Where the Blame Lies

She nodded, swallowed. “The background noise.” Her eyes widened. “Was it . . . could it have been an . . . engine? His car?”

Possible, yes. Zach’s jaw tightened, his mind continuing to whirl. The profile. Cooper/Charlie matched Pickering’s profile. White, late twenties, smart . . . although they didn’t know any of his past to determine if he’d been abused. Still so many damn questions, and not enough answers.

They pulled up to the curb on Vaughn Merrick’s street and Zach spotted the officer sitting in his car across from the professor’s house. He turned to Josie. “Stay here. Your presence could keep the professor from talking to me, and I need him to talk.”

Josie looked like she was about to argue but then closed her mouth, nodding. Zach got out of the car and jogged over to the unmarked vehicle, asking the officer to keep an eye on Josie while he went to talk to the professor for a few minutes. The officer agreed, and Zach walked to the house and quickly up the steps to the front door, rapping loudly. When there was no answer, he rapped again, even more loudly. He knew the bastard was home. The officer surveilling his house would have known if he’d left. Zach saw the curtain shift slightly and moved to the window. “Professor, I need to talk to you,” he yelled through the glass.

“Set up an interview with my lawyer, Detective,” he yelled back. “I refuse to talk to you without counsel present.”

Motherfucker. “I just have a couple of quick questions about—”

“Talk to my lawyer,” he said again. “Or bring a warrant.” The curtain shifted again and Zach saw his form moving away, back into the recesses of his house. Zach splayed his hands and beat once on the wooden front door.

“Bastard!” he yelled.

When he got back in the car, his muscles were tense. Josie didn’t say anything, obviously surmising what had happened. He picked up his cell phone and dialed Alicia Merrick’s number next. She didn’t answer and when Zach called the police detail who was watching her, they told him she was in the grocery store. “Go in and get her for me, would you?”

The officer told Zach he’d have Ms. Merrick call him back as soon as possible and Zach thanked him, clicking over to the other line when he saw that Jimmy was calling. “Called every firm on the list and not one of them has a Cooper Hart or a Charlie Hart working there,” he said. “I also called the UC admissions office and there is no record of anyone by either name ever having attended their school.”

Zach hung up. “Fuck,” he murmured. He told Josie what Jimmy had said.

“He never went to UC?” she whispered. “Why . . . why would he say he did?”

“Josie, I don’t know, but something is very wrong here.”

Her eyes were haunted, distressed, and Zach was tempted to stop the car and comfort her, but they didn’t have time. They needed to figure out what the fuck was going on and hopefully save Reagan from the same fate as the other girls they’d found shackled and starved.

“You said Cooper worked at a coffee shop nine years ago?”

Josie seemed to come back to the present, nodded. “Yeah. Right near campus. Reagan and I used to go in there a lot.”

“Why don’t we go talk to them, see if anyone there still talks to him. It’s better than waiting.”

Josie nodded. They drove to the area near the campus that had restaurants, a few clothing shops and other businesses college students frequented. The coffee shop buzzed with activity on a weekday at three p.m., and when they entered, Zach moved to the front of the line as college students in need of caffeine shot him dirty looks. He showed his badge to the young barista and requested a manager. She nodded, eyes wide as she walked quickly to the back and then came out a moment later, telling Zach the manager would be right with them. They took a seat at the one empty high-top table near the back and a few minutes later, an older black woman emerged. Josie recognized her. “She used to work here when Cooper did,” she told Zach.

The woman approached them, holding out her hand to Zach first and then to Josie. “Detective? I’m Susannah Washington. What can I do for you?”

Susannah sat down at the third seat and Zach explained what they wanted. She looked pensive. “I do remember him. Real good-looking guy, right? All the girls giggled and flirted with him and he flirted right back, even though I think he dated the guy next door.” She paused for a minute. “I’d have to contact the owner to forward employee records from nine years ago. We don’t keep that kind of information in the store, and we got a new computer system five years ago. But I can do that right away.”

“That’d be great,” Zach said. “The sooner the better.” He paused again. “You did know him as Cooper though?”

She tilted her head. “Yeah. But I think that was his middle name. First name was j

ust an initial. C I think? Maybe R? I don’t remember exactly, and I just don’t remember his last name. Hart doesn’t sound right, but I can’t say why. But the guy he dated? Ron? He still works at the sandwich shop next door. He owns the place now. If I were you, I’d go talk to him.” Zach thanked her, handing over his card so the records could be emailed to him.

When Zach and Josie entered the sandwich shop next door, a bell tinkled over the door. The place wasn’t quite as crowded as the coffee shop, but it still hummed with activity, kids with laptops taking up the round tables, the looks on their faces focused, intense.

A good-looking brown-haired man was talking to an employee and when Zach and Josie approached, the kid walked away, and the man turned to them with a smile. Josie felt herself wheeling back in time, snatches of music filling her head as a guy had looked at her and Cooper across a crowded bar, his eyes filling with pleasure as Cooper approached. He gave Josie a slightly perplexed look as though he recognized her too but couldn’t place her.

“We’re looking for the owner? Ron?”

“That’s me. What can I do for you?”

Zach flashed his badge and introduced them. “I’m trying to find some information on a man I believe you dated about nine years ago? Cooper Hart?”

Ron’s face morphed into surprise. He signaled them to a table and they all sat down. “Yeah, I knew Cooper.”

“And you knew him as Cooper Hart?”