COOPER LAMB took the long way home.
Not because he wanted to. He would have loved nothing more than to crash for a few hours and allow his stressed body to recharge. But that might be a fatal mistake. The shooter had known exactly where to find Cooper tonight, so he most certainly knew where Cooper lived. Cooper could be stumbling right into an ambush.
Okay, part of him didn’t care—an early death would let him catch up on his sleep. But Cooper needed to see this case through to the end. And, if nothing else, get a little payback after that guy had tried to remodel Cooper’s face with a bullet.
The long way home meant a meandering route up Thirty-Fourth Street to the Philadelphia Zoo (Hello, lions, I’ll say hi to Veena for you), then across the Girard Avenue Bridge and past Girard College, the nearly two-hundred-year-old boarding school originally opened for fatherless boys. This reminded him of Archie Hughes Jr. Strange to think that in another era, he might have ended up here.
From there, he took Corinthian Street down to his own neighborhood, skirting along the east side of the Eastern State Penitentiary. Its guests had included Al Capone and Willie Sutton; today, the former prison catered to history buffs and haunted-building freaks. Cooper liked the place because the Dead Milkmen shot the video for “Punk Rock Girl” inside its walls.
On Green Street, he saw no obvious signs that anyone was watching his brownstone. Still, Cooper hopped a fence and made his way to his backyard—what Veena had dismissed as a glorified alley. Okay, maybe this was an alley. The place felt extra-claustrophobic now that he was steeling himself for a possible attack.
Cooper checked all possible entry points in the back of his brownstone, looking for anything out of place. Everything seemed fine except for one detail.
No excited Lupe noises.
Lupe always greeted him eagerly when he arrived home. In fact, whenever Cooper entered through the back, he always saw Lupe’s excited face looking down at him from the bedroom windows.
He wasn’t there now.
Cooper doubled back and made his way around to the front of his building. He slid his key into the lock with surgical-level care and precision to avoid making any noise. He kept his front door well oiled with WD-40 specifically for moments like these. Stealth was everything; some old army habits died hard.
The front door opened into a foyer and long hallway. His Browning was empty, but his possible attackers didn’t know that. If it came to it, he could use it as a distraction while planning his next move.
But if they’d hurt Lupe, there would be no planning needed. Cooper would punish them. Punish them permanently.
Cooper moved down the length of his hallway, taking care not to step on the floorboards that creaked.
Gun in hand, he slowly opened his bedroom door to find…
Lupe staring back at him from the bed. Oh, you’re home.
Next to him was a slender form wrapped up in his comforter. The form stirred, then rolled over into a new position.
Cooper felt all the tension in his body dissolve at once. He undressed and slipped into bed next to Veena. The world was a dangerous, screwed-up place, but somehow this made it okay. For tonight, anyway. Veena stirred, pushing her body back into Cooper’s.
“Love you,” she whispered, then went back to sleep.