did he do to you?”
She reached up and touched the spot herself, then pulled back her bloody fingertip to inspect it. “He was holding a pocketknife to my neck,” she said slowly. “It must have nicked me when I hit Darlene’s car. That’s funny, I didn’t feel a thing.”
“I’ll stomp that son of a bitch into paste!”
“No, Coop, wait—”
Setting her loose, he pivoted on his heel and ran flat out in the direction he’d seen Peavy go. Rage was a red mist obscuring all else—a total departure from his normal cool-headedness. He was marginally aware that Eddie was hot on his heels, but he couldn’t get past the fury pumping through his veins long enough to caution his brother to stay put.
He had more than a dozen years of reconnaissance missions under his belt, and he knew acting the hothead was not the way to run one’s quarry to ground. But hard as he tried he couldn’t seem to access his customary clear-headed logic.
“I saw him turn at the next corner,” Eddie said, catching up, and when they reached the corner themselves the two brothers skidded around it with barely a reduction in speed. Coop glanced down the alley in the middle of the block as he ran past. But he was halfway to the next corner before it registered that he’d seen something under the far side of the alley’s dumpster that hadn’t belonged. He skidded to a halt.
Eddie slid to one alongside him. “What?” he panted.
His rage draining away as suddenly as it had come upon him, Coop signaled his half-brother to be quiet. “Italian loafers,” he explained softly, in cool command once again as he eased back toward the mouth of the alley. “I saw them under the dumpster.” He lowered his head to speak directly into Eddie’s ear. “You’ve got the most at stake here, so how do you want to go in? Fast and silent, by the book, or do we scare the bejesus out of the guy?”
Eddie tipped his head back and gave Coop a crooked smile. “Oh, scare the hell out of him, definitely.”
“Yeah, I’d say we’ve earned that much. On the count of three, then.” Mouthing One, he held up a finger. Then he held up a second. On the third he let out a Rebel yell and charged down the alley, Eddie shouting at the top of his lungs behind him.
They cornered Neil Peavy, who had shrunk back against the wall and was waving his pocketknife at them on the far side of the dumpster.
“Look, he’s armed and dangerous,” Coop said. “Dangerous, that is, if you happen to be a hundred-and-twenty-pound woman.” His hand whipped out and knocked aside Peavy’s knife hand, then located a pressure point in the man’s neck. He squeezed it, and the knife dropped from Peavy’s fingers.
“You wanna get that, Eddie? Pick it up by the tip, or better yet with a handkerchief if you’ve got one. We wouldn’t want to smudge those nice, clear fingerprints.” Then he looked into the face of the man who had set up his brother for a murder charge, and who’d threatened and terrorized Veronica—not to mention made her bleed—and felt the anger start to creep back in.
Something of what he felt must have shown in his eyes, because Peavy suddenly babbled, “You’d better call the police! Then I’m talking to my lawyer.”
“Or I could just dispense my own brand of justice, right here, right now, and save everyone a lot of time and trouble,” Coop said conversationally, applying more pressure yet. Peavy sagged to his knees. “It wouldn’t be following the judicial process, exactly, but do you imagine anyone would really care? After all, for all the politicians who spout family values and hearth and home, Uncle Sam doesn’t always practice what he preaches, does he? Take the selective services, for example. I can’t speak for all of them, of course, but I do know the Marines like to snatch young boys from their mamas’ apron strings—then turn them into trained killers. That’s what they did for me.” He smiled coldly. “What do you say I demonstrate what they taught me? We’ll save the taxpayers the hassle of prosecuting you.”
Eddie tapped him on the arm and jerked his chin toward the mouth of the alley. The sheriff and his deputy were entering it with their guns drawn.
Releasing Peavy, Coop raised both hands where the cops could see them, and catching their eye, made a subtle gesture to indicate that they give him a moment. Nodding, they moved slowly in his direction, and he looked down at the man on his knees at his feet. “Or,” he offered, “you can buy yourself some time by telling me how you framed my brother. You once mentioned that Eddie left his leather jacket in your office.”
Peavy’s lip curled. “It’s like he wanted to be framed. Crystal got a real charge out of me wearing it while I banged her brains out, I can tell you. She liked the irony of seeing it on the man the fool assumed was representing his interests.”
“So you were wearing it when you killed her?”
Peavy shrugged. “Like I’m going to incriminate myself,” he said, then regarded Coop with cold arrogance. “On the other hand…what the hell. Yeah, I had it on when I killed her—fat lot of good that will do you. You can tell the authorities whatever you damn well please, but once I assure them I would have admitted to anything when you threatened to kill me, who do you think they’ll believe? The itinerant bartender brother of an accused murderer, or a respected attorney?”
“Well, I don’t know. Let’s ask the sheriff. Do you see me threatening to kill this man, sir?” Coop had the satisfaction of seeing horror dawn in Peavy’s eyes when the sheriff stepped around the corner of the dumpster.
“Can’t say that I do,” the sheriff said and reached past Coop to haul the lawyer to his feet. “Neil Peavy,” he intoned, “you’re under arrest for the murder of Crystal Davis.” He read the rest of the Miranda warning, then turned to Eddie, who was being handcuffed by his deputy. “Under the circumstances, I’m sorry as can be about this, son. But there’s a process we still need to follow before you can be released.”
Eddie merely smiled. “Hey, by all means, let’s all go to jail.” He looked Peavy squarely in the eye. “The difference is that this time I’ll be the one who’ll walk out again.”
Several hours later, when all the red tape had finally been cut through and the charges against Eddie had been dropped, it was decided that Veronica should go into Marissa’s first to prepare Lizzy for her father’s return into her life. Marissa looked up with a huge grin when Ronnie opened the kitchen door, but the kids, who sat at the breakfast bar eating dinner, barely glanced up. Dessa and Riley were in the midst of a spirited argument, and Lizzy watched them without much interest as she pushed her turkey noodle soup around her bowl with her spoon and drummed her heels disconsolately against the rung of her stool.
“Lizzy?” Veronica said. “I’ve got good news and better news, sweetie. Which would you like first?”
Her niece looked up without enthusiasm and shrugged. “I dunno. The good news, I s’pose.”
“We won’t be moving you to Seattle after all.”
Lizzy’s face lit up. “For real?”
“Absolutely. You’ll be staying right here.”
The child’s attention was clearly engaged now. “So, what’s the better news, then?”
“There’s someone here to see you.” Ronnie stepped aside, and tears filled her eyes at the undiluted joy that suffused Lizzy’s face when Eddie walked through the doorway.
“Daddy!” She launched herself from her chair.
“Hello, baby.” Eddie swooped her up in his arms, and Lizzy clung like velcro, her narrow little arms wrapped with frantic tightness about his neck. He pressed his cheek to the top of her head and closed his eyes as he inhaled a deep breath of his daughter’s little-girl scent.
A warm hand cupped Veronica’s nape. “How ’bout you and I slip away?” Coop suggested huskily in her ear. Without waiting for her response, he raised his voice and said, “Eddie, we’re leaving you my car. We’ll see you at the house tomorrow—or this evening, if you wanna stop by to pick up anything of Lizzy’s. Marissa, thanks for watching her.”
Then he turned Veronica around and guided her out the door.
She was so glad simply to be with Coop and so busy trying to get all of today’s events straight in her mind that she didn’t pay attention to where he was driving them until the car rolled to a stop in a deserted copse of birch trees alongside the river. “Oh, my gawd,” she breathed, looking around. “This is where everyone used to come to neck, back in high school.”
“So I’ve heard,” he agreed, reaching for her. “Seems appropriate.”
And hauling her in, he kissed the living daylights out of her.
Veronica wrapped her arms around his strong neck and kissed him back with everything she had. “God, Cooper,” she said when they came up for air. “I thought I’d never see you again—thought I’d never get to tell you how much I love you.” She cupped his lean jaw in her hands. “And I do, you know. I love you so much.”
“Yeah? Enough to marry me?” He held his breath.
“Absolutely,” she said. “Anytime, anyplace. Like I said earlier, I don’t care what you do with the rest of your life…as long as you do it with me. In fact, bartending is a nice, portable skill. It might come in handy when my work moves me around.” Her smile faltered. “I’m sorry I made such a fuss about it before. You and I are not our parents, and if being threatened by Neil Peavy was good for nothing else, it drove that fact home and showed me what’s really important in life.”
“Uh, about that.” Coop eyed her a bit warily as she sat back to give him her bright-eyed attention. He reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. “About my employment situation—I, uh, actually do have a vocation.”
“You do? Other than bartending, you mean?”
“Yeah. I’m a writer.”
She blinked. “A what?”
“A writer, an author. I write novels under the name of James Lee Cooper.”
She was silent a moment as if digesting his news. Then her eyes widened. “The Eagle Flies James Lee Cooper? Cause for Alarm James Lee Cooper?”
“Yeah. You’ve read me?”
“For God’s sake,” she said, her spine suddenly ruler-straight. “You’re a famous author. Steven Spielberg made a movie from one of your books. And you let me think you were a ne’er-do-well without an ounce of ambition?”
<
br /> He felt a silly grin stretch his mouth. “Ne’er-do-well. There’s an expression you don’t hear every day.”
She smacked him on the arm, not amused. “You must have laughed yourself silly over my pitiful insecurities!”
That wiped the smile from his face. “Believe me, sweetpea, I didn’t find a damn thing amusing about either of our insecurities.”
“I could kill you, Cooper Blackstock.”
“No, you couldn’t.” He reached for her again. “You love me to pieces, and you’re probably so relieved I have an honest-to-God job you could sing.” He bent his head to kiss the angle of her jaw. “And admit it,” he murmured. “You’ve read me.”
She turned up her nose. “Maybe.”
“Maybe, hell. You’ve read me. And what’s more, I bet you thought my stuff was great.”
She shrugged, but tipped her head back to allow his lips to roam down her throat. “You were okay.”
He laughed. “You don’t give an inch, do you? I always liked that about you.” When she grinned at him in return, he cupped her elegant little chin in his hand and raised his head to stare down into her eyes.
“Veronica Davis,” he said, “I love you to pieces. And I’m telling you right now, my bossy little darlin’: You and I are going to have ourselves one hell of a fun marriage.”
“Yeah,” she agreed as she snuggled in. “I do believe we will.”
EPILOGUE
“I CAN’T BELIEVE ANOTHER GOOD MAN’S ABOUT TO bite the dust.”
Coop grinned at Zach Taylor and rocked his kitchen chair back on two legs. His friend had come out from North Carolina to be his best man the day after tomorrow, and this was the first free minute they’d had to kick back since his arrival. Coop saluted him with his beer bottle. “Well, hey, now, let me think about this. A lot of laughs, intelligent conversation, regular lovin’. That’s not biting the dust, Midnight; that’s the good life. You oughtta try it yourself sometime—I can highly recommend it.”
Head Over Heels Page 28
