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An hour later, she was in.
***
Her cell rang. She jerked her head up from her desk and fumbled to pick it up. Eight a.m. She’d fallen asleep less than an hour ago. “’Lo,” she croaked.
“Nice to know how much you care.” The uncharacteristically sulky note in Coop’s voice reassured her as nothing else could have.
“Yeah, well, I had things to do, and I called your attorney, didn’t I?” She grabbed her mug, took a slug of cold coffee, and shuddered.
“Aren’t you going to ask me?”
She rubbed her eyes. “About what?”
“I’ve been accused of a sex crime!” he exclaimed. “I’m currently out of jail on bond!”
“Oh, that.”
“You think this is some kind of a joke?”
“Don’t even go there.” The anger she’d barely been able to suppress boiled to the surface. “Thousands of women won’t report they’ve been raped because they’re afraid they’ll be called liars. And then there’s this. It’s too much, Coop. I swear I am going to nail whoever accused you.”
There was such a long pause she thought he’d hung up. But then she heard him clear his throat. His voice sounded strange. Tight. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“What have you been up to?” He didn’t say it in a casual, What’s up? way. More of an I want a full report way.
“I’ve got things to do. I’ll call you later.” She disconnected and shut down her cell. So much for teamwork.
As she tried to release the crick in her neck, she turned her attention back to her computer, where news bulletins were already broadcasting word of Coop’s arrest. The injustice brought her fully awake.
In the trash folder on Noah’s laptop, she’d found an e-mail from Bendah’s Bug Farm. Thank you for your order . . . As satisfying as that had been, it paled in comparison to what else she’d discovered. When she’d swiped Noah’s cell, she’d found a phone number he called at night, sometimes as late as two in the morning. The number had shown up so frequently that she’d ignored every ethical principle she believed in and broken into his house to steal the computer she hoped would be there, a computer that would give her even more information about the secret life of Noah Parks.
A few hours of cyber-digging had given her what she wanted—a link between the number and a name—Rochelle Mauvais, née Ellen Englley. There’d been no photos on his phone but there were plenty on the computer she’d stolen. A young, very pretty blonde. A couple of photos showed her with Noah, but most of them were of Ellen/Rochelle alone . . . and undressed. Then, at dawn, she’d hit the mother lode. A mysterious ten-thousand-dollar bank transfer made two days ago.
The remnants of the adrenaline buzz still hadn’t faded. Nothing since she’d taken over the agency had been as satisfying as the work she’d just done with her fingers and a keyboard. But that sense of accomplishment couldn’t erase the knowledge that Noah Parks wasn’t the only criminal around.
She gazed across the office at her framed True Detective posters. She’d never imagined herself as a lawbreaker, yet that’s what she was. She’d turned her back on her own principles and ignored the law, as if it had been written for other people. When this was over, she needed to take a long, unwelcome look at what she was becoming.
“I’m not asking you to give me her name,” she told Eric as she spoke to him on the phone a few minutes later. “All I’m asking is for you to see if the name I gave you matches the name of the woman who accused Coop. A simple yes or no.”
He called her back ten minutes later. “How did you get this information?”
Instead of answering his question, she gave him Ellen/Rochelle’s address and told him to meet her there in half an hour.
The interview with Ellen was short and brutal. Ellen, it turned out, had started working as an escort to pay off her college loans but quickly discovered escort work was a more lucrative way to earn a living than the jobs she could get with her bachelor’s degree in communications. Noah had been an early client. Although Piper had no proof that the ten thousand dollars he’d transferred from his bank had ended up in Ellen’s account, she had enough details to act as though she did, and Ellen crumbled, admitting she’d lied about Coop.
This, she thought as Eric led Noah’s mistress to the police station, is for all the women who told the truth but nobody believed them.
***
Deidre had returned to the city from the farm. Piper called her office and made an appointment for three o’clock. That gave her just enough time to shower and change. As she left her office, she imagined the phalanx of reporters camped outside Coop’s condo and wished she could throw herself between him and every one of them.
Her urge to protect him was ferocious enough to scare her. She tried to plan out her upcoming meeting with Deidre, but she was so muzzy from lack of sleep that she took an automatic detour through Lincoln Square. And there, sitting by the fountain, was an elderly man wearing a horned Viking’s helmet.
A horned, Minnesota Vikings fan helmet.
She couldn’t deal with this now, but instead of driving away, she wheeled into a no parking space, jumped out of her car, and strode toward him. He didn’t spot her until she was about thirty feet away, and then he sprang up and began to run. She dashed in front of him. “Police!”
