AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“He’s going to get away with murder.”
“There’s a question of what would be worse for a guy like him—going to jail, or just being generally despised as a murderer and swindler of charities,” Virgil said. “Heath lived for his status in the community.”
“I suppose,” she said. Then she laughed and said, “I called you because I thought you’d be a little more forgiving about my... attitude... than Lucas. I’m going to have these bullet wound scars on my leg. Do you think if I called Weather and talked to her about that, that Lucas would, you know, object or discourage her?”
Cooper didn’t give a rat’s ass about the scars on her leg.
“No. You know, Lucas might have killed Hess if it had been him, by himself. He knows that I wouldn’t go along with it. He’s a hard case. He’s like you. He thinks Hess should be dead,” Virgil said. “But he wouldn’t discourage Weather at all. Give him a call. I believe he’d be happy to hear from you.”
That evening, she called Lucas, and talked to him about Hess and Heath, and about the freedom brought by resignation, about letting the law have its way.
The new Cooper didn’t give a rat’s ass about the law.
After talking to Lucas, she spoke with Weather. Weather would be happy to look at her leg. Cooper told her, “I’m thinking of buying a place in Malibu. I’m going out a week from Friday...”
—
Cooper and Meltonstayed at an inn on the Malibu beach, an excellent but slightly rustic hotel. They didn’t swim, the days were too cold and the water colder yet. They did see young girls in bikinis making TikTok dance videos... and they got drunk on a bottle of wine each night and laughed together. Building the relationship.
Cooper didn’t give a rat’s ass about the relationship.
They spent an hour looking at the Malibu place, which was nice, at a ridiculous price. The Realtor had looked her up on the Internet and was aware of what had happened to her family, and also of Sand’s net worth, now Cooper’s.
“Pricesareridiculous,” the Realtor said, “But there’s no better investment than a California beach...”
The house, Cooper told the Realtor, was not exactly what she wanted; she could wait. But please stay in touch...
Cooper didn’t give a rat’s ass about a California beach.
Back in St. Paul, the weather was cold and clear. Fatima made dinner, and then went home, leaving Chelsea with Cooper. Cooper took her upstairs, to the office, put her securely on Alex’s treasured full leather club couch, went to the desk, dug through the file cabinet, and there behind the last of the files, took out the silenced pistol she’d gotten from Henry James Carter.
Melton and the cops, Virgil and Lucas, Tom Burston, all believed she was coming back. Hess was in jail. Heath’s ramblings easy to ignore: he was finished in St. Paul, a fate, Lucas told her, worse than death for a man like Heath.
But she was not back.
She wasnot.
She looked at the pistol, handled it, jacked a shell in the chamber. Picked up Chelsea: “C’mon baby.”
—
Noah Heath hada sack of caramel corn and he intended to eat all of it, sitting in front of the television. He had lots of worries: the investigations, the sale of the house—no firm bites, yet—aconversation that the board of the Town and Country Club had asked to have with him.
He’d put them off, but he couldn’t delay forever. They would ask him to resign.
So he was worried. He called up Fox News to see what was going on in the world, marveled at the news reader’s presence: she was so beautiful, he thought, she might have come from a different planet.
He was still marveling and crunching when the doorbell rang. He looked at his watch: seven o’clock. Dark outside. He wasn’t expecting anyone.
He turned on the porch light and looked out through a small window inset in the door. A thin figure, back turned, holding what looked like a bundle of some sort. A delivery?
He opened the door and the person turned and smiled at him. If he weren’t punished, he would get away with murder.
And Noah Heath snarled, “You! What the fuck do y—”
—
Cooper pulled thedoor closed. She could see or hear no alarms, just the calm, cold, November night. Far up the avenue, somebody had already put up Christmas lights, winking red, blue, and green into the night.
She said, “C’mon, baby. Let’s gohome.”
