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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.
Jada stopped eating. “They’re victims of this horrible sex abuse, and it’s so not right for them to get arrested. We’re going to write letters to Congress.”
“Good for you,” Piper said.
Karah squeezed her daughter’s hand. “I’ll write a letter, too.”
After dinner, Piper changed for work. She dreaded going back to Spiral, dreaded anything that would put her near Coop and closer to getting permanently fired. As she deserved . . .
The house was packed. Coop and Tony had pulled out all the stops to overcome the bad publicity from the cockroach invasion—specials on top-shelf drinks and lots of celebrities scheduled to show up all week: football players, actors, and a beautiful country singer.
