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Chapter 6

When someone says "I think I know who it is" to you, in reference to someone that's kind of threatened to kill you ("kind of" meaning definitely), it can be really frustrating when that person won't, you know, tell you who they're talking about. Because that's what Cooper's decided to do. Say "I think I know who it is"… and then nothing more!

"Cooper. Who?" I ask, impatiently, for the tenth time.

"I told you, I'll just show you," he says again.

He's clenching his jaw more now than he was a minute ago, which of course only adds to my curiosity.

"You're going to show me?" I ask. I look at the road and sigh. "Coop, I'm not sure I'm really up to par for meeting this guy tonight."

He laughs quietly – quickly – and peeks sideways at me. "If you think I'd ever take you purposely to see a guy that's been threatening to kill you, you don't know me very well."

I say nothing, but silently agree. Cooper would never do that. But what could he mean, show me? "Where are we going, then?" I ask.

"Home."

The rest of the ride is silent. I know he's thinking about everything. The phone call, the letter, the fact that the guy knows my name and cell number, knew that I'd be at Fitness World – heading to the pool specifically – and killed someone as a warning to me. I mean, why else could he have killed that guy? The phone call seemed to suggest it was a warning to me. And Cooper just has that look. That thinking look. Very serious. Very jaw-clenchy. That must be what he looks like when he's working on a case.

We get there about ten minutes later. Home, I mean. Cooper goes to his room, saying he'll be out in a bit.

And that's fine by me. If there's anything I need before discovering who's out to kill me – since Cooper seems to think he knows and wants to show me – it's food. I realize that I'm starving. I haven't eaten dinner. I head to the kitchen to see what possible takeout is hiding in the fridge.

I'm in the middle of pouring myself a bowl of Rice Krispies, since it doesn't appear that either of my roommates has ordered takeout today, when my dad comes in and gives me a hug. And this just kind of freaks me out. I mean, my dad and I touch hands at most. We smile appreciatively at one another when one of us does or says something nice to the other. And, well, that's about it. We do not hug. We haven't hugged yet, anyway. He is trying to make up for lost time, though. Maybe he's reached the hugging part of his amend-making?

"We were so worried," he says, sitting down beside me, not letting go of my hand, which I kind of need to eat my cereal. I'm right-handed! I realize the hug is not part of any stage he's going through with our developing relationship, but more of a relieved-to-see-me-still-among-the-living hug.

"I'm fine," I say, my mouth full. I swallow. I don't want to be rude.

"Well after Cooper talked to your friend Rags—"

"—Mags," I correct him. "Magda."

"—and before you called, we didn't know that. We didn't know you were okay at all! We just knew someone had threatened to kill you, and you weren't at your boyfriend's or anywhere else that we could think of. My god, Heather, when Cooper hung up the phone with Magda, he was white as a ghost. He didn't know what to do. He told me everything, and I felt, I don't know, helpless. You can't do that to us! We care about you." He squeezes my hand. He still won't let go of it. "We were bowled over with relief when you called. I never saw Cooper move so fast to get out of the house, as he did when you called."

"Sorry," I say, distractedly, trying to will away the feelings of excitement at the fact that Cooper was so nervous hearing that someone wanted me dead. I should feel awful. He thought I might be lying in a ditch somewhere, dead as a doornail. I shouldn't feel happy about that! I mean, I already know he cares about me. I don't need proof.

"Honey," my dad says, snapping me out of my reveries. I look at him, seeing a knowing expression on his face. "If you want to know, all you have to do is look at the man. It's written all over him," he says in practically a whisper.

"Huh?" I say. Because, hello, random. That had to be the most cryptic message my dad's ever given me.

But before I can ask him to elaborate, Cooper enters the kitchen. His hair's wet and he's in sweats. He's clearly just grabbed a quick shower.

For some reason, I can't help but picture that. Him showering, I mean. So I look at my bowl of cereal with immense interest and take another spoonful. I feel myself turning red, though. God, why am I such a schoolgirl when it comes to this man?

I hear a rumbling of dishes and silverware and look up to see Cooper grabbing a bowl himself. He sits next to me, and pours himself some cereal, too.

"You miss dinner, too?" I ask.

"Yeah," he says, not really looking at me.

I look around, noticing that my dad's snuck out of the room.

"I'm sorry I made you guys so nervous before," I say, thinking about what my dad told me. "I shouldn't have taken a walk, and not told anyone, after what that guy on the phone said. And I do wish I'd just told you about the whole thing when you were, um, in my room last night."

God, that sounds like we'd been up to no good last night. I wish we'd been up to no good last night.

He waves a hand dismissively at me, acting like it was all no big deal. And I know we kind of already addressed all of this. But… I just felt, after what my dad said, that I had to apologize again. I'd hate to worry like that about Cooper. So I just had to say it.

"It's okay," he says, once again this evening. "Although you are right; you shouldn't have taken a walk on your own after a phone call like that. You really shouldn't take walks at all at night when you're upset. Not in this city."

"Right," I say, sighing. I hate lectures from Cooper – even ones that I've sort of asked for. Because when he lectures me, he seems more like a big brother than a potential boyfriend. And who needs that?

Cooper sifts through some papers on the table that I didn't even see him enter the room with. But he had to have brought them when he entered because the table was clear when I'd sat down to eat. Clearly I'd just missed the papers because I was busy imagining him showering… and us showering together. I really do need to stop acting like such a schoolgirl!

"So is this it?" I ask. "Is this what you wanted to show me?"

"Yeah," he answers, looking for something. "When you were saying that this whole thing felt really familiar to you, something occurred to me. Now where is… "

He picks up one of the manila envelopes and starts thumbing through the pages. "Okay, here it is," he says, pulling something out. "Do you remember this?"

He places a letter down in front of me, written with cut-out letters from a variety of different magazines.

Dear Heather,

My one and only. My love. My own personal sugar rush. Please put the blue skirt on. I love the blue skirt. Someday, when we're together, you'll wear it everyday. I'll see to it. I can't wait. I loved seeing you at the Mall of America last week. Do you remember which one I was? We had a tender moment. We're destined for each other. You should dump that Jordan Cartwright right now. He's nothing compared to me.

Heather, if I can't have you, no one can.

Be seeing you again. Real soon.

My blood feels like it's to ice. I feel like someone has just punched my insides. Oh I remember this letter all right. Back in my heyday, I'd received occasional crazy stalkery letters from admirers, but this guy was different.

How could I have forgotten about him? This guy was my worst nightmare for a good six months! He grabbed me and got a quick feel after a Mall of America performance that was… what… ten years ago, now. I'd been nearly 18. It had been awful. I'd felt so… violated. The way he'd touched me… the letters that he wrote about it, some that were so much worse than this… and then his final attack; he'd attempted to kidnap me, we think, but I had been kept safe by my numerous bodyguards, and the crazy guy got away.

And I never heard from him again. The police hadn't gotten him. He'd never bothered me again. I'd had nightmares about him for months. And slowly… eventually… I'd forgotten about him. I don't think I'd ever really thought about him after that. Like I'd blocked it all out or something. But now… now I'm thinking about it again. Oh, am I thinking about it again, all right.

Oh my god. That guy…

"Hey," I hear Cooper say, as he takes the paper out of my hands, which I now realize are shaking. He grabs them – my hands, I mean – and holds them. But I'm actually too scared to enjoy it, to enjoy Cooper holding my hands! I realize in a flash that I'm 18 again. I'm 18 and very, very alone. And someone wants to kill me. And no one – not my mother, my bodyguards, my boyfriend or my label can make me feel okay or safe.

I remember what Jordan's dad had said about the stalker. He'd said that it'd be good press. That we should publicize how scared and upset I was. I remember hating him then because I was scared and upset and I hadn't wanted to go through it in public. I hadn't wanted anyone to know about the letters, or the groping. My mother had held me, telling me it would be okay, but when the subject came up about Jordan's dad, she'd simply said "well, honey, if it'd be better for your career…"

I should've known then that she was capable of taking off with all my money. She could always separate herself too well from me as her daughter, and just look at me like a pop star. Someone she did business with and mentored.

And Jordan… well, he'd said all the right things. That he'd keep me safe and wouldn't let anything happen to me. But… it hadn't made me feel safe. It had been nice of him to say, but it had never been enough.

I do remember that.

"Hey," he says again, pulling me closer to him. Cooper. Right. He's here.

I finally look at him. He looks concerned. Really concerned. And why not? He shows me a piece of paper with magazine letters on it, and I'm shaking, reverting back to ten years earlier in my mind.

"I'm sorry," I stammer. "I just… I hadn't remembered this until—"

"It's okay. I'm sorry, Heather. I should've explained, not just sprung it on you like that—"

"No, no, it's okay," I say. Why am I so rattled? Why am I acting like such a baby?

I stare at Cooper, trying to picture him in the shower again, figuring that might calm me down. But he looks so concerned, I can't do it. He's such a good friend, and you really shouldn't undress your good friends. Especially when they're sitting there all worried about you.

"Why do you have this?" I ask, wondering for the first time since seeing the letter after all these years why Cooper has it. I didn't even know that he'd known about this back then. Cooper had sort of been avoiding his family back then. He hadn't really walked away fully yet, but he did not hang around much at all; I almost never saw him. And when it came to anything involving the label, he was less than interested. I just assumed his kid brother's girlfriend's stalker would've fallen into the category of family business annoyance; the kind of thing he just wasn't interested in.

"Oh," he says. "Right." He pulls back, looking at me quickly to make sure once again that I'm okay. That I'm done shaking. Somehow, with him holding my hands, I am. Which, of course, is when he pulls them away. His hands, I mean. Obviously I look too okay.

I quickly contemplate shaking again so I can feel his hands on mine, but realize that that would be abuse of his friendship and concern. It wouldn't be right. But it would feel nice.

"Well, I keep files of… of all my old cases," he says, not really making eye contact. As a matter of fact, he looks downright uncomfortable.

"All of your old cases?" I ask. "Are you… did you… how did—"

"It's funny actually," he says, barreling on, still not looking at me. He puts a hand through his hair and smiles a little, as if he actually does find something funny and isn't, you know, totally uncomfortable. But he is. Uncomfortable, I mean. He always puts a hand through his hair when he is. "You asked me today, at your office, what my first case was."

He touches the file and looks at me. "Well, here you go. You now know one more thing about me, and one of my cases."

"You investigated my stalker?" I ask incredulously. "You… this was your first case?"

I'm shocked. How had I missed that, all those years ago? I mean, I know I'd been scared stiff and all, so I wasn't really paying attention to much, but I just don't remember Cooper hanging around when I was talking to cops back then about the guy.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "I didn't think the cops were doing much about it. And you were… I just remember how upset you were. I felt like something was off about the whole thing with this guy, and everyone – my dad, my brother, your mom, the cops – seemed to think it was just a typical stalker, no big deal." He shrugs. "Hell, my dad even wanted to get you more press because of it," he says, looking really annoyed at the memory of the way his dad handled the whole business. "No one was doing anything. So… I did a little digging. I made friends with the cop on your case, and he copied everything for my files so I could look into it myself. Good guy. We're still friends," he says lightly.

I'm blinking erratically. I didn't expect this. Today, when I'd been asking him all those questions, I hadn't expected an answer like this to be in the pack. "I was your first case?" I ask. It's all I can manage, after everything he's just told me.

"Well, I'd always been interested in being a detective. I just hadn't had a case yet," he says, shifting in his seat. He looks at me, considers me. He sighs and says, completely seriously, "and I have always cared about you. I thought of you as a friend. Not just my little brother's girlfriend," he says, with a look that seems to say he knows how I think; he knows the assumptions I always draw where he's concerned. "And someone was after you. I didn't like it," he says, shrugging.

"I don't remember you even being around much then. This was about ten years ago," I say, looking at him intensely. "You were… you were finishing school. You were dating that girl, Laurie or something—"

"—Lara."

"And you never hung around with your family. Not your brother, and hence not me. How did you even find out about the stalker? I know I never told you about him. When I saw you back then, we used to just talk about jazz or your classes or my hopes to someday write my own music or something. We'd watch TV, talk about lots of different things. Never business, and definitely not that creep."

"You didn't tell me," he admits. "No one did. I overheard a conversation between you and Jordan once. You were crying, telling him that you were really scared. That the last letter you'd received from the guy had you jumping out of your skin. And he said you'd be fine and not to worry about it. I didn't know what was going on. I tried to get you to tell me, the next time I saw you. But you didn't tell me. You kept asking me questions about school. You just tried to steer the conversation completely away from yourself."

He smiles at me. "You still do that. Not as much. But you do still have quite the way of leaving major things like that out of our conversations on purpose."

"Okay," I say, choosing to ignore that last point. "So you overheard me crying to your brother one day. I never told you about the stalker when you tried to draw me out. Then what?"

He sighed. "I fished around. I asked my dad about it. I asked my brother. My mom, even. I figured out who the cop was on the case and I became his best buddy. I got constant updates on the situation. And, uh… I was sort of there, after the Mall of America thing, when you talked to the cops. I was there for your statement, somewhere you couldn't see me."

I remember giving that statement. I'd cried my eyes out! That creep had groped and touched me and completely humiliated me. I'd told the cops that I wanted out of show business because it was too much; it wasn't what I had bargained for. In a nutshell: I'd cracked. I'd had a total meltdown. The first of my career. It had been the first time that I'd hated it. All of it. The glitz, the glamour, the limelight.

I look at Cooper. And he'd witnessed it! "You were there? Coop!"

"I guess you can see why I never wanted you to know about this," he says. And there it is again; the hand through the hair. "And you never would've had to know about it at all if I didn't think…"

"… that this guy that's now stalking me is the same guy."

"Yeah."

I am still completely humiliated that Cooper had seen me like that, during my statement. But… we do have bigger fish to fry.

"He disappeared. I mean, after the Mall of America thing, that guy wrote a few more letters, made one attempt to… I think to get me. To kidnap me or something. That went wrong and he disappeared. Why would he come back now? It doesn't make sense."

"It doesn't," he says. He pinches the bridge of his nose. He looks tired.

"Thanks," I say, lamely.

He looks at me curiously.

"For investigating this back then. I'm a bit belated. But… thanks. I would've felt safer back them knowing you were on the case."

"Yeah, right," he says.

I smile. He doesn't need to believe me. But I know. I would've felt safer.

"Did you ever find out more about the guy? More than what I knew?"

He grabs the file and sifts through it, clearly trying to jog his memory.

"Well… I figured out who he was," he says.

"What?"

No one ever told me who he was! How did Cooper know?

"It didn't matter, Heather," he says. He sighs. "I figured out who he was that night that he went after you. I even got my hands on him that night. We fought. He had a mask on. And he knocked me out. He got away, and after that, no one ever heard from him again. He never went back to his house or job. It was like he disappeared into thin air. So telling you about who he was didn't matter. We thought – the cop and me – that telling you his name and where he was from, only to say that he's disappeared and no one knows where he is, would've just upset you more."

"Where was he from?" I ask, trying not to get too upset that Cooper and the cop on my case at the time, kept something like that from me. As if I didn't matter! I was only the scared stiff victim. An 18 year old girl, with no clue who the man terrorizing her was.

He pulls a piece of paper from the file and reads it. "Jersey," he says, looking at me knowingly.

"Great," I say, placing my head in my hands. "That's just great."

"I mean, it doesn't mean it is him," he says.

"Of course it's him!" I look up at Cooper. "This isn't just because he's from Jersey. The letter I got today said 'remember… if I can't have you, no one can.' Remember being the key word here, Coop. Remember, because he said this all to me before. Long, long before."

I can't believe this is happening. I'm not famous anymore. Why on earth am I dealing with a psycho stalker that made six months of my life long ago a total living hell?

"Heather."

I look up at him.

"He's not getting his hands on you," he says quietly. "I won't let anything happen to you. Don't you get that?"

I nod. And even though his words wash over me, calming me down, I still feel fear grip my heart. "I'm just scared," I admit, nearly whispering.

"I know," he says. "We're going to get him and he's not going to do anything to you. I promise."

I manage a small smile and stand up.

"I don't think there's much we can do tonight," I say. "I'm kind of tired."

"Yeah. Okay."

He stands too.

"I guess I should tell you something about myself, in case you haven't figured it out yet," I say, looking up at him.

"What's that?"

"I'm… I'm high risk."

He laughs at that. Really laughs. Seeing it – him laughing – calms me down completely. It's like his smile has healing powers, I swear. It's just such a comforting thing to see.

"You've been high risk since I met you," he says finally.

"You know this and you let me live here? You willingly hang out with me? I could very well get you into trouble with all my high riskiness."

And then he says something that honestly melts my heart.

"I'll take my chances."

I crawl into bed after a warm shower, surprised by how tired I am. You'd think I'd be wired after discovering how scary my stalker might actually be. Discovering that Cooper investigated my case ten years ago. Discovering that I was his first case. Hearing him say, once again, that he cares about me. You'd think I'd be staring at the ceiling, unblinkingly, a nervous wreck and lovesick fool combined.

But that's not the case. Here it is:

Someone who was once my worst nightmare is back and wants me dead.

And my body is actually able to relax and let sleep take it…

… because I know that I have the best protection ever, lying right downstairs. Looking over me.