First Star I See Tonight

  Duke Dove would never have done anything so half-brained. But then, Duke had been a pro, while she was still an amateur.

  Her fresh drink arrived. She thought she might be getting double vision, but she sipped it anyway. The ice cubes clinked against the side of her glass as the chair next to her squeaked on the wooden floor. She didn’t look up. “Get lost.”

  A familiar hand—a familiar, ringless hand—plunked a bottle of Sam Adams on the table. Another mistake on her part—asking the hotel doorman for directions to the nearest cheap bar. She’d never thought Coop would follow her.

  She stared up at the soccer game. “I’m not a team player,” she finally said, her speech only slightly slurred.

  “I’ve noticed.” The words crackled with hostility.

  Her fresh glass sported a waxy lipstick imprint that hadn’t come from her. She took a sip from the other side. “I don’ know how to be.”

  “You against the world, right?”

  “Tha’s the way it’s always been.” She stuck her index finger in her drink and shifted around the ice cubes. “Today I hit the downside.”

  “Way down.”

  “I’m not looking for a pass, if tha’s what you’re thinking. I did something stupid because I din’t have a better idea. I’ll figure out how to pay you back.”

  He scraped his thumbnail down the middle of the beer label, ripping it in two. “Like you said. Not a team player.”

  She couldn’t take it any longer, and she began to stand so she could escape to the ladies’ room. When she wobbled, he caught her arm and steered her back into her chair.

  “Do not be nice to me,” she said fiercely. “I screwed up, and I know it.”

  “Yeah, you did.” His jaw set in that way he had when he was furious. “Here’s the most challenging part of being a leader. Understanding you may not always know what’s best for the team.”

  “Right now, all I know is I have a client—or I used to have one—who’s being threatened, and I don’ have any idea who’s behind it.”

  That wasn’t a great way to try to salvage her job—a job she didn’t deserve to hold on to—and he didn’t reassure her. Instead, he pushed back his chair. “You’re going back to the hotel.”

  ***

  He had to get rid of her. Coop knew exactly how it felt to call an audible and have it backfire, but Pipe had thrown out the whole damned playbook, and that meant she was out.

  The wheels of the 747 hit the tarmac at O’Hare, but she slept through it. She was impulsive, but she wasn’t stupid, and she had to know what was coming—had to know he couldn’t keep her around. He had no room for a blue-eyed badass who went off half-cocked doing whatever she damn well pleased.

  Yet, despite the fact that he couldn’t trust her judgment, he also trusted her more than anyone he’d ever known. No person he’d ever worked with had cared more about his welfare. Sure, his teammates and coaches had cared, but they’d had ulterior motives. Piper, on the other hand, would protect him in her own screwball way even if he weren’t paying her a dime. Because that’s the way she was made. Loyal to the end. And that’s what this was. The end.

  The plane pulled up to the gate, and she began to stir. Being her lover made this more complicated than it should be. He’d known the affair was a mistake, but he’d gone ahead and done it anyway. Now he had to break it off and fire her.

  He’d made tough calls before, but none as tough as this.

  ***

  WHAT’S BUGGING COOPER GRAHAM?

  Cockroaches! Thousands of them are swarming the former Stars quarterback’s hot new nightspot, Spiral. “They’re everywhere,” an associate who asked to remain anonymous says. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  The club is closed while exterminators try to eradicate the vermin, but whether the party crowd will return is the big question. Maybe Spiral should be renamed Death Spiral?

  The news was all over the Internet. Piper sat at her office desk and buried her still-throbbing head in her hands. She only vaguely remembered collapsing on the hotel room couch last night, but she definitely remembered the strain between them at the airport. They’d barely spoken.

  She wished he’d fired her on the plane so they could get it over with, but he hadn’t. Since they’d been lovers, he’d do it more carefully. He’d probably tell her she could keep the apartment for a while. He’d almost surely offer her a generous severance. The thought of his magnanimity made her want to choke.

  She smacked herself in the cheek—a really bad idea, considering her jackhammer of a hangover. Until he fired her, she had a job, and she’d keep doing it right to the bitter end. She owed him that much and more.

  The online smears, a mugging, a tire slashing, and a drone. It didn’t jibe. And who’d called INS—or was that even relevant? As for the cockroaches . . . Tony had told Spiral’s employees the club had to be closed for repairs to the cooling system, so the leak about the infestation hadn’t come from the staff. Coop had moved Karah and Jada to a hotel while the fumigation was going on. They knew the truth, but they also knew to keep it to themselves. Someone from the exterminating company could easily have blabbed, but Piper found it more likely that the same person who’d dumped the bugs had made sure the word got out.

  She’d hit a dead end, and she had no idea where to go next, other than to make certain the club had a better video security system. She called Tony to talk about it. If it had been last week, she’d have talked to Coop directly, but it wasn’t last week.

  The rest of Saturday and Sunday passed without word from Coop. She couldn’t go back to her apartment until the fumigation was done, so she slept on her office couch, not just because she didn’t want to impose on Jen or Amber, but also because she was too depressed to be around people.

  The flyers she’d distributed netted a Monday-morning phone call from a suspicious wife, and by the next day, Piper had the unpleasant task of confirming the woman’s suspicions. Duke had been right. Once a wife got around to hiring a detective, she pretty much already knew the truth.

  Helping others was supposed to be at least a partial cure for depression, so she tried to come up with someone she could help whose initials weren’t C.G. She thought of Jen’s problems with Dumb Ass and poked around the darker corners of the Internet for a few hours but didn’t come up with anything interesting.

  Wednesday arrived, and the owner of an air duct cleaning service called. He’d heard Piper was good at handling rat-ass employees who claimed to have been hurt on the job but were goddam liars. The guy sounded like a jerk, but Piper drove to Rogers Park to meet him anyway. On the way back, Tony called to tell her the club was reopening that night, and he needed her back on duty.

  “Did you check with Coop about that?” she asked.

  “About what?”

  “About me coming back.”

  “Why wouldn’t you come back?”

  “Never mind. I’ll talk to him.”

  ***

  She ran Coop to ground in his office at Spiral that evening. She hadn’t seen the point in changing into her nighttime work clothes, and she was still wearing jeans along with a bulky gunmetal-gray sweater that was the closest thing she had to armor.

  He was sitting at the desk with his ankles propped on top and idly tossing a softball back and forth. All the lights were off except the desk lamp, which cast the side of his face in shadow. He looked up as she came in, then returned his attention to the softball.

  She gathered her courage. “Stop being such a chickenshit and get it over with. You know you have to fire me, and I’d appreciate it if you’d do it now so I can stop thinking about it.”

  He pitched the ball from his right hand to his left.

  She curled her fingers around the cuffs of her sweater. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’d like to keep the apartment a little longer. I promise, you’ll never see me.”

  He tossed the ball back.

  “I’ll give my files to whoever you hire to take my place,”
she said. “And you’d better hire someone, Coop, because this isn’t over.” She’d stay on the case even after he fired her. She owed him answers. And a Super Bowl ring . . .

  He dropped his feet to the floor, but whatever he was about to say was lost as Jada burst into the office, her Nerf gun nowhere in sight. “Mom was in an accident!” she cried. “She’s in the hospital!”

  Coop shot up from his desk. “Where is she? What happened?”

  “I don’t know.” Jada began to sob. “A nurse called me from the emergency room. What if she dies?”

  Coop grabbed his jacket. “Let’s go.”

  ***

  They had to take her Sonata because Coop had lent out his Audi for the evening. To Karah.

  They found her hooked up to an IV and a monitor. Her curly dark hair spilled out in a lopsided corona around the gauze bandage wrapping her head, and more bandaging protected her left wrist and arm. Two police officers stood at the side of her bed.

  Jada ran to her mother. Karah winced as she drew her daughter to her breast. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” Over the top of Jada’s head, Karah saw Coop, and her face collapsed. “I wrecked your car, Coop. After everything you’ve done for me.”

  “Don’t worry about the car,” Coop said. “As long as you’re okay.”

  Karah slipped her hand into Jada’s hair. “I should never have taken it. I thought I was being so careful.”

  “Cars can be replaced,” Coop said. “You can’t.”

  The officers were doing their best to keep their professional cool with Cooper Graham in the room. The taller of the two turned to him. “She said you gave her permission to take your car?”

  Coop nodded. “Hers wouldn’t start, and I was going to be at my club all night, so I didn’t need it.”

  “My professor invited some of us to her house up in Wadsworth,” Karah said, “and I really wanted to go. If only I’d stayed home.” She gazed at Coop again. “I’m sorry.”

  “No more apologies. This is why I have insurance.”

  “Tell us again what you remember,” the second officer said.

  “The road was dark, and there wasn’t much traffic.” Karah looked over at Coop. “I wasn’t speeding. I swear.”

  “I’ve seen you drive,” Coop said with a forced smile. “I believe you.”

  “I saw headlights behind me, but I didn’t pay much attention. It happened so fast. The headlights came closer, and I slowed down so the driver could pass. He pulled out, and— He must have turned off his lights because everything went dark. His car swerved and hit the side of the Audi. Hit hard. I . . . I lost control. I skidded and hit something. What did I hit?”

  “A utility pole,” the taller cop said.

  Karah’s hand went to her cheek. “Whoever hit me didn’t even stop to see if I was okay.”

  Piper and Coop exchanged glances, then Piper moved closer to the bed. “You said ‘he.’ Did you get a look at the driver?”

  “No. I don’t know for sure it was a man. That’s a country road, and there aren’t any streetlights. It was too dark to see anything.”

  Piper glanced over at Coop, who threw her a keep-your-mouth shut glare in return. The police needed to know about the attacks on him, but she was smarter now than she’d been a few days ago, and she’d talk to him first.

  The police continued to question Karah, but other than a vague sense that the car was large—maybe even a truck—she didn’t know more.

  She wouldn’t be released from the hospital until the next day, and Piper told her she’d sleep at their place tonight to be with Jada.

  Coop had to get back to the club for the reopening, and Piper followed him out into the hallway. The ding of call buttons and beep of monitors, the smell of antiseptic and sickness brought back those awful weeks before Duke had died.

  “I want you on the floor tomorrow night,” he said.

  She shook off the memories. “I . . . still have a job?”

  “You’re the only female bouncer I have,” he said grimly.

  That wasn’t what she was asking, and he knew it. She dodged a food cart. “I’m taking your advice about being a team player,” she said more firmly.

  He headed toward the elevator bank. “Glad to hear it.”

  “I’m giving you a chance to tell me why I shouldn’t talk to the police about the attacks on you before I go ahead and do it.”

  He jammed his finger at the elevator button. “That sounds more like an ultimatum than being a team player.”

  “Baby steps.”

  A long exhale. “I’ve had enough bad publicity with the bug infestation. I don’t want this splashed all over the papers, too.”

  “I understand. But the Audi has tinted windows. The road was dark. We both know what happened tonight was intended for you.”

  His jaw set. “I should have anticipated something like this. Instead, I lent her my car. If I’d thought for a minute . . .” The elevator doors opened. “Leave the police out of this. That’s an order.”

  The doors slid shut between them.

  ***

  Piper got Jada off to school the next morning, then called Eric. He still hadn’t caught on to the fact that she wasn’t interested in dating him, and he agreed to take her to the lot where the Audi had been towed. As she photographed the streaks of black paint the mystery vehicle had left behind, she knew that Karah’s accident was all that had kept Coop from firing her. As it was, she didn’t know whether he only intended her to work as a bouncer. Not that it made any difference. Nothing could make her give up now.

  Eric propped his elbow on the Audi’s undamaged roof, the morning sun glinting off the lenses of his aviators. “There’s this new Italian place I like on Clark. How about it?”

  He was a nice guy, and she needed to be honest. “I can’t date you, Eric.”

  “Whoa . . .”

  “I’m an idiot, okay? Instead of being attracted to a solid, gorgeous guy like you, I got myself involved with a—a—” A solid, gorgeous guy like Cooper Graham . . . “. . . with someone else. It’s over, but I need some space. As I said, I’m an idiot.”

  He squinted against the morning sun. “Cooper Graham. I knew it.”

  She swallowed. “Do you seriously think he’d be interested in me?”

  “Why not?”

  This didn’t seem the time to talk about men being attracted to her merely because she was one of the guys. “I’ll fix you up with someone.”

  That was one too many blows to his ego. “I don’t need anybody fixing me up.”

  “Not even with Jennifer MacLeish? Chicago’s favorite meteorologist?”

  “You know her?”

  “Yep.” She’d have to persuade Jen, but they just might hit it off. “We can still help each other out now and then, though. Don’t you agree?”

  “How do you mean?”

  She hoped she’d read his ambitious nature correctly. “I’m an ordinary citizen. I can legally go places a police officer can’t, and that might be useful to you someday.”

  He was listening. “Maybe.”

  “And I’d like to be able to call on you occasionally. This accident, for example . . . I’m concerned about Coop.”

  Eric wasn’t all good looks. He also had a brain. “You think whoever did this was after Coop?”

  “I’m keeping an open mind.” Not so very open.

  “Intriguing.” He stuck his thumb in his belt. “About this date with Jennifer MacLeish . . .”

  ***

  The former air duct cleaning employee she was supposed to be investigating lived with his girlfriend and baby in her parents’ home. Piper followed the family to Brown’s Chicken, but as they went inside, she started worrying about Coop. He should be at the gym now, right on schedule. A schedule anyone with half a brain could figure out. Her anxiety got the best of her, and she hurried back to her car.

  His Tesla was in the gym lot. She took a broken-down baby stroller somebody had put out at the curb from her trunk and pushed
it, wobbly wheel and all, across the street. When Coop finally came out, she watched his reflection in a music store window. The stroller had done the trick, and he didn’t spare her a look.

  She trailed him to Heath’s house, not caring if he spotted her. Once he was safely inside, she returned to her South Side stakeout and found the family in a hardscrabble neighborhood park.

  She settled on a bench and watched them. Only the mother picked up their toddler, but that might only prove Piper’s target was a tuned-out father. Still, her gut told her the guy’s injury was real, and sure enough, when the toddler took a tumble, he swooped up the baby, then clutched his back.

  The owner of the air duct cleaning company was as much of a jerk as she’d originally suspected, and he wasn’t happy with either her report or the single photo she’d managed to take. She could easily have stretched out the job by playing on his suspicions, but instead, like the great businesswoman she wasn’t, she convinced him he’d be wasting his money.

  ***

  A few hours later, she picked up Karah from the hospital and drove her home where she fixed them all dinner. A couple of Band-Aids had replaced the bandage around her head, and her arm was sprained, but not broken. She could have been hurt so much worse.

  As they ate, Jada talked about a report she was doing on child sex trafficking. Karah wasn’t happy to learn that the curriculum at her daughter’s parochial school included the seamiest side of street life, but Jada kept going. “Do you know there are, like, girls younger than me right here in the United States that are—”

  Karah reached out to brush a lock of hair from Jada’s cheek. “Let’s talk about this when we’re not eating dinner.”

  “But, Mom . . .” Jada’s amber eyes flashed with outrage. “Some of these girls are, like, being raped a bunch of times every day by these old guys, but when the police show up, they arrest the girls for prostitution. Girls my age!”

  Piper had done some reading about child sex trafficking and found the subject so disturbing that she’d pushed it into her mental back closet. But witnessing a fifteen-year-old’s outrage made her ashamed of her apathy.