Page 95 of Ruthless Ambition
Chapter 23: Onyx
I didn’t ask why Cooper was pissed off when he sat down, and I didn’t ask why she was standing outside my office looking pissed off. They had a weird hate/hate relationship, and it had nothing to do with me.
“You good?” I asked him instead as I watched some tape.
“Mm-hmm.”
Well, that wasn’t good. “You find what you were looking for on your trip to Kentucky the other day for that other job?”
“I did,” he said as he perked up. “Left a paper trail,” he added with contempt.
“You going to take care of it?” I asked as I skipped back a few frames.
“Yeah, check it out again and then hand it all over to the cops,” he told me, and I could hear his derision.
“You can’t win them all, Coop.”
“I know, but that fuck makes me want to personally remove him from the earth,” he told me.
Looking over at him, I nodded. “I know, bro, fuck do I know.”
His foot was tapping off the floor, and I waited patiently. Cooper was like me — he didn’t hold back on the things that pissed him off. “She just asked me ifI’mher stalker,” he told me flatly.
“Are you?”
“No.”
I shrugged. “Didn’t think so,” I said as I leaned back and waited for him to continue.
“You thought it could be?” He was watching me carefully.
“Honestly? Of course. I’ve been through the list of everyone.”
“Including you?”
“EvenIwas my number one prospect,” I said with a grin.
He laughed as he kicked his legs out in front of him. “So, prime suspect, it’s not you. And it’s not me. Who the fuck is it? For all her shit, I have no idea who she could have pissed off so much.” He thought about it. “Or even who would be that attracted to her, that she doesn’t know. She’s a bitch, but she isn’t stupid. Or blind.”
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” I told him grimly. “Any luck on that Dallas lead I asked you to look at?”
“No, it’s a strange one though. I need to fly out, which is what I came here to tell you.” He sighed. “But then she walked out of the building, alone, with no cares, and I had to go with her to get her lunch.”
“She was alone?”
“Yes, because she lives in fantasy land where she thinks she’s untouchable.”
“We check all of the assholes from that night we met her?” I asked him quietly.
“I did them all, Onyx, nothing. She either has someone close to her who hates her,” he grinned, “who isn’t you or me, or maybe less you, who knows anymore?” He gave me a smug smirk, and I ignored him. “Or she has pissed off more people than even I thought possible . . . which just doesn’tfeelright.”
“I don’t think they’re close to her,” I said as I sat back. “She’s a loner, her family are in Florida, she has no close friends. She works, she eats, she sleeps, repeat.”
“Maybe they felt sorry for her,” Cooper quipped, and I laughed. “Recognized she needs a life.”
“Self-help stalker?” I asked, and he chuckled. “It was pretty mundane until the knife and the pictures,” I said quietly. “He’s escalated so quickly. Do we push him or wait?”
“I say wait.”
