Cooper Vengeance

Natalie whipped her head around to look at the doctor. “So this is about taking away my weapon, not my badge. You think I’m either going to go on a shooting spree down at Gray Industries or I’m going to eat my gun?”

“Natalie,” Tatum warned.

She looked at the sheriff. “I have another gun. I have a license to carry it. And as far as I know, we still have a Second Amendment in this country. You solve nothing by doing this.”

The fire in Tatum’s eyes told her she’d pushed the sheriff too far. “If you plan to ever step foot back in this department again, you will give me your weapon and your shield and keep the lip to yourself, Deputy.”

She tamped down a retort and handed her duty weapon and her badge to the sheriff, slanting a look at Dr. Sprayberry. The therapist met her gaze, unflinching. Natalie headed for the door.

“And stay the hell away from Hamilton Gray,” the sheriff added as a parting shot.

Natalie closed the door behind her and paused there for a moment, acutely aware of the curious gazes of her fellow deputies. She doubted any of them gave a damn whether or not she was suspended. Well, maybe Travis Rayburn, the rookie cop who seemed to have a little crush on her. And Lieutenant Barrow was always pretty nice to her.

But the attitudes of the rest of her fellow deputies matched those of her parents: what on God’s green earth was Natalie Becker of the Bayside Oil Beckers doing working as a deputy sheriff?

She didn’t care. She hadn’t taken this job to make friends with her fellow deputies.

She kept her head high as she walked out, ignoring the stares following her out. She trudged to her Lexus and found, to her dismay, that she’d been in the sheriff’s office just long enough for the brutal sun to heat the car’s interior to a toasty 140 degrees. She lowered the windows to let out the hot, stale air and cranked the air conditioner up to high.

As she drove south, heading toward her house on the bay, the neon-studded facade of Millie’s Pub visible in the distance drew her into a quick detour east. Millie’s was a small place, little more than a hole in the wall, but the local law enforcement loved the place. For Natalie, the bar was more a curiosity than a home away from home, but she’d become accustomed to going there after work with the other deputies—her attempt, she supposed, to fit in with the others.

Why she was stopping here now, of all days—when she could call herself a deputy only on the technicality that Roy Tatum had suspended her, not fired her—she wasn’t sure. God knew, it was too early in the day to drink.

But compelled by an emotion she couldn’t define, she parked her car in a spot near the end of the building, stepped back into the fiery afternoon heat and went inside the bar.

J. D. COOPER SAW THE redhead from the cemetery enter the pub and stride straight to the bar, her long legs eating up real estate like a pissed-off thoroughbred. She bellied up to the bar and ordered a shot of Tennessee whiskey, downing it in one gulp. J.D. watched in fascination, wondering if she’d tell the bartender to hit her again, like a cowboy in one of those old Westerns his son, Mike, liked to watch on the classic movies channel.

She ruined the effect by taking a napkin from the metal holder and delicately blotting leftover drops of whiskey from her pink lips. She ordered a ginger ale chaser and settled onto a bar stool, drinking the soda from a straw and scanning the bar’s murky interior with the eyes of a woman who knew she was completely out of place, which she was.

A woman like Natalie Becker didn’t walk into a place like Millie’s every day.

She was a deputy sheriff. Sister of the deceased. Daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the South. That much information had been easy to glean, even for a stranger in town.

Although technically, he wasn’t a stranger. His connection to Brenda had opened a few mouths; all he’d had to do was mention his wife’s name to some of Millie’s customers to find out what he’d needed to know. Of course, he’d also had to suffer through the looks of pain and pity at the mention of her name. Brenda had been as well loved here, in her hometown of Terrebonne, as she’d been back home in Gossamer Ridge.

Stopping at Millie’s had been a pure guess. At the cemetery, he’d seen the bulge of a weapon hidden beneath the lightweight jacket of the redhead’s summer suit. Yes, this was Alabama, and a lot of women in the state carried concealed weapon licenses, but damned few of them wore lightweight summer suits in this unholy heat. That left law enforcement. Cops got used to wearing uniforms of one sort or another, regardless of the weather.

J.D. had considered going straight to the Ridley County Sheriff’s Department and asking if they employed any redheads, but that was a little too direct for his purposes. So he’d done the next best thing—he’d found the only bar in town that looked like a place where cops would hang out.

“Another Sprite? Or would you like something stronger now?” The ponytailed waitress stopped at J.D.’s table, her tone a little more friendly than it had been earlier, when he’d ordered a soda instead of liquor.

“I’m good,” he said, earning a frown. The waitress drifted off toward more lucrative tables.

For a Wednesday mid-afternoon, the place was doing decent business. Some of the customers were farmers taking a beer break during the heat of the day, while others were workers coming off a seven-to-three shift at the chicken-processing plant a couple of miles away. No police had dropped by yet.

None but Natalie Becker.

Her wandering gaze finally drifted J.D.’s way. Her clear green eyes met his and she gave a start of surprise.

What would she do? he wondered, seeing a flicker of indecision in those pretty eyes. Pretend she hadn’t seen him before? Come over and ask him his business?

Since he was trying to keep a low profile while he was here in Terrebonne, he should be hoping for the former. But Natalie Becker had information he needed—more information, probably, than anyone else on the police force—given her relationship to Carrie Gray. So he felt a thrill of satisfaction when she got up from her stool at the bar and walked slowly in his direction.

He stood as she came near, his sudden movement catching her off guard, halting her forward movement. Her watchful gaze made J.D. reconsider his earlier comparison to a thoroughbred. This Natalie Becker was a feral cat, all wary green eyes and sinewy-muscles bunched, ready for flight.

“Who are you?” Her low, cultured voice rose over the twang of a George Strait ballad on the corner jukebox.

“J. D. Cooper.” He extended his hand politely.

She ignored his outstretched hand, moving forward slowly until she was even with his table. “You were at the cemetery.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Visiting a grave.”

“Mary Beth Geddie?”

He frowned, confused. “Who?”

“That’s the name on the gravestone where you were standing.”

“Oh.”

“You weren’t visiting her grave?”

“No. I was visiting your sister’s.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Who the hell are you?”

“J. D. Cooper.”

She winced with frustration. “Is that supposed to mean something to me? What did you want? Why were you visiting my sister’s grave?”

He cocked his head, wondering why she hadn’t jumped to the obvious conclusion. “You aren’t wondering if I’m the one who killed her?”

Her mouth dropped open, but she didn’t speak for a moment as if he’d rendered her speechless. Finally, she asked in a strangled voice, “Did you kill my sister?”

“No,” J.D. answered. “But I think I know who did.”

Natalie closed her hand over the back of an empty chair nearby and pulled it around so she could sit down.

J.D. scooted his chair closer to her and sat as well. Reaching across, he placed his hand over hers where it lay on the table. “Are you okay?”

She jerked her hand from beneath his. “I’m fine.”

He raised both hands to reassure her he meant no harm. “I could get you some water—”