My stomach rumbles hungrily at the word lunch. “I’m famished,” I confess. “You’re a lifesaver.”
“So.” Cooper leads me to an empty set of orange plastic seats in the waiting room. “What’s the kid in for?”
I glance at the emergency room doors. “Who, Gavin? Chronic stupidity.”
“Gavin again, huh?” Cooper produces two Yoo-Hoos from his parka pockets and hands me one. My heart lurches. YOO-HOOS! God, I love this man. Who wouldn’t? “If that kid lives to graduation, I’ll be surprised. So. How you hanging in there? I mean, with the dead girl.”
I’ve sunk my teeth into the crunchy baguette—filled with freshly made smoked mozzarella, garlicky roasted peppers, and sun-dried tomatoes. It is impossible to speak after that, of course, because the inside of my mouth is having an orgasm.
“I actually put in a call,” Cooper goes on, seeing that my mouth is full (though ignorant, hopefully, of all the fireworks going on inside of it), “to a friend at the coroner’s office. They got over there pretty quickly, you know, on account of business being slow, thanks to this storm we’re supposed to get. Anyway, they’re pretty sure she was dead well before she was…well, you know.”
Decapitated. I nod, still chewing.
“I just thought you’d want to know,” Cooper goes on. He’s unwrapping a sandwich of his own. Prosciutto, I think. “I mean, that she didn’t…suffer. They’re pretty sure she was strangled.”
I swallow. “How can they tell?” I ask. “Considering…well, there’s no neck?”
Cooper has just taken a bite of his own sandwich as I ask this. He chokes a little, but manages to get it down.
“Discoloration,” he says, between coughs. “Around the eyes. It means she quit breathing before death occurred, due to strangulation. They call it vagal inhibition.”
“Oh,” I say. “Sorry.” I mean about making him choke.
He swills some Yoo-Hoo. As he does, I have a chance to observe him without his noticing. He hasn’t shaved this morning…not that it matters. He’s still one of the hottest-looking guys I’ve ever seen. His five o’clock—more like noon—shadow just makes the angular planes of his face more defined, bringing into even more definition his lean jaw and high cheekbones. Some people—like his father, Grant Cartwright—might think Cooper needs a haircut.
But I like a guy with hair you can run your fingers through.
You know, if he’d let you.
Still, though to me that slightly overlong dark hair gives him the appearance of a friendly sheepdog, Cooper must strike an imposing figure to others. This becomes obvious when a homeless guy carrying a bottle in a paper bag, coming into the hospital to get out of the cold for a little while, spies an empty chair next to me and wanders toward it…
…only to change his mind when he gets a look at Cooper’s wide shoulders—made even more intimidating-looking by the puffiness of his anorak—and massive Timberlands.
Cooper doesn’t even notice.
“They think she’d been there awhile,” he says, having successfully forced down whatever it was he’d been choking on. “On the, er, stove. Since before dawn, at least.”
“God,” I say.
But though back in the dorm—I mean, residence hall—I couldn’t think about what had happened to Lindsay without feeling a wave of nausea, I have no trouble finishing my sandwich. Maybe it’s because I really was starving.
Or maybe it’s because of Cooper’s soothing presence. Love does funny things to you, I guess.
Speaking of love…
My cell phone chirps, and when I take it out of my pocket, I see that Jordan is calling me. Again. I hastily shove the phone back into the recesses of my coat.
Not quickly enough, though.
“He must really need to talk to you about something,” Cooper says mildly. “He left a message at home, too.”
“I know,” I say sheepishly. “I heard it.”
“I see.” Cooper looks amused about something…at least by the way the corners of his mouth curl up beneath the quarter inch of dark fuzz growing around them. “And you aren’t calling him back because…?”
“Whatever,” I say, annoyed. But not with Cooper. I’m annoyed with his brother, who refuses to realize that a breakup is just that: a breakup. You don’t keep on calling your ex, especially when you’re engaged to someone else, after you’ve broken up. I mean, it’s common courtesy.
I guess it doesn’t help that I keep sleeping with him. Jordan, I mean.
But seriously, it was just that one time on Cooper’s hallway runner, and in a moment of total weakness. It’s not like it’s ever going to happen again.
I don’t think.
I guess you could also say I’m a little annoyed with myself.
“So did you know her?” Cooper asks, artfully changing the subject, most likely because he can tell it’s not one I’m relishing.
“Who? The dead girl?” I take a slug of Yoo-Hoo. “Yeah. Everyone did. She was popular. A cheerleader.”
Cooper looks shocked. “They have cheerleaders in college?”
“Sure,” I say. “New York College’s team made it to the finals last year.”
“The finals of what?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But they’re proud of it. Lindsay—that’s the dead girl—was especially proud of it. She was studying to be an accountant. But she had tons of school spirit. She—” I break off. Even Yoo-Hoo doesn’t help this time. “Cooper. Who would do something like that to someone? And why?”
“Well, what do you know about this girl?” he asks. “I mean, besides that she was a cheerleader studying to be an accountant?”
I think about it. “She was dating one of the basketball players,” I say, after a while. “In fact, I think he might be a suspect. Detective Canavan seems to think so, anyway. But he didn’t do it. I know he didn’t. Mark’s a nice kid. He’d never kill anyone. And certainly not his girlfriend. And not that way.”
“It’s the way that strikes me as…” Cooper shrugs beneath his anorak. “Well, the word overkill comes to mind. It’s almost as if the killer left her that way as a warning.”