It is very hard for me not to tell Gavin about Lindsay. How can he lie there, feeling so sorry for himself—especially after having done something so incredibly stupid to get himself into this position in the first place—when back in the building a girl is dead, and we can’t even find her body?

“Look, can you just find out when I can get out of here?” Gavin asks, with a moan. “And spare me the lectures, for once?”

“I can,” I say, only too happy to leave him to himself. Among other things, he doesn’t smell too good. “Do you want me to call your parents?”

“God, no,” he groans. “Why would I want you to do that?”

“Maybe to let them know how you celebrated your birthday? I’m sure they’ll be very proud… .”

Gavin pulls the pillow over his head. I smile and go over to one of the nurses to discuss the possibility of his being released. She tells me she’ll see what the doctor says. I thank her and go back out into the waiting room, pulling out my cell phone to see who called me…

… and am thrilled to see the words Cartwright, Cooper on my cell phone’s screen.

I’m even more thrilled when, a second later, a voice says, “Heather.”

And I look up and find myself staring into the eyes of the man himself.

Oh, whatever. So I’m in love with him, and he has shown absolutely zero interest in reciprocating my feelings. So what? A girl can dream, right?

And at least I’m dreaming about someone age-appropriate, since Cooper’s over thirty—a decade older than Barista Boy.

And it’s not like Cooper’s earning minimum wage in some coffee shop. He owns his own business.

And, okay, he won’t actually TELL me what it is he does all day, because he seems to think it’s not fitting for someone of my tender sensibilities to know… .

But that just means he cares, right?

Except that I know he cares. Why else would he have asked me to move in with him (well, into the top-floor apartment of his brownstone, anyway) after Jordan kicked me out (even though Jordan maintains he did no such thing, that I’m the one who left. But, I’m sorry, he was the one who let Tania Trace fall face first into his crotch—in our own apartment, no less. Who wouldn’t interpret something like that as an invitation to leave)?

But Cooper’s made it VASTLY clear that he only cares about me as a friend. Well, insofar as he has never hit on me, anyway.

And, okay, Cooper did sort of mention once—when I was in a state of severe shock from having been nearly murdered, and was only semiconscious—that he thinks I’m a nice girl.

But am I really supposed to think of that as a good thing? I mean,nice? Guys never go for nice girls. They go for girls like Tania Trace, who, in the video for her last single, “Bitch Slap,” was rolling around in an oil slick wearing nothing but leather panties and a wife-beater.

They don’t MAKE leather panties in my size. I’m pretty sure.

Still, there’s always a chance Cooper isn’t the leather panties type. I mean, he’s already proved he’s nothing like the rest of the family by being so nice to me. Maybe there’s hope. Maybe that’s why he’s here at the hospital right now, to tell me that he can’t stand to be without me a second more, and that his car is waiting outside to whisk us to the airport for a Vegas wedding and a Hawaiian honeymoon—

“Hey,” Cooper says, holding up a paper bag. “I figured you hadn’t eaten. I brought you a sandwich from Joe’s.”

Oh. Well, okay. It’s not a Vegas wedding and a Hawaiian honeymoon.

But it’s a sandwich from Joe’s Dairy, my favorite cheese shop! And if you’ve ever tried Joe’s smoked mozzarella, you know it’s just as good as a Hawaiian honeymoon. Possibly better.

“How’d you know I was here?” I ask dazedly, taking the bag.

“Sarah told me,” Cooper says. “I called your office when I heard what happened. It was on the police scanner.”

“Oh.” Of course. Cooper listens to a police scanner while he’s on stakeouts. That or jazz. He’s a nut for Ella Fitzgerald. If Ella wasn’t dead, I’d be jealous.

“Aren’t your clients going to wonder where you are?” I ask. I can’t believe he’s blowing off a case for me.

“It’s okay,” Cooper says with a shrug. “My client’s husband is occupied for the moment.” I don’t even bother asking what he means, since I know he won’t tell me. “I was going for lunch, anyway, and I figured you hadn’t eaten,” he says.

My stomach rumbles hungrily at the word lunch. “I’m famished,” I confess. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“So.” Cooper leads me to an empty set of orange plastic seats in the waiting room. “What’s the kid in for?”

I glance at the emergency room doors. “Who, Gavin? Chronic stupidity.”

“Gavin again, huh?” Cooper produces two Yoo-Hoos from his parka pockets and hands me one. My heart lurches. YOO-HOOS! God, I love this man. Who wouldn’t? “If that kid lives to graduation, I’ll be surprised. So. How you hanging in there? I mean, with the dead girl.”

I’ve sunk my teeth into the crunchy baguette—filled with freshly made smoked mozzarella, garlicky roasted peppers, and sun-dried tomatoes. It is impossible to speak after that, of course, because the inside of my mouth is having an orgasm.

“I actually put in a call,” Cooper goes on, seeing that my mouth is full (though ignorant, hopefully, of all the fireworks going on inside of it), “to a friend at the coroner’s office. They got over there pretty quickly, you know, on account of business being slow, thanks to this storm we’re supposed to get. Anyway, they’re pretty sure she was dead well before she was… well, you know.”

Decapitated. I nod, still chewing.

“I just thought you’d want to know,” Cooper goes on. He’s unwrapping a sandwich of his own. Prosciutto, I think. “I mean, that she didn’t… suffer. They’re pretty sure she was strangled.”

I swallow. “How can they tell?” I ask. “Considering… well, there’s no neck?”

Cooper has just taken a bite of his own sandwich as I ask this. He chokes a little, but manages to get it down.

“Discoloration,” he says, between coughs. “Around the eyes. It means she quit breathing before death occurred, due to strangulation. They call it vagal inhibition.”

“Oh,” I say. “Sorry.” I mean about making him choke.

He swills some Yoo-Hoo. As he does, I have a chance to observe him without his noticing. He hasn’t shaved this morning… not that it matters. He’s still one of the hottest-looking guys I’ve ever seen. His five o’clock—more like noon—shadow just makes the angular planes of his face more defined, bringing into even more definition his lean jaw and high cheekbones. Some people—like his father, Grant Cartwright—might think Cooper needs a haircut.

But I like a guy with hair you can run your fingers through.

You know, if he’d let you.

Still, though to me that slightly overlong dark hair gives him the appearance of a friendly sheepdog, Cooper must strike an imposing figure to others. This becomes obvious when a homeless guy carrying a bottle in a paper bag, coming into the hospital to get out of the cold for a little while, spies an empty chair next to me and wanders toward it…

… only to change his mind when he gets a look at Cooper’s wide shoulders—made even more intimidating-looking by the puffiness of his anorak—and massive Timberlands.

Cooper doesn’t even notice.

“They think she’d been there awhile,” he says, having successfully forced down whatever it was he’d been choking on. “On the, er, stove. Since before dawn, at least.”