“The life of a policeman,” she said lightly.
“I’ve got an emergency. It’s . . . it happens. I’m sorry. I’m not sure how long it’ll take.”
“Okay.”
He was left with the feeling she didn’t believe him. He wanted to call her right back and plead his case, but it wouldn’t do any good. He focused instead on the task at hand.
He arrived at the house just as the ambulance was pulling away. “What have we got?” he asked Crake, the officer in charge.
“Attacked with a knife. Stabbed in the throat, but she’s still alive. Missed the carotids, maybe nicked one?”
“Bette Kearns?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
Cooper’s phone buzzed again and he glanced at it as he headed into the house. Another number he didn’t recognize. He answered abruptly, “Haynes.”
“Cooper?” A woman’s voice, quavering, half-hysterical.
“Who is this?” he snapped.
“Victoria . . . Stapleton. Bette called me and I called 9-1-1. She said she was dying!” Her voice rose in panic.
“Take it easy. Take a breath,” he advised quickly.
“He’s at her house! You’ve got to go there!”
“I’m here. I’m on the scene. Tell me what happened. . . .”
“Oh . . . okay . . . you’re there? Good. She called me. Is she okay? Is she okay?”
“She’s in an ambulance, on her way to the hospital.”
“But she’s alive?”
“Yes.”
Victoria broke down and sobbed with relief as Cooper, recognizing she would be little help, quickly got off the phone.
* * *
Jamie stood frozen in place from where she’d been loading the new dishwasher for the first time. Vicky had just called and begged her for Cooper’s number, saying there was an attack on Bette, that she wanted to talk to Cooper and knew Jamie would probably have his number. Jamie had given her the cell information, then asked her what she was talking about, but Vicky was already off the phone.
Jamie had a pretty good idea that this emergency was what had taken Cooper away. She was selfishly glad that his reason had been legit. She was used to Paul’s inveterate lies about almost everything, especially if he’d felt she would get in the way of whatever he wanted to do. But she was stunned about Vicky’s news. Bette? Attacked? How? Was she okay?
“Mom?”
Jamie looked over at Harley without really seeing her. Her head was too full of terrible, imagined pictures.
“Can I talk to you a minute?”
Jamie came back to the moment with a bang. She examined her daughter. Harley’s face was taut with tension. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” A return of the old spark. “Nothing to me anyway,” she said. Her shoulders slumped and she moved the toe of her sneaker on the floor.
“Tell me.” With an effort, Jamie pushed her immediate fears for Bette aside and motioned Harley to come sit down at the kitchen table. Harley moved like an automaton, seating herself stiffly on one of the chairs. “What’s this about?”
“I told you I liked a guy . . .”
“Yes. Greer Douglas.”
“You don’t have to say it like that,” she objected. “He’s not bad. He went there to see me. He told me so. And I couldn’t be there because of Marissa’s mom.”
“He and Troy Stillwell pranked her.”
“But they didn’t go after her! That wasn’t them!”
“Okay.”
“You don’t believe me.” Harley subsided into injured silence.
Jamie exhaled. Tried to stay in the moment. “All I know is that someone came after Marissa. I’m not blaming the boys. I don’t know what happened. I’m just . . . I don’t want you to get in some kind of trouble because of all this.”
“How would I get in trouble?”
“I don’t know. Bad choices could be made?” Harley glared at her, and Jamie lifted her hands in surrender. “I’ll reserve judgment.”
“Will you?” She’d been looking down at the table, and now she gazed at her from the tops of her eyes.
“I’ll try. That’s it. That’s all I can offer.”
Harley thought that over. She chewed on her lower lip, clearly working something out. Jamie waited. It seemed to take forever, and Jamie was on pins and needles anyway, before Harley exhaled heavily and said, “I think Tyler was there, too.”
“At the . . . Ryersons? Pranking Marissa?”
“He was with them, but then he wasn’t. Greer didn’t say it exactly, but there’s maybe another girl he’s seeing besides Dara? Tyler was looking for her that night?”
“You’re not saying he went into the house and—”
“No. I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think he was . . .” She made a face and said in a higher voice, “Maybe using them as cover?”
“For . . . ?”
“Drinking and having sex with this other girl?”
Jamie held her daughter’s gaze. “And they don’t want to rat out their friend and have him maybe off the team, or at least mad at them for telling? Neither of them thinks that Tyler went after Marissa, but somebody did, and they’re worried they’ll get blamed for it.”
Harley nodded. “Yeah . . .”
“And Greer Douglas let you know this because . . . he likes you?”
She lowered her lashes. “I don’t know.”
“Or because he knows you’re connected to Marissa and her dad and maybe thinks you can help get both of them off the hook?”
Harley jerked involuntarily, and Jamie realized she’d scored a direct hit, at least to her daughter’s psyche. “But they didn’t do it,” Harley insisted.
“Do they know who did? Have some idea, at least?”
“No . . . I don’t know.”
“Does Marissa know this?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you need to tell Cooper.”
She looked at Jamie in horror. “No! I can’t. They’ll know it was me!”
“Maybe they want you to tell him.”
“No! You can’t tell. You promised!”
“I didn’t promise anything.”
She leaped to her feet. “If you tell him, I’ll never tell you anything again. I never will! I promise!”
“Harley, this is a police matter.”
“No, it’s not! They didn’t do it! And neither did Tyler! He just cheated on Dara. That’s all!”
“His mother says he was home that night with them.”
“And Dara says he was with
