First Star I See Tonight

12

Piper woke Dell up the next morning. Spiral’s recently fired bouncer glared at her from his open apartment door. Scrubby blond stubble covered his jaw, his eyes were sleep crusted, and he wore only a pair of boxers. “What the hell do you want?”

She’d already seen what she’d come here for, although not what she’d expected. Dell looked like he’d had a hard night, but he wasn’t bruised or cut. He bore none of the signs of injury Coop had inflicted on his unknown assailant last night. Whatever else Dell had done, he wasn’t the culprit behind the ambush.

“Verifying your address,” she said. “Tony wanted to make sure you got your severance check.”

“Tell Tony to go fuck himself.”

“I’ll do that.”

As she began to turn away, he stepped into the hallway, his belligerence replaced by the smarmy come-on tone he used with the swishy-hairs. “Hey, you wanna hang for a while?”

“Not so much, but thanks for thinking of me.”

One suspect eliminated. Now she had to find Keith and Taylor. As for the possibility that Prince Aamuzhir had discovered he was the owner of a phony Super Bowl ring and wanted revenge… That was going to be much more complicated.

On her way to Lincoln Park, she contemplated the e-mail she’d gotten from the limo owner that morning about her tip from the royals, from which she’d learned she’d received only half of what the male drivers had been given. She’d worked harder than most of them, but in the world of the royals, gender trumped everything. She should have seen it coming, but the injustice still made her livid.

The woman who answered the door of Heath Champion’s luxurious Lincoln Park home was several inches shorter than Piper, with curly auburn hair and a friendly smile. Nothing about her well-scrubbed, girl-next-door appearance matched Piper’s preconceived notion about what the wife of a megasuccessful sports agent would look like.

“You’re Piper,” she said. “I’ve heard all about you. I’m Annabelle.”

“And so the warriors meet,” a male voice said from inside the house.

Annabelle laughed, stepped aside to let Piper enter, and took Piper’s black bomber jacket.

The luxurious hallway of the house, with its tumbled marble floors, modernistic bronze chandelier, and S-shaped staircase, would have been intimidating if it weren’t for a purple stuffed puppy, discarded marker pens, an unidentifiable Lego structure, and the array of sneakers scattered around. “Thanks for letting me charge in so early,” Piper said.

Heath appeared from around the corner, a curly-haired toddler wearing a pink tutu and a blue flannel pajama top at his side. “What’s up? You sounded mysterious on the phone.”

Piper shot Annabelle an apologetic look and sidestepped a black-and-gold Star Wars figure. “Maybe we should talk in private.”

Heath retrieved his cell phone from the toddler. “Annabelle would just worm it out of me after you leave.”

“That’s true,” Annabelle said with a self-satisfied smile.

Heath grinned. “My wife has built her business on keeping other people’s secrets. She’s a matchmaker. Perfect for You. You might have heard of it.”

“Of course.” Piper had done some research on Heath since their first meeting and unearthed a very interesting story about the way he’d met Annabelle Granger Champion.

They settled at a lacquered kitchen table in front of long windows looking out on a fall garden. As the toddler, whose name was Lila, consumed a bowl of raspberries, Piper told Heath and Annabelle about last night’s attack on Coop. Both were understandably concerned. “Are you sure he’s okay?” Annabelle said.

“He refused to go to the ER, but I think so.” She handed a wayward berry back to the toddler, who gave her a gooey, raspberry-flecked smile. “He thinks it was a random mugging, but I’m not so sure. I thought you might be more cooperative about telling me who his enemies are than he’s going to be.”

“He doesn’t have a lot of them,” Heath said. “A couple of players might hold a few grudges, but that’s part of the game. There’s a sports reporter who hates his guts because Coop publicly called him out for stupidity. Complete moron, but I don’t see why he’d wait so long to retaliate.”

“What about women?”

Heath looked at Annabelle, who took over the conversation. “You mean his Hollywood lineup? The breakups were painful for a couple of them, but he was never a jerk, and I don’t believe any of them are out for revenge.”

“There’ve been some crazies, though,” Heath said.

“Any recent ones?” Piper inquired. Besides me.

“You’d have to ask him,” Heath said.

“Coop’s my new pro bono project,” Annabelle declared with a grin.

“Which he doesn’t know,” Heath said, in case Piper missed the point. “What about the trouble he was having at the club with the bartender he fired?”

“I’m looking into that.”

A mini version of Heath wandered into the kitchen and regarded her curiously. “Who’re you?”

“This is Piper,” Heath said. “She’s a detective. And, Piper, this is Trev. He’s five.”

“Five and a half,” the boy said. “You got a badge?”

She could tell a lot about the kid by the glint in his eyes, which were the same shade of money-green as his father’s. “No badge,” she said, “but a couple of useful superpowers.”

He regarded her with a combination of anticipation and skepticism. “Flying?”

“Sure.”

“X-ray vision?”

“I couldn’t do my job without it.”

Trevor threw down the gauntlet. “Telekinesis?”

A big word for a little kid. Piper eyed his father, who shrugged. “Trev gets his brains from his mother.”

“Telekinesis is tricky,” Piper said. “I’m still working on that one.”

“That’s what I figured,” he said wisely. “What about invisibility?”

“Did you notice me here when you were eating breakfast?”

“No.”

“Well, then.”

Heath laughed. “Come on, pal. Get your backpack. It’s time to leave for school.”

As Piper began to rise from the table, Annabelle stopped her. “Keep me company while I finish my coffee.”

“And here we go,” Heath murmured.

Annabelle shot him a glare. “Do you have something to say?”

“Not a word.” He gave her a quick kiss, planted another on the top of his daughter’s head, and grabbed his son.

As her husband and child disappeared, Annabelle gave Piper a long, assessing look followed by a bright smile. “So… tell me all about yourself…”

Piper left the Champion house feeling as though she’d made a new friend, but since Annabelle Champion lived among the city’s movers and shakers, while Piper lived above a Dumpster, it was a questionable assumption.

She didn’t want to show up at Coop’s before he’d had his second cup of coffee, so she headed for Lincoln Square. Berni had called her late last night to check on Piper’s progress finding Howard, and hearing that Piper had run a computer check through the major search engines hadn’t satisfied her. Berni wanted more.

“I’ve been reading up, Piper. There are these whatchacall databases where you can register missing persons. I want you to do that.”

“Those databases are for people who aren’t legally dead,” she said as gently as she could.

“A technicality.”

Hardly a technicality when Piper had watched Howard’s urn being lowered into the ground at Westlawn Cemetery.

“I never saw the body,” Berni said. “You remember that.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Piper outmaneuvered a blue Mazda to snag one of the diagonal parking places on Lincoln Avenue. The morning was cloudy and chilly, hinting at rain, but a few hardy souls sat on the benches. A motorcycle shot past, and she took an unoccupied bench.

She tucked her hands in the pockets of her bomber jacket. On the bricks near her feet, someone had made an elaborate chalk drawing of a pelican. It felt good to sit still for a moment. Between working at Spiral at night, chauffeuring during the day, and planning Faiza’s escape, she’d barely had a chance to breathe.

Eventually, she got chilled and began walking back to her car, indulging in a little window-shopping along the way. Her phone pinged. A text from Eric Vargas.

See U tonight?

As she pondered her response, she saw an elderly man cross Lincoln Avenue toward Leland. Potbelly, pants pulled too high at the waist, bright white sneakers, and a wedge of yellow foam rubber on top of his head.

She began to run. A CTA bus cut in front of her. She dodged it, avoided a UPS truck and a bicyclist, but by the time she’d reached Leland, the man was gone. She searched the area, ducking into alleys and side streets, but the man with the Green Bay Packers cheesehead was nowhere in sight.

Piper reminded herself that she hadn’t gotten a good look at his face. But Howard had the identical potbelly and the same penchant for wearing white sneakers and hitching his pants too high. The height had also seemed right.

The theme from Buffy interrupted her thoughts. It was Jen. “Berni wants me to use my media contacts to get the public to look for Howard. And she’s guilted Amber into helping her put up missing person flyers. Everybody’s going to think she’s crazy.”

Piper gazed out at the brick buildings lining the square. “Maybe not quite as crazy as you think.”

She arranged to meet Jen and Amber at Big Shoulders Coffee on Friday. They’d all have preferred one of the neighborhood bars, but Amber had to sing later that night.

On her way to Lakeview, Piper planned her strategy for dealing with Coop. “Let me up,” she said, when he finally answered his intercom.

“You got food with you?”

“No food, but I make a great omelet.”

“You can cook?”

“Sure, I can cook.” No need to tell him she hated doing it, but Duke had expected her to cook and take care of the house right along with acting like his son instead of his daughter. Nobody knew more about growing up with mixed messages than she did.

“Okay, you can come up. But you can’t ask me any more questions that I can’t answer. Got it?”

“Absolutely. No questions.” He knew she was lying, so she didn’t feel bad about it.

When she stepped off the elevator into his condo, she found him sprawled on his couch holding an ice pack to his shoulder. He hadn’t shaved, and his burnt-toast hair was a delicious rumple. Despite the bruise on his jaw, he was just so… everything. All that battered, lived-in masculinity would wake up any woman. Even the dead ones. Rugged men like him were born to win ball games and sire warrior children.

Children? She had to get more sleep. As much as she liked kids, she didn’t want her own and wasn’t in the habit of thinking about them.

He came off the couch. He was shirtless, and he wore gray sweatpants like other men wore Hugo Boss. They slipped low on his hips, revealing a flat, muscled abdomen and a thin line of dark hair pointing straight toward…

Toward her stupid downfall.

She was furious with herself. This had to stop. She was calling Eric. She was going to get this… this urgency out of her system even if she had to seduce Hottie in the back of his squad car.

“I’d ask how you’re feeling,” she managed to say, “but some things are self-evident.”

“I’ve been through worse.”

“Shouldn’t you bandage up your chest?” Right this second. Wrap up all that muscle so I can’t see it.

“They don’t do that anymore,” he said. “Constricts your breathing.”

So what was her excuse? Because she could barely fill her lungs.

Just as she found herself praying he’d put on more clothes, he grabbed a zippered navy sweatshirt from the back of the couch and shoved his arms through the sleeves. But he didn’t zip it. “You mentioned something about an omelet?” he said. “Let me see what I’ve still got growing.”

Sweatshirt falling open to reveal one of Mother Nature’s masterpieces, he went out to his rooftop garden. Instead of using his absence to regain her equilibrium, she followed him.

He was pulling up something she at first thought was an onion but then realized was a leek. He looked so much more at home here than he did working the crowd at Spiral. Utterly relaxed. It struck her how much digging in the dirt with those big, competent hands suited him.

“It doesn’t feel right,” she said. “Somebody like you owning a nightclub.”

“I don’t know why you’d say that.”

“Because Farmer Coop was born to plow the fields.”

“That’s Rancher Coop to you. I’m from Oklahoma, remember? And I’ve never been so glad to get out of a place.”

Despite the chilly weather, he was barefoot and still hadn’t zipped his sweatshirt, but the cold didn’t seem to bother him. She glanced over at the cozy nook not far from the French doors: round, slate-topped table; a cushioned chaise wide enough for two.

“Your bio doesn’t say much about your childhood,” she observed. “Only that you grew up on a ranch and lost your mother when you were young.” The same as she had. “It’s as though you barely existed before you started playing for Oklahoma State.”

He’d composted most of the tomato plants, but a few remained, and he pulled off a couple of small tomatoes, popping one into his mouth. “We were tenant ranchers. Just my dad and me. Sixty acres, not all of it good. Some cattle and pigs. Feed corn. He was a Vietnam vet before anybody understood much about PTSD. Sometimes he was okay. Other times, he wasn’t.”

She sensed what was coming next-the alcoholism, the physical abuse. She wished she hadn’t brought up the subject.

But he surprised her. “Dad was a gentle guy-one reason the war was so hard on him. A lot of the time, he couldn’t function-could barely get out of bed-so I had to take over.” He pulled the cover off a pot of herbs he’d been guarding from frost. “I was around seven the first time I drove the truck. I remember sitting on a pile of feed sacks and riggin’ up some blocks so I could reach the pedals.” He laughed, but she didn’t find it all that funny. “There were a couple of winters where I swear I missed more school than I attended.”

“That’s not right.”

He shrugged and gathered up his harvest. “Animals have to be fed and watered, and Dad couldn’t always leave the house.”

“A hard life for a kid.”

“I didn’t know any different.”

She followed him inside. He set what he’d picked next to the sink and turned on the faucet. His sweatpants had fallen so low on his hips, she was glad his back was turned to her. “The first big city I ever visited was Norman,” he said. “I was sixteen, and I thought I’d walked into paradise. Once Dad died, I never looked back.”

She dropped her jacket over the back of a counter stool. “There must be something about rural life you miss, or you wouldn’t have created that amazing garden.”

“I like growing things. Always have.” He tossed some spinach into a stainless-steel colander. “I started out at Oklahoma State with a major in plant and soil science, but then I discovered I’d actually have to go to class. ‘Student athlete’-now there’s an oxymoron.” He splashed water on the spinach and shook the colander. “I love the pace of city life, and as much as I like animals, I didn’t like raising them. Especially pigs.” He cleaned a handful of herbs and laid them on a paper towel. “I can’t tell you how many times those bastards managed to get out of their pen and tear up my vegetable garden. Pigs are the only animal I hate.”

She thought of Oinky. “Pigs are sweet!”

“That’s right. You sleep with one.”

“I don’t sleep with-”

He looked at her over his shoulder. “See how sweet you’d think they are, city girl, if you’d been six years old and had those two-hundred-pound porkers charge you whenever you went into their pen. One slip, and you’re lunch. They’ll eat anything.”

“Well, we eat them, so…”

“I’m not saying there isn’t some kind of divine justice at work, but kids and pigs don’t belong together.” He pulled out a chef’s knife. “I still have nightmares about them.”

“Let me get this straight. You, Cooper Graham, five-time first team All-Pro, two-time NFL MVP, are afraid of pigs?”

“Yep.” The blade hit the cutting board.

She laughed, then remembered she wasn’t here to be entertained. “I went to see Dell this morning. Not a single bruise on him.”

“Are you back to this again?”

“Did you know your close pal Keith and his girlfriend Taylor moved out of their place without leaving a forwarding address?”

He pointed the tip of the knife in her general direction. “For the last time. It was a mugging, not some preplanned attack.”

“I’m sure you’d like to think so. Help me sort through it, will you, so I can stop obsessing about it?”

He scraped the back of his hand over the beard scruff on his jaw. “Keith’s a hothead, but the two of us already had it out.”

“That was before Taylor got fired, right?” She located the eggs.

“Staging an ambush isn’t his style.”

“You have more faith in your old pal than I do.” She rummaged for some cheese and found a chunk of imported cheddar.

“While you’re sorting things out…” He gazed across the counter at her. She wished he’d pull up his pants. Or zip his sweatshirt. Or go bald. Except he’d still look great.

“Aren’t you overlooking a couple of more obvious villains in your imaginary scenario?” He carried the leeks over to a chopping board. “Starting with that mysterious client who hired you to follow me?”

“If I had any doubts about my former client, don’t you think I would have acted on them?” She located a skillet and cheese grater. “I promise you, my mystery client isn’t a threat.”

“Exactly. Nobody is. It was a random crime. Some thug who was lurking in the alley looking for easy prey.”

She wasn’t getting any more out of him now, and she temporarily backed off. “How are things with Deidre coming along?”

“Slower than I’d like, but she’ll come through.”

“You’re sure about that.”

“She’d be crazy not to. I have a great concept and the right connections to carry it off.”

She didn’t miss the determined set of his jaw. In Coop’s mind, once he’d decided on something, it was as good as done.

After that, they worked together without saying much other than “Stop hogging the sink” and “Where’s the sriracha?” She sautéed the vegetables in a little olive oil, tossed in the eggs she’d beaten, and topped them with the herbs he’d chopped along with a generous handful of grated cheddar. He took plain white plates from the cupboard and extracted the bread he’d put in the toaster.

By the time everything was ready, the domesticity of the scene had started making her itchy. She wished she didn’t like him so much, but how could she not? Coop was the man she’d have wanted to be if she’d been male. Setting aside his money and fame, he was smart, he understood hard work, and, except for being stubborn and dictatorial, he was rock-bottom decent.

“Let’s eat outside,” she said as he poured them coffee. “But only if you zip your sweatshirt first.” She needed a good reason other than the real one. “Those bruises aren’t exactly appetizing.”

“Your sympathy for human suffering warms my heart.”

“I’m a giver, all right.”

The corners of his eyes crinkled.

Even on a chilly October morning, the nook he’d created in the corner of the garden was inviting. Its vine-covered latticework made a natural windbreak, and the purple canvas chair cushions were thick and comfortable. It had been a long time since she’d had anything as tasty as the fluffy omelet she’d made with the ingredients he’d gathered. She was almost… happy.

Coop watched her across the table. Pipe didn’t believe in picking at her food, and even though she took small bites, she managed to consume the omelet in record time. When she remembered to eat, she gave it all she had, the same way she did everything. How could someone so tough, so determined, and so ballsy be so intrinsically female?

It was too damp and overcast for comfortable outdoor dining, but he’d been so conscious of the inviting bed above their heads that he hadn’t protested moving out here. It was a good place to cool off. Except all he’d done so far was heat up.

Pipe set her fork on her plate. He’d noticed before how dainty her hands were and made a mental note never to use that word to her face.

Earlier, he’d seen her staring at his chest. He’d initially assumed she was checking out his bruises, but then he remembered her attraction for that particular part of his body and decided something more interesting was going on in her head. But leaving his sweatshirt open on purpose was one of the biggest cheeseball moves he’d ever made. Still, anything that gave him an edge was fair game.

“Annabelle Champion doesn’t seem to think you have any crazed ex-girlfriends lurking around,” she said.

“Now what were you doing talking to Annabelle?”

“Satisfying my curiosity.”

“Well, stop it. You quit, remember? And I’m not hiring you back.”

“Who else do you trust enough to investigate what happened? She also said there’d been a couple of crazies.”

“Most recently? A loony named Esmerelda Crocker.”

“Totally harmless.”

“Are you?” He leaned back in his chair and took her in. Her face was so full of life. Those bright eyes had a whole world going on behind them. And that wide mouth… So much he wanted to do with that mouth. So much he wanted that mouth to do to him.

She took too long to look away. He smiled to himself. She wasn’t as detached as she liked to pretend.

She reached for that ratty messenger bag she carried around and pulled out a notebook. “You’ve been in the public eye for years. You have to have gotten your fair share of hate mail.”

“The Stars office still screens my mail. If they’d gotten anything they thought was serious, they’d have let me know.”

“Who do I talk to there?”

“You don’t talk to anybody. And put that notebook away. This was a random attack, and you’re trolling for a job.”

“A job that needs doing.”

“Really? Then why haven’t you brought up the most obvious suspect? My pal, the Prince of Darkness.”

She toyed with the edge of her notebook. “I’m getting there.”

“Very slowly. And I know why.”

She nodded. “Because I feel responsible.”

“You aren’t, but I like your guilt.” He appreciated the way she stepped up to the plate with none of the pretend ignorance so many people hid behind. Pipe was a straight shooter. Except when she chose not to be.

She balled up her napkin. “How was I supposed to know you were going to give Prince Aamuzhir a phony Super Bowl ring? And he’s in London now. Yes, I checked. Not that it means anything. And, yes again, I’m worried. It’s one thing dealing with a disgruntled former employee or a Broncos fan who’s still holding a grudge over that Hail Mary you threw against them on fourth-and-ten. It’s another thing entirely to deal with a foreign dignitary-and I use that word loosely. He could easily have hired that thug.”

“Look, Pipe. I know your heart’s in the right place, but the bottom line is that you’re an investigator without a job, and you’re trying to manufacture one.”

As soon as he’d said it, he wanted to take it back. Her eyes darkened, and her wide mouth collapsed at the corners, if only for a moment. She’d always been impervious, even amused, by the insults he’d enjoyed tossing at her-insults about the way she dressed, her ballsy attitude-but he’d insulted her integrity, and her hurt was painful to watch.

She rose from her chair, back straight. “I gotta go.”

He got up and blocked her way. “Hold on. That didn’t come out the way I meant.”

“I think it came out exactly the way you meant,” she said quietly.

“No, it didn’t.” He cupped her shoulders. She didn’t pull away. Instead, she lifted her head and stared him down, daring him to insult her again.

Her shoulders nestled in his palms. Her personality was so big that he sometimes forgot how small she was compared to him. “Pipe, you love what you do, and all I’m saying is-that could be impairing your judgment.”

She actually seemed to think it over. Finally, she shook her head. “No. But apology accepted.”

He hadn’t really apologized.

“And you’re the one with the impaired judgment. You want to believe the attack was random, so you’ve closed your mind to any other possibility.”

Her motives were pure, if wrongheaded. “I wish I’d had you on my offensive line when I was playing. Nobody would have been able to touch me.”

She smiled-open and genuine. Sulking wasn’t in her nature.

He wasn’t exactly sure when their eyes locked, only that he still had his hands on her shoulders and that his aches and pains seemed to have faded. She lifted her arm, and her fingers brushed his bruised jaw in a caress so gentle he could barely feel it. The breeze blew a strand of dark hair across her cheek. He wasn’t used to looking at anyone like this. Gazing so deeply. Seeing nothing but big eyes and a soft, inviting mouth. Kissing her felt like the most natural thing in the world.

She could have stopped him simply by turning her head, but she didn’t. She opened her lips and slipped her hands under his sweatshirt to touch his bare back.

Their kiss gathered heat, and their bodies melded. A hot rush of blood ripped through him. All he wanted was to be inside her. To satisfy her in a way no one ever had. He wanted to hear her moan. Have her beg him. Want him as much as he wanted her.

She had his sweatshirt off. He pulled her top over her head. She wore a black bra beneath. He drew her toward the big chaise.

The purple cushions were soft, but he landed on his bad side and winced.

She jerked back from him as if she’d burned him. “We can’t. You’re-”

He stopped her words with his mouth and rolled to his good side, taking her with him. He cupped her bottom through her jeans. He had to get them off her. Strip everything away. He heard a buzzing in his head as he slipped his finger under her bra strap. His lips went to her shoulder. The buzzing grew louder. Pushing him on. Louder still. More demanding.

She shoved herself away from him so abruptly he nearly fell off the chaise.

She reached for something.

The buzz… it wasn’t coming from inside his sex-obsessed brain. It was coming from above them.

A silver X-shaped drone hovered in the air overhead. He let out a blistering curse. The drone made a small circle just above the garden. Circled again.

And then it exploded.

Shards of fiberglass, plastic, and metal flew everywhere.

Piper stood in the middle of his garden, dressed only in her jeans and a black bra, her arm raised. And in her hand, the hand that had, only moments before, been caressing him, she held a semiautomatic pistol.

One shot. That’s all it had taken for her to bring down the drone. One perfect shot.

He sagged against the brick terrace wall. Nothing like a woman with a gun to spoil the mood.