“I already told you everything,” she said, turning to Cooper. Her lower jaw was set.
Cooper knew Marissa well. The belligerence in her demeanor was a cover-up for something else. Maybe nothing bad, but a cover-up nevertheless.
“Did you recognize your assailant?” he asked.
“No! Of course not!”
“It wasn’t anyone from the school?”
“No! Oh my God. You think I’m lying?”
“No. No, I don’t think you’re lying,” Cooper said swiftly. “I believe you were attacked.”
“I was. I was! He scared me!” She started crying, and Laura tried to gather her in her arms, but Marissa struggled free. She gazed at Cooper bitterly. “I thought you . . . I thought you were different.”
He wanted to tell her he was. He wanted to keep their special relationship special. But more than that, he wanted to keep her safe. “Was anyone from the school at the house at any time?”
There was the briefest hesitation. Barely noticeable. Then she was outraged. “This man came in, in big, bulky ski gear and a mask and he had a knife! I ran to the bedroom and grabbed the chair and I was screaming on the phone. He rattled the door handle!”
“Did he try to push in?”
“Yes!” She blinked. “But . . . I think he heard me on the phone.... That’s why he stopped.”
“What kind of knife was it?” Cooper asked.
“I don’t know. It was a knife!”
“A steak knife? A butcher knife?”
“Umm . . .” She clasped her hands together and thought hard. “More like the one Mom uses to cut up apples?”
“A utility knife,” said Laura, rising from the edge of the chair where she’d been seated. She went to the kitchen and pulled out a five-inch knife with about a one-inch blade.
Marissa shrank away from the sight of it and Laura put it back in the drawer. “Maybe not quite as big.”
Cooper asked her a few more questions, but after the knife she didn’t have much more to say.
“You’re going to get him, right?” she asked when the questions ran down.
“Yes,” he stated positively.
She relaxed a little, and this time when Laura put her arms around her, she let it happen.
“If you think of anything else. Anything. Tell me, or tell Howie,” he added.
“I’m not telling him anything,” Marissa declared.
“No, you need to. And if there’s anything you’re holding back, or you remember something later? Don’t keep it to yourself. We need to find this guy. Even things you don’t deem important very well could be. Don’t leave out anything.”
Again, that faint hesitation. “Okay,” she said.
As Cooper was heading out the front door, David jogged to a stop beside the garage door, checking his Fitbit. He was breathing hard. When he saw Cooper, he said, “Six miles.”
Cooper nodded.
“What are you doing here so early? This have to do with what happened to Marissa?”
“I wanted to see how she was doing. My partner’s going to be interviewing her later.”
“I’ll make sure she’s okay,” the lawyer said.
There was something a bit pompous about the man Laura had chosen after Cooper, but Cooper was grateful that Laura had moved on. She’d been the one to end their relationship, but it had only been after several years of Cooper working longer and longer hours. He’d told himself there was just a lot to do, but it hadn’t been the complete truth. Laura had complained bitterly about his hours in the beginning and, when things didn’t improve, had basically told him to get out, which was rather presumptuous considering they’d bought the house together. But he’d gone, relieved it was over. He’d used work, and his father’s illness and subsequent death, as an excuse to explain his distance, but the crux of the matter was, the marriage had run its course.
Chapter Seventeen
It was late morning before Jamie, Emma, and Harley were ready to meet Camryn at the Luv-Ahh-Pet Animal Rescue Shelter. Jamie hadn’t brought up Marissa and the intruder who’d threatened her again. She’d tried, with limited success, to put it out of her mind. Cooper and Laura were taking care of Marissa, and Harley had shut down on her. The best thing to do was move forward.
As they were about to head out to the car, Jamie received a call from the high school staff. One of their senior Language Arts teachers had suffered a fall on his outdoor steps and broken his ankle. Could Jamie fill in the next day and likely for several more?
“Yes,” Jamie said with enthusiasm.
When Harley realized her mother was substituting she looked pained.
“It’s not for your grade. It’s the senior class,” Jamie said, a bit exasperated.
“You’ll be teaching the seniors?” Harley moaned, as if it were her last day on earth.
“I won’t embarrass you. I promise.”
“You can’t promise that,” she said from deep in the doldrums.
“Do you want to look for a dog or not?” Jamie demanded.
“Yes!” said Emma. She had her coat on and was standing by the short hall to the back door.
“Yeah. Yeah, I do,” said Harley. Shoulders hunched, she shuffled toward Emma. She’d managed to change into a pair of jeans and another sweatshirt, but that was about as far as her personal appearance went, whereas Emma had taken a shower and washed her shortened hair and was also in jeans and a favorite blue, long-sleeved tee and her dark-gray nylon jacket. She looked ready to go to work, as she did every day. In many ways, she was self-sufficient. A product of years of training by their mother, Jamie guessed.
Camryn was inside the shelter when they arrived, chatting with a young man on the other side of the counter whose name tag read “Burton.” Her short blond hair was damp and she admitted she’d dashed through the shower after an earlier workout. “Glad you’re getting a dog. I’m on the board here and I’ve vouched for you. We usually do a home check, but I know your mom’s house and the fenced backyard. It’s perfect for a dog.”
“Mom’s back there, too,” said Emma.
The young man at
