“What in God’s name are you doing here, Mike?” Jake asked.
“Looking for Alexandra Cooper.”
“You got the hotel to let you break into my room?” he said, striding to the desk to pick up the telephone. “You gone crazy or what?”
I grabbed the receiver from his hand and waved off the security team. “Why don’t you guys go on downstairs? Tell the boss the two of us are going to have a cocktail together.”
“I want your names,” Jake said, pointing a finger at them as they walked out.
“Forget them,” I said. “It’s my doing. And it’s not what it looks like, Jake. I know Coop met you for a drink last night, but we’re all—”
“She never met me, Mike. She stood me up.”
“Whaddaya mean?” My concern immediately ratcheted up a dozen notches. “I know you called her a week ago. I understand I wasn’t supposed to know about it.”
“But obviously you do.”
“Vickee just told me an hour ago. Coop never said a word.”
Jake was at the minibar. He helped himself to a small bottle of single-malt Scotch and handed me the vodka. “There’s no ice till they do turndown service later tonight. Best I can offer.”
I put the bottle to my mouth and threw back my head.
“When did you speak to her?”
“Like you said, a week ago.”
“And not since?”
“Sure. I thought you meant—”
“Most recently, Jake. If you don’t know where she is, then we’ve got a problem.”
“Then we’ve got a problem,” he said, pouring his Scotch into a glass from the tray above the minibar. “Or you do.”
“When, then?”
“Yesterday. We spoke twice. First time was in the morning, when I called her at the office. I confirmed that she would meet me for a drink at seven o’clock. At Patroon. You know, it’s her favorite—”
“I do know. I do happen to know that.” Nothing like getting cuckolded at the best bar in town, in front of the owner and the staff who had followed the progress of my courtship of Coop. I swallowed the rest of the bottle and let it burn its way to my gut while Jake spoke.
“You know, this wasn’t about trying to horn in on your relationship, Mike.” Jake had one hand in his pants pocket and the other arm leaning on the mantel over the gas fireplace, like a good ole boy hoping to soft-pedal bad news.
I was angry and in pain, and beginning to get scared for Coop. “I didn’t think—”
“It’s long over between Alexandra and me. Long over.” He lifted his glass in my direction. “I’m rooting for—”
“I knew it was long over, once I saw the panties of the big-assed girl you got draped over the towel rack. You just called Coop because—?”
“I called her because I’m doing a big series—a five-parter, national news—on the backlog of rape evidence collection kits, Mike. She’s the expert. I checked with prosecutors and forensic experts all over the country before I rang her up. Nobody knows this stuff better than she does,” Jake said. “And if you don’t have the courtesy to leave here before my friend arrives, I hope you’ll be able to suppress your usual display of sophomoric humor and not focus on her tits and ass.”
“You said you spoke to Coop twice.” I found myself frantically looking around the room for something to hang on to, something that would have been a physical link to Coop. Now I hated the piece of me that was full of green envy. I wanted her in reach.
“Yes. Alex texted me from Primola.”
I hadn’t been close enough to her during most of the evening to notice whether she’d been sending messages or not. It wouldn’t have struck me as unusual if she had.
“She told me about the man who was arrested yesterday and about the impromptu celebration with the cops and with Catherine.”
“She broke the date?” I asked.
“It wasn’t a date, to begin with.”
“Excuse me, Jake. A business meeting, in the evening, at a big-ticket restaurant like Patroon. Stupid of me to confuse it with a date.”
“Alex told me about how things had changed with you the first time I called her. So did Vickee, before I even got through to Alex. Vickee didn’t want me to upset what you’ve got going. Alex is in love with you, Mike. The spirit in her voice was infectious. You know what I think? I think she wanted to see me in person to make it clear to me that she was glad we split. That she actually came out where she wanted to be.”
“So that text from the restaurant is when she told you she wasn’t coming, right?” I said. “But did she give you any idea of what she was going to do after the dinner with the guys?”
Jake shook his head from side to side. “She didn’t break it off, Mike. That second call just pushed the time back. Alex said she probably wouldn’t get to Patroon until after nine o’clock.”
The girl was sending me mixed signals. It wasn’t like Coop to be all business after dinner and drinks at Primola. She must have really wanted to see Jake, despite the way he was downplaying it. She obviously had no intention of making the short walk home when she left the others. She had ordered a car service to bring her to meet Jake.
“She actually called Stephan herself,” Jake said, referring to the maître d’. “She suggested to him that he put a drink or two for me on her tab—which was really sweet, I thought.”
I never thought of describing Coop as sweet. Kind and thoughtful and warm—except when she wore the armor, the tough veneer she thought conformed to the image of her held by her adversaries.
“But then the owner himself came along. Do you know Ken?”
“Yeah, I do,” I said.
“I hadn’t seen Ken in a year or more. So we had dinner together—time kind of flew by while we talked. Cuban cigars, now that the embargo is lifting, fly-fishing—”
Like I had a life share in a river in Scotland to catch salmon with my fly rod. Not my style, newsboy.
“And I kept on waiting for Alex after Ken left.”
“Did you hear from her again?”
“Nothing. No call, no text, no e-mail. It got to be after ten and I just figured she was—well, that she was with you.”
“Look, Jake,” I said, growing more worried and agitated by the minute. “I’ve got no idea where Coop is. None of us do. No one at the office heard from her all day and the ladies politely assumed she was holed up here with you. Didn’t you think to reach out to Vickee or to Catherine when—?”
Jake held out his arm toward me when the phone rang. “Yes, yes, I’m here in my room,” he said, presumably to someone at the front desk. “Yes, you can send her right up.”
“If you don’t mind, Mike, I’m expecting a guest now,” he said, walking to the door of the suite and holding it open.
“You didn’t wait long to make a backup plan, did you?” I said.
“Looks as though we both got stiffed last night. And like I said to you earlier, Mike, now Alexandra Cooper is your problem.”