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15
On Monday morning, she got a call from the owner of a neighborhood minimart who’d seen her flyer. He wanted her to investigate what he believed was a fraudulent injury claim from one of his former employees, a guy named Wylie Hill. She headed south to check him out.
Pilsen was a predominantly Mexican-American Chicago neighborhood, rich with art and immigrant tradition. Two men leaned against a mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe and watched a couple of hipsters walk by. An old woman in bedroom slippers came up the steps from her basement apartment to sweep the sidewalk.
Wylie eventually appeared and sat smoking on the stoop of the row house where he’d rented a room. She was happy to have a new client, but stakeouts were her least favorite part of the job. First, because they were boring, and second, because they gave her too much time to think, especially today.
She and Coop had spent most of yesterday in bed, and not once had she been plagued by the emptiness that had always come over her when she was with a man—the panicky disconnect that made her look for excuses to get away. With Coop, there’d been nearly as much talking as there’d been sex. She’d described a couple of Duke’s more interesting investigations. He’d talked about ranch life and urban gardening. They’d exchanged surprisingly similar opinions about politics and religion. He’d even pried out some stories about her schizophrenic upbringing—stories she now regretted sharing. Too much talking. Too many places inside her she didn’t want him to see. From now on, she was leaving his place as soon as he put his clothes back on.
Wylie Hill had either genuinely hurt his back unloading boxes or was the laziest man alive, because he didn’t do much except sit on his stoop. By late the next afternoon, when she couldn’t stand the boredom any longer, she made a quick trip to her office and did some work on her Web site. As she was getting ready to lock back up and return to her stakeout, Coop appeared, bringing an influx of testosterone along with him. He gazed around, taking in the framed posters of pulp detective magazine covers. “You really do have an office.”
“A little humbler than yours, but it’ll work until my luxury suite in the Hancock opens up.” She surreptitiously turned the notepad she’d been writing on facedown. “What are you doing here?”
“Curious to see how the other half lives.” He reached across her desk and flipped over the notepad she’d tried to conceal. “Your shrink?”
She’d intended to keep what she’d learned to herself until she had more information, but she couldn’t do that now. “I finally tracked down your ex-bartender. He’s working in a Bridgeport dive bar.”
“You weren’t planning to tell me about it?”
“After I talked to him. That’s what you pay me to do, remember?”
“Right.” He skirted the borders of the rug to poke at the soil of her windowsill orchid, a gift from Amber. “When are you going to see him?”
“Tonight. He goes on duty at nine. I’ll call you in the morning.”
“No need. I’m going with you. And you’re overwatering that orchid.”
“Thanks for the info, and you’ll only complicate things. Now, go away. I have some surveillance work to do for a new client.” And simply breathing your oxygen is fogging my brain.
“Great. I’ll come along. It’ll be interesting to get a glimpse into the seedier side of your life.”
“Surveillance is way too boring for you.”
“I can handle it.”
At first he did. But after a few hours, he grew restless and stared rummaging around in her backseat. “Got anything to eat in here?”
“Fresh out.”
“What’s this?” He held up her pink Tinkle Belle.
“Ice cream scoop.”
“Weird-looking ice cream scoop.” He began to pull it from its plastic bag.
“Leave it alone.” She hadn’t needed to use it recently, but still . . .
Enlightenment struck. He gazed through the plastic bag at the Tinkle Belle, then at her. “I always wondered how women—”
“Now you know. Put it back.”
She’d parked catty-corner from the beat-up Pilsen row house where Hill lived. As Tejano music blared from a vintage clothing shop next door, Coop flipped open her glove box and rooted around. When he got tired of that, he poked at a loose panel on her dashboard. She willed him to be still so she could try to forget he was there. As if that were possible.
“How do you know your guy’s inside?” he asked.
She pointed toward the top floor. “He’s passed by that corner window a couple of times.”
“Maybe he’s in for the night.”
