Alicia’s heart skipped a beat. She pulled the pepper spray canister from her jacket pocket, ready to press the button and run like hell at the slightest provocation.
But the man who called himself Gabe Cooper merely brought out a thin, dark-colored wallet. He flipped it open with one hand and flashed a small penlight onto the contents. Alicia saw a photo ID inside.
“This is me,” he said, moving closer.
She settled her trembling finger over the button of the pepper spray dispenser, but stood her ground as he came close enough for her to see the ID. It was an Alabama driver’s license, with a Gossamer Ridge address. The photo of the man was impossibly good for a driver’s license photo, making Alicia hate him a little in envy.
The name on the license was definitely Gabe Cooper, and she knew her friend Cissy was from Gossamer Ridge.
“Would a second ID help? I have a lifetime Alabama fishing license—”
Her tension eased again. “What do you do for a living?”
He hesitated a second, as if realizing this was a test. “I’m a fishing guide and sometimes professional angler. I also pull volunteer shifts as an auxiliary deputy at the Chickasaw County Sheriff’s Department.”
“What’s Cissy’s father’s name?”
“J.D.,” he answered patiently. “James Dennison, actually, but we’ve always called him J.D.”
“What about her mother?”
He hesitated again, this time answering in a faint, emotion-tinged voice. “Brenda Alice Teague Cooper. She died twelve years ago.”
“How’d she die?”
“She was murdered.”
Pain etched every word into the darkness between them, reminding her of the way Cissy spoke of her mother, in a voice raw with sadness. Only with this man, the pain was rawer still, edged with a bitterness that made Alicia’s stomach ache.
This man couldn’t take a person’s life with the impersonal ease of a serial killer. Alicia put the pepper spray back into the pocket of her jacket. “I’m Alicia Solano.”
“So you’re Professor Solano?” He sounded surprised. Alicia guessed his niece had mentioned her to him at some point.
“Instructor, actually. No Ph.D yet.” She tried not to bristle at his skepticism. It wasn’t an insult to be thought too young to be a college instructor, or so her older colleagues insisted. She was a young-looking twenty-five, especially when she eschewed makeup, as she’d done today.
“Cissy speaks well of you.”
“She’s a good student,” she answered automatically, then softened her voice. “Good person, actually.”
The shadows of his face split to reveal a flash of white teeth that even the gloom couldn’t conceal. “We’re kind of fond of her our own selves.”
“Cissy shares Apartment D with a couple of other Mill Valley underclassmen.” Alicia waved at the apartment on the far left. There were no lights burning inside on either floor of the two-story apartment. They were nearing the end of the spring semester, so any of the girls might still be at the library studying for end of term exams.
“Looks like no one’s home,” Gabe murmured.
“You can wait for her at my place.”
He looked surprised. “You don’t even know me.”
She was a little surprised herself, remembering the holstered gun she’d spotted. But she was convinced he really was Cissy’s uncle and he’d said he was a volunteer deputy sheriff. If Cissy had asked him to visit, he must be a pretty good guy, packing heat or not.
Besides, she had a million questions for him. Cissy had been seven when her mother died, and from what she had told Alicia, she’d been sheltered from a lot of details of the murder. What little she did know, she’d gleaned mostly from snippets of her father’s conversations she’d overheard over the years and from a series of newspaper articles she’d looked up at the local library when she was in high school.
But Gabe Cooper was old enough to know everything that happened. He could answer some of the questions she had about Brenda Cooper’s murder. And maybe, if she asked the right questions, he could help her catch a couple of killers.
THE OUTSIDE OF THE apartment may have been all shabby Southern charm, but inside, a riot of color greeted Gabe Cooper, nearly scorching his retinas. Pale yellow walls were the extent of subtlety inside Alicia Solano’s apartment, providing a neutral backdrop for a variety of bright furnishings, from Caribbean dancers writhing in frenetic joy across a wide canvas hanging over a bright orange sofa to the lime green area rug covering the hardwood floor underfoot. It reminded Gabe of an outdoor market he’d visited in South America the last time he’d gone fishing down there, all vivid colors and kinetic energy.
“I don’t drink coffee,” Alicia said over her shoulder, moving out of the living room into the smaller, open kitchen area, “but I have iced tea. Or I could make some lemonade—”
He could tell by her accent that she wasn’t from anywhere near the sleepy college town of Millbridge, Alabama, but she’d apparently picked up the local customs of hospitality somewhere along the way.
“Or maybe you’re hungry?” she added. “Had dinner yet?”
He laughed softly. Yes, she’d learned the Southern way very well. “I’ll wait and have something with Cissy when she gets home,” he answered.
She paused in the middle of the kitchen, turning to look at him. “Oh, okay. Sure you don’t want something to drink?”
“Ice water would be great,” he answered, mostly so he wouldn’t disappoint her.
She turned toward the cabinets, standing on tiptoe to reach the glasses on the top shelf. She seemed relieved to have something to do with all the bottled up energy radiating from her compact body.
He’d scared her earlier, despite her protestations to the contrary. He should have identified himself first, put her at ease. He sometimes forgot, having grown up in a little town where everyone knew everyone else, that the world could be a very different place for other people.
Brenda’s murder should have etched that life lesson into his soul a long time ago.
She came into the living room bearing a glass of water and ice, a paper napkin under the bottom as a makeshift coaster. She waved for him to sit on the sofa and dropped onto a bright green ottoman nearby.
“I’m not keeping you from anything, I hope.” He eyed the neon blue briefcase she’d set on the coffee table when they entered.
She followed his gaze. “Just brought some notes home to work on my thesis.”
He took a sip of the water. She didn’t put a lot of ice in, which meant wherever that accent had come from, it probably wasn’t somewhere particularly hot. “Where are you from? Originally, I mean.”
“San Francisco.”
“Pretty area.”
“Yes.”
She watched him with a narrowed gaze, her mind working visibly behind a pair of dark, observant eyes. She didn’t have any makeup on, though with her thick black eyelashes and honey-toned skin, she didn’t need much. It had been hard to tell at first glance what sort of body lay beneath the loose-cut gray blouse and plain black skirt she wore. But watching her move, as he’d done when she went to the kitchen for his water, he’d quickly seen the graceful curves of her hips and spine, the straining of her round breasts against the front of the blouse when she’d risen to reach the glasses.
Surrounded by the riot of color in her apartment, she seemed almost unnaturally still in contrast, a little sparrow sitting quiet and watchful in the