“She was staying where?”

Jinny’s voice is dumb founded and the look she directs at me is
disbelieving and furious.

“At least she had the room barricaded,” Legaspi interjects.

Weaver nods, shooting a glance in my direction before jerking the oven door
open and using a thick padded mitt to pull out the lower rack.

Jinny seems stunned by the area of town and the motel I was in. “Cooper,
that’s just…”

“Insane,” Weaver offers. “Crazy. Deranged. Self-destructive. Ridiculous;
take your pick.”

“Okay, okay,” I say, frowning. “I get it. “

“Do you?” Jinny’s voice is subdued, her eyes at half mast.

I sigh, hard. On the floor Murphy lifts his head momentarily and sighs with
me.

“Well, maybe y’all would have been happier if I’d thought of raiding the
Toothless and Ancient Home for Dogs like Dr. CIA here~~”

“Hey,” Weaver says sharply. “Don’t start on Murphy. “

“The drool alone qualifies as a deadly weapon,” Legaspi says, stepping over
the dog in question and skillfully avoiding a pool of the subject matter as
she carries plates from the cabinet to the dining table.

“I’m definitely buying stock in Bounty,” I respond, then dare a peek at
Jinny who is leaning up against the counter top, unusually still and her
silence palpable.

“Do you know how many dead bodies I’ve seen in that motel? How many feet of
Crime Scene tape I’ve stepped under there?”

I sigh again which apparently is some sort of trigger command for the
Rottweiler who lifts his massive graying head and echoes me.

“Was his last owner some sort of depressed recluse?” I ask no one in
particular, earning a sharp glance from Weaver, a studiously blank one from
Legaspi and a light slap on the shoulder from the smolderingly angry dark
haired cop at my elbow.

“Don’t think you’re being cute and changing the subject,” she tells me.
“I’m not letting this drop.”

Angelo’s in the other room patiently waiting on the arrival of his mother
so it’s safe for me to thrust both hands into the hair at my temples and
pull on it groaning.

Murphy shifts his weight to one side as he rolls and heaves a similar sound.

“I’m on to something here,” I laugh and Jinny deliberately puts a black
boot on my toes and steps down.

“Owww!” I yell, frowning at her and she leans back, crossing her arms over
her ribs, glaring at me from under lowered lashes.

“Enough with the diversionary tactics. Answer the question.”

“Well, no. I don’t know and it doesn’t matter does it? I mean, I’m not one
of them. I’m right here, safe and sound, no imminent danger unless this
mutt decides to sleep with me in which case I might drown.”

“That’s not the point and you know it.”

“No? The point was, would you ever in a million years have thought to look
for me there? Well, neither would anyone else. Which can’t be said of
safer, cleaner repped establishments. And I was armed, Jin. And I’m a cop.
I know what I’m doing and how to take care of myself.”

The silence in the room after that last statement is deafening.

All three of them glance at one another, eyes rolling simultaneously.

“Oh, come on,” I protest. “I do so.”

“Uh, huh,” Weaver says. “We’ve seen you in action, Cooper. We know exactly
how you take care of yourself.”

“It’s a good day if you don’t end up in the hospital or jail,” Legaspi adds.

“It’s momentous if no one actually tries to kill you,” Weaver puts in.

“And it’s fucking guaranteed that somebody would want to.” Jinny’s voice is
dark.

“Help me out here,” I tell the dog who grunts and rolls slowly onto his
back exposing a massive belly and appealingly curled gigantic front paws.
“Slut,” I scoff but kneel down to scratch him anyway, carefully avoiding
the huge tongue lolling out between his mostly absent teeth.

“Look at me,” Jinny orders and I sigh before daring a peek upwards. “You
were lucky Coop. Promise me you won’t take that kind of risk again and go
off like that alone. I mean, forget about the fact that you had plenty
there worth stealing with the guns and the lap top; what if anyone there
had figured out you were a cop?”

“Well, that was the point, Jin. What would a cop be doing in a place like
that?”

Both hands slam down on her hips as she glares at me.

“Well, that’s the point, Cooper,” she snaps back, echoing my tone. “Because
the only thing that springs to my mind is an emphatic, ‘being stupid’ along
with ‘being suicidal’.”

“It wasn’t like that. I wasn’t really in any danger… I mean, not really.”

“No?” Jinny’s head cocks disagreeably to one side.

The chime on the front door rings and Legaspi clears her throat and puts a
hand in the small of Weaver’s back steering her out the doorway with a
‘that must be Angelo’s mother’ which doesn’t fool any of the three of us
left in the room. Murphy rolls over and ducks his tail to protect the balls
no longer there and I resist the urge to perform a similar move, shoving
myself to my feet.

“Kim said you had the room barricaded. If you didn’t feel that you were in
danger, why’d you do that?”

“I didn’t really have the room barricaded,” I say carefully. “Not like I
had the door blocked off or the mattress up over the window or anything. I
mean, that would be barricading. I just sort of had this one little
corner… sectioned off.”

“Uh, huh.”

“With the dresser. You know, a bed on the floor behind it, just to be
careful. Probably was totally unnecessary.”

“You trying to convince me or you?” she asks, voice slightly softer and I
shrug.

“I don’t know. Whoever’s listening, I guess?”

“I always listen to you.”

“Even when I have no clue what I’m saying?”

She pulls me to her and wraps both arms around me, then leans her forehead
against mine, the smile slow and sweet.

“Especially then, goofy.”

I close my eyes and rest myself against her, letting her sway me slowly
from side to side and it’s not until my subconscious registers that the
quick short clicks of heel on the tiles in the hallway are too fast for
merely announcing the arrival of Mrs. Villanueva that I frown and shove
myself slightly up right, turning towards the door.

Jinny’s gone stiff as well; I feel the hands grip my shoulders then drop as
Legaspi appears in the doorway, face gone a dull shade of white with hectic
spots of red in the cheeks.

“Cooper,” she says, voice striving for calm, but falling far short and
still in the frantic range, “There’s someone here to see you. Your
Lieutenant.”


END OF 61