Chapter 8 #2
Don’t even go there.
“He comes by here about six for coffee.” Leslie straightened and patted her meticulously arranged bundle of platinum curls. “Black coffee and a cheese Danish. Every single morning.”
Wyatt had always been a cheese Danish man. The jingling of the bell over the door drew Adeline’s attention there. Even without the weathered leather jacket and the cowboy boots, she would have recognized the man immediately. Tension wired her nerves.
Clayton Cooper. First cousin and first-rate jerk.
He’d been a kid when she left, almost fifteen. Despite his youth at the time, his heartlessness and bullying tendencies had manifested themselves in all that he did. He was expelled from high school twice as a freshman. Got his girlfriend pregnant that same year. A real piece of work.
That he could have been watching Adeline and had followed her here was a strong possibility.
He swaggered across the room, straddled a stool, and propped his arms on the counter. “Morning, Miss Leslie. How ’bout a cup of that outstanding coffee?”
Adeline resisted the urge to gag. Same mousy brown hair and squinty brown eyes as the rest of the male Cooper clan.
Exactly like his older brother. All charm when it came to wooing the ladies out of their panties, pure asshole when it came to anything else.
She didn’t miss the sudden burst of avid murmuring at the tables or the fact that the patrons seated at those tables were not so subtly dividing their attention between her and Clay.
As if she’d called his name, Clay’s attention swung to Adeline’s end of the counter. “Well, well, if it ain’t my dear cousin Addy.”
He made the statement dispassionately enough, but there was no mistaking the sheer hatred on his face—not even from this distance.
Adeline gave him a salute with her mug, then finished off the last of the coffee. Leslie hurried to provide a refill. Even she looked nervous. Maybe one of the others had whispered Adeline’s identity to her. There was no more efficient means of rapid communication than a small town’s grapevine.
“My daddy says you’re here about that lady lawyer who’s missing,” Clay announced, holding the attention of everyone in the place. When a Cooper talked, people listened. They were afraid not to. “I guess that means you’re still playing at being a cop.”
He was baiting her. She wasn’t biting.
“You believe that?” Clay turned around on his stool to face those seated around the room. “Getting my brother killed and running away wasn’t enough to prove she had no business trying to be a cop. Wonder who she’s gonna get killed this time?”
Adeline could leave. Just get up and walk out. The courthouse was only a couple short blocks away. Someone would be in the sheriff’s office. All she had to do was ring the buzzer and identify herself.
But she wouldn’t give this sawed-off little bastard the satisfaction.
“Maybe you were too young to remember,” Adeline said, when she should have just let it go, “your brother got himself killed dealing drugs. A DEA agent put a bullet right between his eyes. I witnessed the whole thing.”
Fury tightened her cousin’s lips. “First off, my brother’s association with those people was never proven in a court of law.
And”—that furious mouth slid into a sneer—“the way I heard it, that bullet missed its mark.” He laughed as he turned back to the counter and picked up the mug of coffee Leslie had delivered.
“But fate has a way of catching up with those who slip under its radar. No matter how fast they run.”
“You think?” Adeline cocked her head and studied him.
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “That’s a nice theory, Clay.
But I never put much stock in fate. I prefer to make my own destiny.
” She didn’t bother to pick up on the remark about running.
Maybe she had run . . . but she’d had more reasons than this piece of shit knew about.
Her motivation hadn’t been his business nine years ago and it wasn’t his business now.
“You might want to be careful around here, cuz.” The look that passed between them left no mistake as to the intent of his words. “A lot of folks have long memories and they don’t like what they remember.”
“I appreciate your concern, cuz.” She shouldered out of her jacket, let him see the holstered weapon she wore on the belt at her waist. “But just like nine years ago, I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”
The grill sizzled beyond the serving window, underscoring the hush that had fallen over the room.
She held the bastard’s gaze, dared him to clarify that threat in front of witnesses.
Dared him to make even the slightest move of aggression.
If he thought he could make her flinch, he was crazier than his half-dead old man.
The bell jingled. Clay broke the stare-off.
“Morning, Sheriff,” Leslie enthused.
The murmur of conversation and clink of forks on stoneware resumed as if the past few minutes hadn’t happened.
Wyatt chatted with the citizens seated at the tables he passed as he made his way in Adeline’s direction. Freshly starched uniform. Matching jacket and cap. There wasn’t a female in the place who wasn’t drooling.
Beyond him, Clay Cooper slid off his stool, threw down a couple of bills, and walked out. He glanced back once as he stomped away.
Adeline hadn’t seen the last of him.
“Morning, Addy.” Wyatt settled on the stool next to hers. “You sleep okay?”
He knew she hadn’t. It had rained. He would remember that she usually had the dreams when it rained. He’d held her and soothed her to sleep afterward enough times.
“I read the interviews.” She wasn’t interested in small talk. “Cassie Elliott and Jessica Huff the two you plan to interview again?” Adeline had picked up on the minor discrepancies in their statements.
“You nailed it.”
Was that approval she saw in his eyes? Or surprise? She was a good cop. She’d been a good one nine years ago.
Leslie placed a steaming mug of coffee and a fresh cheese Danish before her idol. “There you go, Sheriff.” She beamed at him. “I warmed up your Danish in the microwave. Just the way you like it.”
“Thank you, Leslie.” He flashed one of those wide, killer smiles that made his hazel eyes twinkle and the female hearts flutter.
“I aim to please.” The attentive waitress turned to Adeline with a little less enthusiasm. “Are you sure I can’t get you anything else, hon? We have a special on those whole wheat pancakes.”
“I’m good. Thanks.”
When the awestruck waitress had scurried out of earshot, Adeline turned to Wyatt. “There’s one thing we haven’t discussed.”
His gaze collided with hers. “There are a lot of things we haven’t discussed.”
That wasn’t what she’d meant and he knew it. “About the case.”
He cradled his coffee in both hands, stared into the cup as if he would rather look anywhere than at Adeline. “What specifically have we not discussed?”
“The message he wrote on the photo.”
“‘One dead princess, two to go,’” Wyatt acknowledged.
Adeline nodded. “Assuming Prescott is the dead princess and I’m one of the two to go, that means there’s another victim out there.”
“Agreed, but there’s no way to know who she is.
I’ve worked up a list of the similarities between you and the victim.
” Wyatt set his mug aside and pulled a notepad from his jacket pocket.
Every cop carried one. “Both in your thirties. Blond hair, blue eyes. Same general body type and size. Both born in Mississippi. Prescott’s an attorney, you’re in law enforcement.
And that’s where the similarities end. That doesn’t give us a lot to go on as far as narrowing down potential victims.”
“Then we focus on what we have. Serial offenders typically hunt in familiar territory, which would make him a local or someone who comes through the area fairly often.”
Wyatt scratched a note on his pad. “With the movement of goods in and out of our port, we get plenty of repeat visitors.”
Yet Adeline just didn’t see this as a classic serial offender case.
There was no clear strategy to his work.
Not yet, anyway. “Why pick me? I live several hours away in a whole other state. I haven’t lived in Mississippi in a hell of a long time.
It’s not like I’m the only blond, thirty-something, female cop between here and Huntsville. ”
“We have to assume,” Wyatt suggested as he cut a piece of Danish with his fork, “that there are other similarities between the two of you that we’re simply not aware of or that only he sees.”
Adeline hated that she watched with such interest as he popped the bite of cheese Danish into his mouth.
Focus, dammit! “I want to know why Prescott was here. Where I grew up. That point has to be significant somehow. I didn’t get an invitation to come here for no reason. The place is relevant somehow.”
“With that in mind,” Wyatt said, setting his fork aside, “logic would dictate that the third victim has or will soon receive the same type of invitation.”
“She could be here already. A resident of the area. Someone who was drawn here by the news. A reporter or staff member of a newspaper or magazine.” Adeline didn’t have to ask to know that an influx of reporters and curiosity seekers would be or had been hanging around town.
The other so-called princess could have been lured here in some similar manner.
If that was the case, the would-be vic had apparently been smart enough to stay at one of the other lodging options.
Adeline remained the lone guest at the Shady Oaks Motel.
“We find the connection between you and Prescott,” Wyatt reasoned, “and we’ll know where to look for the third vic, maybe even for the perp.”
“If he doesn’t nab her first.” And kill her.
Adeline hoped like hell that Cherry Prescott was still alive, but her instincts were saying otherwise.
If Prescott was alive, she wouldn’t be for long.
Until someone else was reported missing or they heard from the perp, Adeline had no way of knowing if she was next on his agenda.
Whatever the case, there was another victim out there . . . somewhere.