Natalie’s gaze darted back and forth between Cooper and me. Her forehead was lined as she muttered something under her breath. The unsettling glint in her eyes reminded me of a boast she’d made one drunken night years back about madness swirling in her family’s DNA soup.
I fiddled with the zipper on the jacket I’d managed to grab and pull partway on as I was being dragged out the back door. Grimacing, I glanced from Cooper to Natalie; from the ceiling to the concrete floor that could use a sweeping; from the glass furnace to the metal tools hanging on the wall next to my aunt’s cluttered worktable; and back to Cooper and Natalie … and then the large window behind them, which I flirted with crashing through like a Hollywood stuntwoman.
Unfortunately, I was allergic to most forms of pain, including the kind that came from smashing through a window. It turned out that direct contact with pain often made me break out in colorful bruises, such as the shiner that now resembled a purple crescent moon tattoo next to my right eye according to the family heirloom mirror hanging on the wall.
On a positive note, the purplish-black eye would go nicely with my purple boots. Heck, maybe I could make this tough-girl look work for me somehow. Jerry could put me on a billboard in a pleather sadomasochism getup, including a whip and my new mace, with the tagline: Call Violet Parker for ass-whipping “service” beyond the sale. Oh, better yet: Let Violet turn your domestic fantasies into realty! Or how about …
Cooper cleared his throat. “What the hell is going on with you?”
“Nothing,” I shot back too quickly and then covered my mouth.
His steely eyes stayed locked onto Natalie. “I wasn’t talking to you, Parker.”
Natalie lifted her chin, apparently gearing up for a fight. About what, though? “We need to talk, Coop.”
He nodded slowly. “But not with Parker here.”
“Righty-o!” I clapped my hands together, one hundred percent in agreement with Detective Crabbypants tonight. “If you’ll step aside, Cooper, I’ll get out of—”
“You’re not going anywhere, Vi,” Natalie interrupted before I made a single move toward freedom, sounding a lot like Aunt Zoe when she put her foot down.
I cringed, resigning to stay put. “Okey-dokey, then. I’ll just take a seat over here and plug my ears.”
I moved behind the worktable, turning down the stereo before dropping into Aunt Zoe’s tall chair. The cinnamon-scented air freshener that dulled the fumes associated with a glass furnace wasn’t working its usual calming magic on me tonight. I shifted in my seat, trying to find a comfortable position to wait out the impending Old West showdown between the law-dog version of Clint Eastwood’s “Blondie” and Natalie “Angel Eyes” Beals.
Cooper’s jaw tightened as he looked my way. “Why does Parker have to stay?”
“Because I said so, Coop.” Natalie stood her ground with her hands on her hips. “Besides, what I need to tell you concerns all three of us.”
Ah-ha! So, this impromptu rendezvous was going to be about Detective Hawke’s snooping, not whatever went down between Natalie and Cooper in Arizona. Whew! I could handle that without squirming. I grabbed a pencil and a piece of scrap paper from Aunt Zoe’s worktable and drew a smiley face on the paper in spite of the frown Cooper was still aiming at me.
“Fine,” he said, focusing on Natalie. “Let’s hear it.”
“Okay. Here goes.” Natalie wrung her hands together, blowing out a long breath. “First of all, I want you to know that the time we spent together down in Jackrabbit Junction was … nice.”
He grunted. “Nice?” He spit out the word like it tasted rotten. “It was a hell of a lot more than ‘nice,’ and you know it.”
She held out her hands, palms up. “You’re right, Coop. I’m sorry. You were amazing in and out of your uncle’s bed.”
When those last two words registered in my brain, I tried to make like a turtle and tuck my head down between my shoulder blades. Focusing on the scrap paper, I doodled like my life depended on it.
Cooper let out a frustrated sigh. “I take it you’ve told Parker about us.” He didn’t sound one tiny bit happy about me being in the know regarding Natalie and him dancing the mattress mambo.
“Not everything,” Natalie defended. “She doesn’t know about the fire.”
“What fire?” I asked, looking up at her.
“Or about you getting shot,” she continued.
I gaped at Cooper. “You got shot in Arizona?” I turned back to Natalie before he could reply. “Did you shoot him or was it Crazy Kate?”
During one of our phone calls over the New Year, Natalie had told me about her cousin, Kate Morgan, who was suffering from what sounded like pregnancy-hormones-induced psychotic episodes.
“Neither,” she told me, but her focus stayed put on Cooper. “All I told Vi was that we slept together, which she’d have figured out anyway as soon as she saw me acting goofy around you tonight.”
She wasn’t really goofy. It was more like she hadn’t eaten in days and Cooper was wearing a steak necklace.
“Fine, Parker knows.” He glanced my way, scowling when I mimed cheering and celebratory fist pumps.
Sheesh! So much for showing my support the next time he got laid.
“If this is what you brought me out here to talk about,” Cooper continued, settling his hard gaze back on Natalie, “how about explaining why you’ve been avoiding me ever since you returned to town.”
She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “I’ve barely been back.”
I wasn’t buying her indifference, and judging by the rigid expression on Cooper’s face, neither was he.
“You’ve been in town for over seventy-two hours,” he pointed out.
I did the math in my head. “He’s right.”
Natalie conceded our arithmetic with a nod. “But I haven’t been ‘avoiding’ you, per se.”
“That’s bullshit,” he ground out between clenched jaws.
Two red splotches bloomed on her cheeks.
