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“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.
