The Bride Wore Size 12 (23 page)

27

C
ooper and I are finally alone in his former bedroom—unless one counts Lucy, passed out in her dog bed on the floor, and Owen, the cat, perched on top of Cooper’s old chest of drawers, staring at us with slitted yellow eyes.

The painkillers they’d given him in the hospital are finally wearing off, but Cooper is reluctant to take the ones Nicole and Jessica went to so much trouble to get. Pharmacists no longer hand bottles of controlled substances over to just anyone, it turns out. They will only give them to the person to whom they are prescribed, and that person must show a photo ID, or at least a piece of identification proving they live at the same address as the person to whom the pills are prescribed.

Fortunately Jessica and Nicole have the same last name as Cooper, and also possess mighty powers of persuasion—or at least incredible powers of persistence. It’s possible they simply wore the pharmacist down with their nagging. This is how they secured ponies—one for each of them—from their parents at an absurdly young age.

“I don’t like them,” Cooper says when I offer him one of the pills. “They make my head feel fuzzy.”

This comes out sounding like “Day bake by hade beel bunny,” because of his mouth injury.

“I don’t care,” I inform him. “You need sleep, in order to heal. It’s called pain management. If you don’t take a pill now, you’re going to wake up screaming in agony in a few hours.”

“Wow,” Cooper says, obediently accepting the pill, along with a glass of water (into which I’ve inserted a straw for his sipping convenience). “Has anyone ever told you that you have a terrible bedside manner? I’m glad I was never a soldier gassed in the front lines of the Great War, and you were never my nurse.”

“I never would have volunteered to be a nurse in the Great War,” I say, taking the water glass away from him when he’s swallowed the pill and setting it on the bedside table. “I would have volunteered to be a sharpshooter, and apparently excelled at it, according to Hal.”

Hal, who’s announced he’s staying the night—and possibly the next few nights—is sleeping in Cooper’s office downstairs. The contents of his duffel bag turned out to include several changes of clothes, a toothbrush, and the book he’s currently reading, as well as multiple firearms.

I offered him the guest room instead of the couch—which folds out but isn’t as comfortable as a bed—but he thanked me politely and said he preferred Cooper’s couch. Cooper later informed me this is because his office has the best view of the street, so Hal can see anyone who might come up the front steps.

“Wouldn’t it make more sense for an intruder try to break in through the back?” I asked.

Cooper shook his head. “That’s what the alarm is for. Hal’s worried about someone disguised as a pizza deliveryman walking up to the front door and knocking. Only none of us ordered pizza, and pizza’s not what’s in the box.”

“Now you guys are being ridiculous,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Are we?” Cooper asked. “You said that blogger ate a lot of pizza, and look what happened to him. Maybe that’s how his attacker got in.”

There’s not going to be any convincing Cooper that anyone could easily have snuck up behind Cameron Ripley and strangled him—he sits with his back to the door of the
Express
’s office, typing with earbuds in his ears—so I let it drop. Let Hal stare at the front porch for mysterious assassins disguised as pizza deliverymen who are allegedly coming after me. I have bigger fish to fry.

“So is Hal here,” I finally ask Cooper, when his lids have become droopy from the painkiller and I know I’m likely to get the truth from him, “because you’re worried about what’s going at my place of work, or because you’re worried about what’s going on with my mom?”

Cooper shakes his head in bafflement. He wasn’t wrong about the pills making him fuzzy-headed. “What do you mean?”

“There’s no use pretending anymore,” I say, reaching out to lightly run a finger down his cheek. It’s already rough with razor stubble, and likely to get rougher as the days go by. With a broken ankle, cracked rib, and fat lip, he won’t be bothering to shave. “I know you weren’t in a car wreck. Sammy the Schnozz squealed.”

“See if I ever do him another favor,” Cooper says after a beat, with genuine bitterness. “You just can’t trust people anymore, Heather.”

“No, you can’t, can you? Cooper, I believe I asked you to leave the thing with my mother alone.”

“And I believe I told you that as a licensed private investigator, I couldn’t. Heather, don’t you get it? I couldn’t
not
follow her.”

“And look where it got you!” I’ve sat down on the bed beside him. Now I spread my hands to indicate his bandaged ankle and ribs. “This is what she does. She ruins everything she touches.”

He captures one of my outspread hands, then kisses the back of it very gently so as not to hurt his badly bruised lips.

“Not everything,” he says, with a lopsided smile. “Not you. Not this time. I didn’t let her.”

“Oh, right,” I say, sarcastically. “So this time instead of hurting me, she hurts you. That’s so much better, Coop.”

“Come on, Heather. You think this is bad? Believe me, I’ve had much worse. In a couple of weeks, there won’t be a scratch on me. And this had nothing to do with your mom—”

“Oh, right!” I cry again.

“Okay, well, maybe a little. She hangs out with some rough customers, your mother.”

I shudder, then lay my head on his shoulder—carefully, so as not to disturb his rib—wrapping one arm around him. “Why do you think I told you to leave it alone? My God, Cooper, you could have been killed.”

He grins crookedly, then winces. “Glad to hear you have so much faith in my abilities.”

“I’m serious. Ricardo was never the nicest guy.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Heather, but I don’t meet a lot of nice guys in my line of work. I’m not exactly a librarian.”

“Yeah, but do librarians hang out with mobsters? Because I’m pretty sure Ricardo owed money to the Mob.”

“Well, that could explain why he was so interested in your mom. She clearly has a lot of cash to spend. I started tailing her when she came out of your dad’s apartment building this afternoon. She headed straight to Fifth Avenue to hit all the usual suspects—Tiffany’s, Bergdorf’s, Van Cleef and Arpels. It wasn’t until we got to Prada that I realized I wasn’t the only one tailing her.”

I lifted my head from his shoulder. “You mean Ricardo—?”

“Caught him behind her just as she was exiting the store. I recognized him right away. He’s aged a bit, but not that much. Plus, he’s a pretty crummy tail. He had on a trench coat and fedora, pulled down low over his face, for Christ’s sakes. Who wears an outfit like that when it’s eighty degrees outside? The guy’s clearly an amateur.”

“So what did you do?” I ask.

“I said, ‘Hey, Ricardo, long time no see,’ and the guy’s so freaked out, he pulls a knife on me. I had no choice but to disarm him.”

I gasp and sit up. “Cooper! Are you crazy? You could have been stabbed.”

“There were ladies present, including your mother,” he says, indignantly. “What was I supposed to do? As soon as she recognized Ricardo, your mom started screaming like she’d seen the antichrist. And even then, it took store security forever to figure out what was going on and call the cops. By the time they arrived, old Ricardo and I were already out on the sidewalk. He tried to push me under a cab—”

“Where was my mom?” I interrupt.

“Disappeared,” Cooper says. “Didn’t see her again once the cops peeled Ricardo and me apart.”

I press my lips together, thinking dark thoughts about my mother, who hadn’t even had the decency to stick around to help my fiancé while he was being half beaten to death by her ex—even if Cooper had eventually turned things around, and ended up winning the fight.

“Anyway, it just goes to show,” Cooper says, playing with a long strand of my hair, “things aren’t always what they seem.”

“What do you mean? I think things are
exactly
the way they seem. My mother is a no good dirty—”

“Oh, Heather.” Cooper cuts me off, shaking his head, then winces when the pain stops him. “So beautiful, yet so cold. I mean it just goes to show that your mother’s motives for showing up here the other night may not have been entirely duplicitous. Judging by the size of the knife that guy pulled on me, I think she had reason to believe she was in trouble—real trouble—and needed our help, but she didn’t know quite how to ask for it, especially after the way she’s treated you all these years.”

After this speech—which is a bit hard to understand thanks to his busted lip—Cooper reaches for the water glass, and takes a long drink through the straw.

“Why
would
I help her?” I demand. “Especially now! What has she ever done for me . . . or you? Except nearly get you killed today.”

“I brought that on myself,” he says, when his mouth is less dry, one of the side effects listed on the pill bottle. “As you pointed out, I should have left well enough alone. But . . . well, it’s not in my nature. Let’s face it, though: it’s not in your nature, either, Heather. That’s why we make such a perfect pair. We’re lucky to have found each another. I feel sorry sometimes for people like your mom. Maybe her problem isn’t that she’s a dirty, no good whatever-you-were-going-to-call-her. It’s that she was never lucky enough to find her soul mate, like we were.”

I frown, even though I know there might be something to what he’s saying. Still, this isn’t something a girl likes to admit . . . especially since I can’t help thinking back to Detective Canavan’s unpleasant assertion that I’m a shitkicker. That makes Cooper one, too. So we’re a couple of shitkickers in love?

How romantic.

“What about my poor dad?” I ask. “If my mom’s taken off with Ricardo’s money—and knowing her, you can bet that’s what this is all about—then she’s putting Dad in danger, staying with him.” I snap my fingers. “This completely explains why she didn’t want to stay in a hotel! She knew if she used a credit card, Ricardo could find her. Not that he didn’t manage to find her anyway. Oh, this is a nightmare.” I groan and cover my eyes.

“It’s not as bad as all that,” Cooper says. “Ricardo’s going to be in the Tombs until at least tomorrow morning. Then if he can’t make bail—which I doubt he will, since he resisted arrest, and you know how fondly judges look upon that—he’ll be shipped off to Rikers. So wherever your mom’s taken off to, she’s got a good head start on him. And your dad’s fine. He just ordered in Chinese food.”

“Wait.” I drop my hands away from my face in order to stare at him. “How do you know that?”

Sheepishly, Cooper holds up his cell phone. There’s a text on it from someone called Kenny.

“You’re having my dad’s apartment building staked out?” I cry.

“Of course not,” he says, as if this would be completely unreasonable. “I just bribed the doorman to keep me updated on your dad’s activities.”

“Oh,” I say in mock relief. “That’s so much better.”

“See,” Cooper says. “This is why I never wanted you to know the details of what I do for a living, because it’s not pleasant. I spy on people. I’m always going to spy on people, even when I get beat up for doing it, and even when I’m not getting paid to do it. I
like
spying on people. It’s what I do, Heather. And if you’re going to be married to me, you’re going to have to get used to it.”

I lean back against the pillows and eye him, taking in the stubborn slant of his jaw, and the challenging gleam in his eye. “Gosh. You mean you wouldn’t quit detecting if I asked you to?”

“No. Would you quit writing songs and working in the dorm if I asked you to?”

“No. Not unless you had some sort of fatal disease and you wanted me to come with you to the south of France to enjoy your last few months of life.”

“Oh,” he says, his features relaxing. “Well, that would be a different story. I would completely quit detecting to nurse you through a fatal disease, especially in the south of France.”

I reach out to brush back a dark strand of hair that’s fallen across his forehead. “I had no idea being a private detective was so . . . complicated. From your billing, it certainly looks boring.”

“It usually is,” Cooper says. “But like I said . . . things aren’t always what they seem.”

“Yes, I can see that now.” I kiss the place on his forehead where the strand of hair had lain. “Well, enough about fatal diseases. Is there anything I can do to make you feel better right now?”

One of Cooper’s dark eyebrows lifts. “I don’t know. What did you have in mind?”

“I’m not sure,” I say, my hand creeping beneath the sheet. “Where does it hurt?”

“Well,” he admits. “Kind of
everywhere
.”

“What about here?” I ask, raising an eyebrow of my own.

He inhales. “I might need a little attention in that area. You did say something earlier about a finger sandwich, if I recall.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m not so sure you want one of those. I looked it up a little while ago. That’s when a girl has sex with two guys at once. I could call Hal up here, if you—”

“I very definitely,” Cooper says, “do
not
want a finger sandwich, ever.”

“Message received,” I say, flipping back the sheet. “Let’s see what I can do to change your mind about my nursing abilities.”

I did change his mind, thoroughly.

28

C
ooper is still asleep when I leave for Fischer Hall the next day. The pills—and no doubt exhaustion, since it turns out I possess surprisingly excellent nursing skills—have finally knocked him out. I post a long list of instructions for Hal on the door to the refrigerator, which he eyes nervously.

“I think Coop wanted me to go with you,” Hal says. “You know, to protect you from the crazy person who’s killing people where you work, and from your mom’s boyfriend too.”

I laugh humorlessly. I know things must be pretty bad if Virgin Hal would rather hang out with me, a lady, than Cooper. Cooper’s not exactly someone who enjoys spending time in bed . . . unless I’m there with him, of course.

“I think my mom’s boyfriend is more interested in going after her than me, Hal,” I say. “Besides, it will look weird if I have a bodyguard following me around the residence hall. And someone has to stay here and help Cooper. He’s got a broken rib on top of a fractured ankle. He can’t use the crutches yet. Who’s going to bring him breakfast and make sure he takes his pills?”

The answer to this question should be me, but no way am I calling in sick to stay home to play nursemaid to my injured fiancé, even if he did do something incredibly brave and noble. I have a meeting with Rashid and Ameera at nine, and I’m not missing it, though I plan to come home right after.

Of course, I’ll have to rush out again straightaway, since I have my final wedding gown fitting at noon. No way can I miss that appointment the way I did the one with our wedding planner.

“Well,” Hal says, dubiously eyeing the list I’ve left, which says
Bring Cooper breakfast
as the first item, with
Order egg, cheese, and ham breakfast sandwich from deli (for delivery)
beneath it, and the number for the deli under that. Attached to it is a ten-dollar bill (I’ve included money for Hal’s breakfast, and a deli menu), and then, beneath that, because I’m not sure Hal knows, I’ve written,
Deli guy is our friend. He will not hurt us. Do not shoot him.

“I don’t know,” Hal says, slowly, still staring at the list.

“Look,” I say. It’s nearly nine. “Have Cooper call me when he wakes up.”

I’m almost out the door before Hal calls me back. “Heather! You forgot something.”

I hurry back only to have him slip the .22 into my purse. Its weight makes the bag considerably heavier.

“It’s loaded,” Hal says, looking furtively up and down the street. The sky is overcast, for a change, and thankfully there aren’t many people around. “The safety is on. Remember what I said. Never, ever give up your weapon, no matter what. Not for any reason. Have you read
The Onion Field
?”

Oddly, I have. It’s a fact-based novel Cooper keeps around the house and which I’ve flipped through (unlike
The Hobbit
). That’s because it’s based on a true incident in which a police officer in California surrendered his gun to a criminal who was holding the officer’s partner hostage. The criminal then shot the officer’s partner with the gun. The case caused police departments across the country to enforce a strict new rule: No officer is to surrender his weapon under any circumstances whatsoever.

Although the incident had to have occurred before Hal was born, the fact that he keeps insisting I not give up my weapon, no matter what, gives me sudden insight into why he’s no longer on the force, and also why he himself owns so many weapons. He must have been put into a similar situation as the officer in the onion field, and broken the rule, with similarly tragic consequences.

“I have read it, Hal,” I say gently, instead of what I want to say, which is,
Get this thing out of my purse.
“I’ll be sure not to let anyone else get their hands on my weapon.”

“Good. If you won’t let me protect you,” Hal says, his eyes looking oddly bright behind the thick lenses of his glasses, “at least protect yourself. You know it’s what Cooper would want.”

“Yes,” I say. “I do. Thank you very much, Hal. And thank you for looking after Cooper.”

Hal nods briskly, then quickly closes the door, probably so I won’t see him looking misty-eyed. I’m glad, because I’ve grown a little misty-eyed, as well . . . which is absurd. Almost as absurd as the fact that I’m taking a target pistol to work. Fortunately, the bottom drawer to my desk locks. I’ll put my purse in it—after I’ve removed all the files—and lock it in there. Explosives, fireworks, firearms, and ammunition are all prohibited in the residence halls, and subject to confiscation and disposal if found, according to
The New York College Housing and Residence Life Handbook.
I’m fairly certain this applies to employees as well as residents.

I noticed the night before when checking my e-mail that someone at the
Express
—not Cameron Ripley, obviously—had posted a story online about the RAs being fired. It had garnered a number of comments, most of them in favor of the RAs.

So I’m not surprised when I turn the corner and see student protesters marching in front of Fischer Hall, holding signs that say
new york college unfair!
and
i love my ra!
while chanting, “Hire back my RA!”

Most of the students are obviously freshmen. Freshmen, though adorable, are sometimes easily led, especially during the first few weeks of school, before they’ve become hardened and jaded, like me. That’s why so many solicitors gravitate to the park in the autumnal months, offering free microwaves to kids who sign up for credit cards—carrying absurdly high interest rates—and passes to “rock concerts”—which turn out to be prayer meetings with a little live music thrown in.

“Heather!” One of the freshmen holding a sign rushes up to me. I recognize Kaileigh Harris. Two of her suite mates—but not Ameera, I notice—and Kaileigh’s mother are trailing right behind her.

It’s
way
too early for this.

“Heather,” Kaileigh says, when she reaches me. “Did you hear what happened? They fired all the RAs!”

“Well,” I say. “Not all of them. Only the ones who went to the prince’s party.”

“But it’s not fair,” Nishi, her suite mate, cries. “The RAs are students, just like us.”

“Yeah,” Chantelle, Kaileigh’s other suite mate, says. “Why should they be punished when none of the rest of us got punished?”

No. Not this. Not before I’ve had coffee.

“You guys,” I say. “I’m not saying I don’t think the rest of you should be punished, because believe me, I do. But do you think it’s possible there’s more to the story”—like that a girl died, and the RAs covered up knowing at least a little about why—“and that maybe things aren’t always what they seem?”

I’m consciously echoing Cooper’s words from the night before.

“Oh, no,” a fourth girl says, stomping up to me in her lime-green combat boots, her sign slung over one shoulder. “Things
are
exactly how they seem. We know
everything
. My RA, Megan, told me. The fact is that you, the administrators, don’t care about us, the students, the people who pay your salary! Well, it’s time we took charge. We want our RAs back! We. Want. Our. RAs. Back!”

Her chant is quickly picked up by the rest of the students, some of whom I now see are the fired RAs. Megan is one of them. She’s giving me a slant-eyed look through her horn-rimmed glasses as she marches around in front of the hall.

I resolve to make sure Megan’s final paycheck takes quite a circuitous route in getting to her, wherever Megan ends up after moving from the building.

“Ms. Wells,” Mrs. Harris sidles up to me to say. She looks worried. I can hardly blame her. “Do you know anything about this?”

“I do,” I say, forcing a smile onto my face. “Please don’t worry about it, Mrs. Harris. We have some really great candidates in line to replace the RAs we’ve lost.”

Well, one great candidate.

“We’ve already met him,” Mrs. Harris says bleakly. Today she’s dressed all in tones of lemon. How can she look so well put together so early in the morning? “Last night, while we were having dinner in the cafeteria, your assistant, whatever her name is, the one with the frizzy hair, was introducing him around. No offense, Ms. Wells, but are you aware he’s
blind
? Our daughter’s going from a dead RA to a blind one? Excuse me, but how is that going to work? What if there’s a fire?”

I look upward at the overcast sky, fighting for patience.

“Well, Mrs. Harris,” I say, after I’ve counted to three. “I’m sure if there’s a fire, Dave will hear the alarm, smell the smoke, and get his residents to safety,
just like a sighted person
. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to my office.”

I storm past her, but I don’t head for the office. I head for the cafeteria. I need that coffee and a bagel.

“Morning,” Pete says glumly as I pass the security desk. He knows better than to speak to me too cheerfully in the
a.m.
He feels the same way about mornings.

“Are you seeing this?” I ask, pointing over my shoulder at the picketers. “Are you picking it up on your monitors?”

“Unfortunately,” he replies, just as glumly. “They’ve been at it since eight. They’ve got a group of ’em protesting in front of the president’s office as well. Some of ’em have got their parents driving in too, from what I hear.”

I roll my eyes. “Shoot me.” Then I remember what I have in my bag. “I mean . . . never mind.”

Pete nods solemnly. He has a cup of coffee and a bagel on his desk, so he’s already several steps ahead of me. “Just so you know, there’s a bunch of ’em waiting outside your office. Couldn’t get in because you changed the locks last night—good move, by the way—but all that seemed to do was raise their fighting spirit.”

I say a curse word I normally reserve for when I’ve stubbed a toe or forgotten to order paper for the photocopier.

“I heard that!” Gavin’s voice drifts out from behind the front desk. “That can only mean one thing. Heather Wells is in the house!”

“Shut up, Gavin,” I say moodily, and continue toward the cafeteria.

“Is that any way to talk to your most devoted employee?” Gavin calls. “Hey, stop by the desk on your way back. I have a message here for you.”

“Okay.” I mutter the curse word again, this time under my breath.

Fortunately Magda has anticipated my needs, and has forced Jimmy to set a bagel aside for me, before the ravenous hordes of protesters could wipe him clean of baked goods.

“You poor thing,” she says as Jimmy surrenders the bagel. This time he’s too busy to toast it for me—a wave of freshmen leaving for an orientation trip to Central Park has come in ahead of me—so I’m forced to cut it in half myself with the large serrated knife left on the cutting board by the bagel basket for that purpose. “I heard about Cooper. How is he? How are
you
?”

Her question takes me by surprise. “How did you know about Cooper?”

“Bridesmaid hotline,” she says, holding out her phone. “Nicole told me. All these people texting while driving. It should be against the law.”

Of course. Nicole told her what she knew, which wasn’t the truth . . .

“Cooper’s doing as well as can be expected,” I say as Magda walks me toward the coffee dispenser. “And there
is
a law against texting while driving. But that isn’t exactly what—”

“You know what I was thinking? If his foot isn’t better in time for the wedding, he can use a—what are they called? Mr. Jazzy? Those little carts the very old people use at the grocery store.”

“Jazzy power scooter?” I ask in horror.