Cooper (5 page)

Amy sniffed and nodded, then croaked out a
yes
. It was crazy. He was crazy. This would never work. She was mentally challenged; he was physically challenged. She was Guild; he was human. A man in a wheelchair would be easy pickings for her father. She was risking his life by even thinking of doing this.

But she'd see him. Just so she could explain. It couldn't come from a phone call. She couldn't convince him it had nothing to do with his wheelchair unless she saw him face to face.

"Half an hour, Amy. Don't leave me sitting in the cold."

"Half an hour."

She heard him disconnect at the other end and put her own phone down.

What was she doing? Her father would kill her if he caught her sneaking out to meet a man. A non-Guild man with no power and no influence. She didn't even know what Cooper did for a living. Something
worthwhile and important
, he'd said.

Dashing into the bathroom, she turned on the shower. There wasn't much time. She needed to repair the damage her father and her tears had inflicted. If she didn't want to scare him away at the very first sight of her, she had to do some major repair work. But it was night and the new bruises were all on her body, not her face. All she had to do was cover the blotching skin and red eyes, which she could do with foundation. What that didn't hide, darkness would.

In twenty minutes she was dressed in warm jeans, shirt and cashmere sweater. Over them she put on the darkest coat she owned. Then, quietly, she snuck down the servant's staircase to the ground floor. It was late; all but one of the house staff would be in bed. Juanita had opened the door for her, so she must have the nightshift, staying up to take care of any needs her employers might have late into the night. Her father, she knew, would think nothing of calling for late night snacks if hunger stuck at any ungodly hour.

There would also be a guard patrolling the house and one covering the grounds. Amy vaguely knew their patterns, although she’d never considered trying to get past them before. If she was caught doing so her punishment would be far more severe than what had been meted out half an hour ago. Her father would see this as an act of outright rebellion, flouting his orders in the worst possible way.

And wasn’t that what she was doing? Rebelling? How could she even consider rebelling when her father was always right?

What was wrong with her; sneaking out of the house like a thief in the night, to meet a man who was so totally wrong for her? But the alternative was worse. Cooper would be terribly hurt if she left him waiting in the cold. He would think it was because he was a helpless cripple. And she couldn’t stand for him to think that way.

More and more choices. They multiplied exponentially from that one stupid decision to go out tonight. If only she had done the right thing and stayed in. Now she risked more pain, both physical and emotional.

At the bottom of the servants staircase Amy paused, listening for movement. Off to the right was the kitchen, laundry-room and the small common room the staff used when on call. Juanita would most likely be in that room, unless Amy’s father required something of her.

Would her father still be up? Yes, it was only ten-thirty. He’d be in his study drinking and/or working until much later than this.

There was a TV in that little common room, but Juanita was more likely studying. She wanted to graduate high school and was trying to do it part-time. But the Hayses didn't make it easy, with long working hours and their many demands, so taking the nightshift probably worked out well for her, Amy supposed.

She heard the sound of male footsteps on the tiled floor of the kitchen. With her heart in her mouth, Amy looked around for somewhere to hide. The utility closet was next to the stairs. If she was quick she could get inside before the guard reached her.

Faster than she thought possible, she dived into the closet and closed the door silently behind her. The footsteps walked on by without pausing, the sound echoing quietly down the corridor toward the front of the house.

Slipping out of the closet, Amy headed for the kitchen and the back door. They didn't have an alarm code for the exterior doors because there were always guards on duty, whether the family was home or not. Her father believed it was too easy to take down electronic security; a lot harder to take down guards. In fact, he'd been talking about hiring more guards after Karl Rothmen was taken from his yacht in the Caribbean.

Once outside, Amy pulled the collar up on her cashmere coat. The temperature had dropped just in the time since she'd gotten home. Her breath frosted the air.

Scanning the dark half acre of land at the rear of the house, she could see no sign of the guard. Staying in the shadows, terrified she’d trip the motion detectors that would illuminate her location, she crept around the large Georgian style manor-house until she reached the front.

Pausing yet again, crushed up against the pruned stems of the rosebush border, she was only too aware that time was against her. She might already be late. How long would Cooper wait for her? What if she was too late and he’d already left by the time she got there? He would be devastated and she’d be stuck having to get back into the house again.

There, movement on the perimeter, not far from the gate. The guard was patrolling the fence-line in an counter-clockwise direction. If she waited for him to move around to the back, hopefully not catching sight of her still form as he passed, she could make a run for the front gate. Once there, she could enter the code and be out, the gates closed behind her before he made it around to the side again.

The minutes crawled by. The guard seemed to be moving in slow motion. How long did it take to walk along the wall? Not this long, surely.

There, she saw him clearly in the moonlight, just reaching the back corner of the property. Any moment now and he’d be out of sight of the front drive. Of course, she couldn’t run on the gravel, her footsteps could be heard, and she would certainly set off the motion detectors. No, she’d have to risk running on the frosty grass, along the edge of the drive.

Taking to her heels, she dashed the hundred yards to the gate. Her mother insisted she maintain a healthy regime of exercise in the home gym, and she did so religiously. Now, for the first time in her life, she was grateful for that training. As she reached the gate, entered the code, and pushed the wrought iron bars open a crack, her breathing was only slightly more laboured than normal.

For all the danger she was in, for all the insanity of seeing Cooper again, she felt truly alive for the first time in longer than she could remember. This didn't feel wrong. Cooper didn't feel wrong. Nothing had ever felt so right.

Coop pulled up just down from the elaborate iron gates of the Hays’ property. A high wall, complete with jagged pikes at its top, surrounded the two-storey, red-brick mansion set back from the road. It was just one of many such homes here on the outskirts of San Mateo.

There would be a private security detail driving these roads, he expected, so he couldn't hang around for long. He just hoped Amy could get out safely. Though he wasn't sure, he sensed that she'd probably be sneaking out, if she came at all.

Not more than a few endless minute after he pulled up and turned off his lights, he saw a slim figure making its way through the now slightly opened gates. Then that figure picked its way along the footpath until it reached the passenger door of his van. Coop turned on the interior light so she could see him, and then unlocked the door for her. She clambered in to the passenger seat.

For a moment, when the door closed, they sat in darkness and silence. When she spoke, he noticed that her voice was still as croaky as it had been on the phone.

"You can't stay here. The rentacops will be doing their rounds any time now."

He started the engine and felt a gust of hot air circulate. He should have turned on music. Anything to fill the uncomfortable silence. What was he doing playing Romeo and Juliet with the daughter of a member of the Guild? This wasn't simply a family feud that separated her people from his; this was one enemy species against another.

He drove slowly down the street and then turned right, heading out of the expensive Hillsborough Heights subdivision towards the city. For the life of him, he couldn't think where to take her. An all-night diner? A motel? It wasn't safe to just sit in the van and talk. He threw it over to her.

"Any thoughts where we should go?"

"There's one of those cheap highway motels not far from here. We could go there. Maybe they'll have a ground floor room. It'll be private and reasonably safe, I think."

"You want to go to a motel with me?" His voice rose a little at the end of the question.

Did he have to sound like a total virginal wanker?

Amy shrugged, continuing to stare out her window. She hadn't really looked at him since she got in the van.

"I'm not suggesting sex, if that's what you're worried about."

"Why would I be worried, if you were?" he challenged her, sensing that this was another one of her personal put-downs.

"Never mind. Just tell me you won't leave me there if our talk doesn't go well."

"Amy, you don't know me, so I'll reassure you. The last thing I'd ever do is put an innocent girl in danger, most especially not you." He couldn't keep the offence from his voice.

What was wrong with him? If his cat was activating after all this time, wasn't he putting this vulnerable young girl in danger by just being with her? She was Guild and his cat innately hated Guild, or so his brothers had told him. It was the same as a cat hissing and spitting at a dog, even before it knows from experience that a dog is a danger to it. And his moods were volatile right now and growing more so.

"Maybe this is a bad idea. I'm not myself at the moment. I…"

"Cooper, you wanted me to meet you, so I'm here. Just go to the motel, okay. I can't do this in the dark when I can't see your face properly. I thought I could, but I can't."

"Can't do what?" he asked suspiciously.

Jumping him wasn't an option with someone as insecure as Amy. So what did she want to do? Tell him not to call her again? That sounded right. Hadn't she been trying to tell him that on the phone, and he'd stubbornly refused to listen? That had been so out of character for him.

"Just drive, please." Her anxiety hung in the air like smog, clogging his lungs, and making the feral force inside him rage.

He focused on the empty road ahead. This far from the city, there wasn't much traffic late at night. Once on El Camino Real heading south it didn't take long to find the motel, luckily with the vacancy sign still lit up.

Pulling up outside the office, he contemplated the next challenge. But before he could reach for the button to activate the lift, Amy had jumped out without a word, and gone inside to book a room. Moments later, she was back and pointing the way to the very back of the horseshoe-shaped complex. Parking was nose in to your own door, and luckily the parking lot was pretty empty. Not a busy night for travellers then. Or maybe this place was too close to the city where a better class of hotel could be found.

While he got his hoist operating, Amy went to unlock the door to their room and turn on the lights and heating. By the time he'd wheeled himself inside, she'd taken a seat on the lumpy-looking queen-sized bed and was studying the ancient carpet on the floor beneath her booted feet. Because the room hadn't heated up yet, she hadn't take off her coat, the collar of which hid her long, straight hair.

"I brought munchies," Cooper offered lamely, producing a McDonald's bag. He knew she'd probably never had fries before, it being unhealthy and all that, so he'd seen it as yet another treat he could offer her. Another new discovery. Maybe junk food wasn't the best kind of discovery he could offer her, he reasoned suddenly, but it was the only one he knew about so far.

She took the bag, opening the top curiously. When she pulled out the two large cardboard containers of fries she smiled, despite herself.

"Are you determined to make me fat?" she asked cheekily.

Her eyes grew large as she realised what she’d said. Did this odd girl always worry about her every word and gesture?

Suddenly the tension between them evaporated. It was as if the intervening hours since they'd last sat across from each other had evaporated.

"I think it would take a fair few Macca’s Meals to make
you
fat," he replied with a silly grin.

She passed him his serving and took out one long, thin straw from hers, tentatively nibbling at it. At first he couldn't tell if she liked what she tasted or not. Then she popped the whole thing into her mouth and grinned at him.

"Not as good as brownies, but a close second," she said as she munched and swallowed.

"I can't believe you didn't sneak out to Maccas during recess or something, when you were at school."

"First, I went to a very expensive, very elite academy. There wasn't a store within miles, and certainly no McDonalds. Second, our canteen was stocked with the very best gourmet food available. Why would anyone want to sneak out when we could get meals like that? And lastly, even if kids did, I wouldn't have been invited along. I was the kid no one would be caught dead having lunch with. Ugly and crazy might rub off, you know."

He groaned, trying to deal with his empathetic reaction to her words by rubbing a hand through his too-long hair. He needed a haircut badly but never seemed to find the time to book an appointment. The same went for shaving. Such unimportant aspects of daily living were always left at the end of his To Do List, so they rarely got done.

"Kids can be cruel...” Unable to think of anything wiser to say that might offset her pain, he paused before taking a slightly safer path. “You said you were in and out of mental institutions. Tell me about that… Please," he added as an afterthought.

For too long she said nothing, and he wondered if he’d stepped over the line again, probing into areas of her life that were private. How would he feel if some stranger asked him about his stays in a mental institution? Furious, defensive? He was just about to change the subject when Amy started talking, slowly, almost as if she was measuring every word before speaking it.

"You've heard the saying a square peg in a round hole?" She paused as if waiting for him to answer. He nodded his reply. "Well that's me. My parents have never been particularly affectionate. I was a disappointment to them right from an early age. I'm not sure why. But they put up with me, tried to mould me into a more acceptable round shape, but I was always a square, I just couldn't be anything else.

"And I
am
over-sensitive, I have to admit. I took, and continue to take, every criticism to heart. But I managed to survive when I was little because I had Maria. She was my nurse from the time I was born. She was like a mother to me. Then she was sent away when I was ten. Without her I got more and more…scared to do anything in case it was wrong. Then my father…"

She stopped, unable to decide whether to go on. Instead, she took off her coat because the aircon had finally started to warm the room up.

"Your father did what, Amy? You've already told me he isn't a good man. Tell me what he did."

She sighed heavily and played with one of her fries, having lost interest in eating them.

"My father can get violent when I disappoint him. He can't believe I'm really his blood, you know? But all the blood tests confirm it. I think
that
makes it all the worse for him. If I was adopted or something, or my mother had been unfaithful to him, it wouldn't call his heritage into question. But I
am
his. He can't deny it. And that infuriates him.

"When I was twelve I did something. I don't know what anymore. But he beat me and… broke my arm and a couple of ribs. I was taken to the hospital. When the staff looked too closely at my injuries he said I'd tried to commit suicide by jumping off the second floor landing. So I was committed. It was a relief, and every time I came out I prayed the next time I could go back in would come soon." Amy sighed and something inside Cooper fought to get loose, fought to defend this girl against the cruelties inflicted on her.

"Maybe there
is
something wrong with me. The doctors talked about a borderline personality disorder, or sometimes about post-traumatic stress disorder. I once tentatively mentioned my father's temper, but quickly backtracked on that because I got labelled as having paranoid delusions. Maybe I do have them." She shrugged and kept her eyes down.

"Did you really fall tonight, Amy?" he asked gently.

"Sort of. Father was unhappy I'd gone into the city alone. A very important man in his group was kidnapped by pirates yesterday and so he was worried that me wandering around, unescorted, might attract some of the same attention to his family. He is very concerned about image. It's seen as a weakness to have a family member kidnapped, you know?"

If he'd had any doubts about Hay's involvement in the Guild, this piece of information put that doubt to rest. So the shock-waves from Rothmen's kidnapping had already spread through the Guild. That was both good and bad news. In one respect, it made their job of retrieving guilty parties that much harder. In another, putting the wind up the Guild meant they were more likely to make mistakes as they sought to fill the void created by one of their elite going missing.

"Amy, show me what he did to you," he said, focusing on what was important in this moment: an abused girl not sure of her sanity.

"No, I can't. There's not much to see. It wasn't much this time."

He leaned in and took the fries from her hands and put them on the bed. Then he drew her reluctantly to her feet.

Was he pushing her to hard? From the expression on her face, he was sure she was about to bolt.

"You said you fell on the stairs. What were your injuries?"

"I…I just fell hard on my elbow and side, I'm just sore. Nothing's broken. I'm just clumsy, that’s all."

"I know removing your clothes in front of a stranger in a sleazy motel was not what you had in mind when you came here. And it wasn't in my mind, either. But I need to see your injuries." Why was he pushing it? Did he want her to run away, out into the cold night, alone?

She looked down at him and grimaced, either from embarrassment or shame. But then she nodded, and with one smooth pull, she drew the cashmere sweater and whatever was under it, over her head and dropped them onto the bed. A waterfall of copper-coloured hair flowed up and out as she did so.

Amy stared at the cornice on the wall as if she could see spiders lingering there. It was almost as if she was no longer in her body, uncaring what was happening to it. Was this embarrassment or something else?

Coop drew his focus from her discomfort to her body, determined to get this examination over as quickly as possible. Immediately, he could see the angry black finger-marks on her upper left arm. It would have taken a lot of strength and a lot of anger to leave marks that deep, he knew. Gently, he reached out and took her thin, lower arm, drawing her around so he could see her back. He had no thoughts about how gorgeous she looked standing there in a plain white lace bra and hip-hugging jeans, his whole focus was on the damage done to her fragile body.

Coop could see the bruise down the right side of her back and at her elbow where she'd used it to break her fall. His rage was building and he could barely contain it. He wanted to see her thigh and backside, which would have taken the brunt of the fall too, but he didn't know if he could handle the sight of those injuries right now.

"Amy," he said, his words chocking out past his fury. "Those bruises on your left arm. They show me that you have been abused. This is no paranoid delusion. And if that appears somewhere in your medical reports, then it's because your father
had
it put there. Men like him: they hurt people, and then pay other people to cover it up. It's what they do."