Let Me Go by Chelsea Cain Page A

the club. She had blown up at Leo for making them miss the musical production of Road House and she’d called a cab. But really she’d just been mad about the lap dance he’d bought Archie. Now she was pissed that he wasn’t returning her calls. She wanted to see him, if only to read him the riot act. Susan stubbed her cigarette out, dropped it into the jack-o’-lantern, and stood up to go into the house. Cooper was up the stairs in one step. He didn’t touch her, but she stopped cold.
    â€œI need to change,” she explained. She pulled at her hoodie. Her black tights had a hole in the knee. “I don’t have anything to wear. I need makeup.” That was all true. But she also wanted to go inside and call Archie.
    â€œWe’ll take care of all that,” Cooper said. “What are you? A size four?”
    Susan nodded, and fidgeted some more with her hoodie. She didn’t like that he was looking at her that closely.
    Cooper studied her for a moment and then something seemed to dawn on him. “You’re scared,” he said. “You’re scared of me.” His eyebrows lifted awkwardly, like he was trying to seem amiable. “If Jack Reynolds ever wants you dead, lady, he won’t send me and a car to get you,” he said. “Too many neighbors. People see shit. They remember more than you’d think. Look behind me,” he said.
    Susan looked over his shoulder and saw their across-the-street neighbor, Bill, standing in the street by the curb with a rake.
    â€œYou see that guy pulling leaves out of the storm drain?” Cooper asked. He turned and gave Bill a friendly wave. Bill waved back. Cooper turned back to Susan. “That guy’s a witness,” he said. “The lady who passed us with the dog?” Susan hadn’t even seen a woman with a dog. “She lives in the neighborhood,” Cooper said. “So she knows you. The cops come by later, start asking questions, she’s seen me and the car—she’s a witness.” Cooper nodded at her. “If Jack Reynolds ever wants you dead, you won’t see me. They won’t see me.” He smiled at her, seemingly pleased at the excellence of his explanation. “This isn’t how we do it. So you’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”
    Susan’s spine was as rigid as a board. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” she asked.
    â€œIt’s a party,” Cooper said, his eyes pleading. “You want me to put a glass slipper on your foot?”
    Susan didn’t know what to do. She looked across the street at Bill. He was wearing rubber rain boots and jabbing the wrong end of the rake into the sludge of dead leaves that filled the storm drain. “Hey, Bill!” she shouted. Bill looked up. Cooper was right about one thing, Bill noticed everything that went on in that neighborhood—she had no doubt he’d made note of her visitor and his car. So she’d just make sure it stuck. “I’m going to a party at my boyfriend’s house!” Susan called. “His dad sent this guy Cooper to drive me! Tell my mom, okay?” Bill flashed her a peace sign.
    Susan looked at Cooper. He appeared vexed again.
    â€œLet’s go,” Susan said. She left the flowers on the porch next to the jack-o’-lantern and started down the porch steps for the car. “Do you have a minibar in that thing?”

 
    CHAPTER
    9
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    Pay attention. It was one of the tenets of journalism. Susan fixed her gaze out the tinted window as the car went over the gated stone bridge to Jack Reynolds’s island and tried to take in as much as she could. The bridge was lined with lit torches that sent threads of black smoke snaking into the dusky sky. Traffic was already backed up, awaiting instruction from men in suits wearing earpieces and carrying clipboards and barking orders at hired valets in red jackets. Cooper ignored the line and