The Root of All Evil (Hope Street Church Mysteries Book 4) (3 page)

Cooper sighed, locked her computer screen and meandered down the hall, past the closed door to Mr. Farmer’s office and past the open door to Ben’s office. Once a fellow repairperson like Cooper, Ben now managed the Document Security side of Make It Work! He was staring intently at his computer as Cooper passed by on her way to the front of the office to see Angela.

Angela was the company receptionist in charge of scheduling and billing, but her unwritten job title encompassed so much more. She was the heart of Make It Work!—a buxom platinum-blonde with fake lashes, sexy heels and a good deal of pluck.

When Cooper sat on the edge of her desk, Angela glanced up from her compact and lipstick. She wore a tight blue blouse and a tighter gray pencil skirt. “You look tired, Coop.” She offered Cooper her compact so she could see the exhaustion in her own face. Cooper declined with a shake of her head. “Anything wrong?”

Cooper stared down the hall at the door to her relatively new office space. Nearly eight months ago, she’d been so excited to move into it. Now she was excited to have a moment away. “I’m okay,” she finally replied. “Just tired of paperwork.”

Angela tilted her head and gave Cooper a sympathetic smile. “It’s a different world in here, isn’t it? Staying at the office instead of venturing out every day?”

Cooper nodded. “Not that I’m complaining, of course.”

“Of course.”

“I’m grateful for the promotion and everything that goes with it, but . . .” Cooper leaned over the desk and lowered her voice. “Sometimes I do miss being out on a job, driving down the highway, singing along with the radio. It was like a vacation between repair jobs.”

Angela patted Cooper’s hand. “Well, you may not be able to sing along with the radio in here, but you can listen to it.”

“Forgot my headphones.”

Angela reached into her top desk drawer and retrieved a set of white earbuds. “I always keep a spare, and you’re welcome to it.”

Cooper gladly took the gift with a smile. “Thanks, Angela.”

“And if you feel the overwhelming need to
sing
along, you let me know, and I’ll tell Mr. Farmer we need to rent a karaoke machine to boost morale.” She laughed.

“Better for you to ask than me,” Cooper teased. “He won’t say no to you.”

“He’d better not!” Angela replied, grinning. “If he does, you can be sure he’ll be in trouble! But he’s a good man, my Mr. Farmer. I doubt he’d get into trouble.”

The Make It Work! boss and his receptionist had officially been a couple for a few months, but Angela’s devotion to Mr. Farmer went back much further than that. For years, Angela had swooned over him, even though he’d always reminded Cooper of Danny DeVito, and for years, Mr. Farmer was oblivious. Cooper couldn’t figure out why it had taken so long for Mr. Farmer to come around, but whatever his hang-ups had been, they were gone now. These days, the two were inseparable.

Angela slipped her compact and lipstick into her purse. “Speaking of good men . . . How’s yours?”

“Nathan’s good,” Cooper replied, playing with one of the roses in the bouquet on Angela’s desk. “Same old, same old.”

Angela arched a brow and gave her a look.
“Same old, same old?
What’s that supposed to mean? Sounds like you’re ordering the usual fare at a boring diner.”

“It means that we’re doing just fine,” Cooper insisted. “We’re in a very steady relationship, and we’re not moving too fast.”

Angela pursed her lips together and shook her head. “I don’t want to put my nose in other people’s business.”

Cooper stifled a laugh. If there was anything Angela loved as much as she loved Mr. Farmer, it was putting her nose in other people’s business. “Just say what you’re thinking,” Cooper said. “Don’t make me pull it out of you.”

“All right then.” Angela smoothed the front of her blouse, sat up straight and looked Cooper in the eye. “You say you’re not moving too fast, but are you moving too slow? You’ve been together more than a year now. Any talk of wedding bells or a future together?”

Cooper felt her neck get hot, and she rubbed it to try and hide the redness that always accompanied the uncomfortable heat. She wished she could hide her embarrassment like some people, but no matter how hard she tried, when she got nervous, anxious or embarrassed, her neck burned and turned a telltale red.

“Well?” Angela persisted.

“We haven’t discussed it.”

“Humph. If I were you, I’d have insisted we discuss it as soon as he gave me a box that looked like it had a ring inside.”

Cooper touched her fingertips to the beautiful diamond studs in her earlobes and thought back to when Nathan had given her the jewelry. It had been shortly after Ashley and Lincoln announced their pregnancy. Cooper had seen Nathan with the box and had heard Earl giving Nathan a talk about how his time would come. What Cooper thought might have been a proposal was merely a gift. “Technically, it had two
rings
inside.”

“Earrings
don’t count.”

Cooper sighed. “Maybe it would’ve been a good idea at the time, but it’s a little late now . . . Unless you’ve got a time machine tucked in the back room somewhere between a couple of copiers. At this point, I’ve got enough on my mind without adding wedding bells to the list.”

“Work?”

“For one. And family. And Nathan. And church. And my sister and the baby.”

“How is your sister?”

“On bed rest still. The baby’s healthy. I just wish I could do something to help her.”

“You can’t do much, I’m afraid, except spend time with her. You know . . . sit with her, visit, gossip like only sisters can. That’ll help her pass the time, at least.”

Angela typed something on her keyboard, and Cooper noticed her manicured nails. Each one looked like a ladybug—all red with black spots for the wings, white eyes at the tips and thin black antennae.

“I think I can do one better than visiting,” Cooper said. “I’m gonna stop by that hoagie place to grab an early lunch, the one by the mall. Want me to bring you anything?”

Angela clapped her hands together. “Sounds delicious! How about a turkey with mayo and all the veggies? Actually, make that two. I was gonna go pick up something for Mr. Farmer in a bit.”

The front door opened and in walked Brandi, who worked in Make It Work!’s Document Security department. She opened a bottle of water and guzzled half of it.

“Shredding stuff makes me thirsty,” she said, joining Angela and Cooper at the desk. She had long blonde hair with black tips and long acrylic nails that Cooper thought could probably shred documents as well as any industrial shredder. She handed a laptop over to Angela. “Need to turn this back in.”

Angela took the laptop and set it behind her desk. While every employee had his or her own tools, the more expensive equipment was shared and kept in a locked storage room to which Mr. Farmer, Ben, Cooper and Angela had a key. Diagnostic equipment and laptops were kept in the room, along with the equipment available for lease. Brandi took another long swig of water. “So what are we talking about?”

“Lunch,” Cooper replied. “From the hoagie place by the mall. Do you want me to pick you up something while I’m there?”

Brandi thought for a moment. “I could totally go for an Italian hoagie . . . with everything.” She dug into her pocket and handed Cooper a wad of cash. “And something caffeinated.”

“Any particular caffeinated beverage?”

“Surprise me.”

Cooper hurried out to her truck, repeating the lunch orders under her breath. She kept an eye on the time as she drove to the mall, parked and entered her regular nail salon beside Macy’s.

The Vietnamese receptionist greeted her with a smile. “Manicure? Pedicure? Or both?”

“Actually, I’m in kind of a hurry. I need to purchase everything I’d need to do my own pedicure.”

The receptionist’s smile vanished. “You need to go to department store. We don’t sell ‘do it yourself.’”

“No, you don’t understand,” Cooper explained. “My sister used to come here all the time, and I’m a loyal customer. Just ask Minnie. But my sister’s pregnant and on bed rest, and I don’t have time to go to the store and figure out what I need. I’ll pay for the supplies, and I
promise
I won’t be doing my own pedicures instead of coming here. It’s just to cheer up my sister until she can come in and get a full mani-pedi. Please?”

Just then, Cooper’s usual manicurist, Minnie, emerged from a back room and greeted her with a smile. “Cooper! Haven’t seen you in a while. Didn’t realize you had an appointment today.”

The receptionist and Minnie began to speak in Vietnamese, and Cooper waited patiently, hoping Minnie would argue her case. A few minutes later, the receptionist turned back to Cooper and nodded.

“I haven’t been here very long,” she said. “But Minnie says it’s okay.”

Minnie grinned. “I’ll go get what you need from the back. Won’t be cheap.”

“I figured as much.”

“But you can pick out a polish for free!”

Cooper suspected that the cost of a bottle of nail polish wouldn’t quite make up for what she was about to spend on other supplies. At a department store, she could have gotten everything she needed for a professional pedicure for much, much less, but she didn’t know what she needed. Here, at least, she could get the job done on her lunch break, and Ashley would be able to enjoy an evening at the spa. And if it cost as much as an actual evening at the spa, oh well.

While Minnie gathered the supplies, Cooper picked out a bottle of bright pink polish with sparkles called Rockstar Pinkly. She reluctantly handed her card over to the receptionist, tried not to think too much about the ungodly sum and took her supplies to go. Ashley’s happiness was worth it.

Then Cooper picked up hoagies for the office and started back to work.

• • •

Ashley and Lincoln Love lived in a veritable mansion off of River Road in the wealthy part of town. Lincoln came from money, and Ashley knew how to spend it. Before her pregnancy, Ashley put on the appearance of goodwill, spending most of her time arranging charity events, attending fund-raisers and supporting more causes than Cooper could count. Now her service work was on hiatus, because she was too physically and mentally exhausted to even plan activities from bed.

Cooper knocked on the door to the Loves’ massive house and a woman in scrubs answered. It was Rhonda, the nurse and caregiver Lincoln had hired to keep watch over Ashley and their unborn child while he was away at work.
Must be nice to be able to afford that,
Cooper thought.

“Good to see you, Rhonda,” she said, her arms full of pedicure supplies.

Rhonda smiled, her strawberry-blonde hair pulled back in a tight ponytail and her bright green eyes wide and awake, as if she’d just ingested a few shots of espresso. “Good to see you, too, Ms. Lee,” the nurse replied. “Need any help with that?”

“Nah. I hope I didn’t pull you away from Ashley.”

Rhonda moved away from the door so Cooper could enter. “Mrs. Love gets tired of me being here all the time. I check on her every hour, and in the meantime I stay in the drawing room, crocheting to pass the time.”

“Do you know if Ashley’s sleeping?”

“I checked on her about five minutes ago, and she was wide awake then.”

Cooper drew in a deep breath and shouted, “Ashley, it’s Coop! You sleeping?”

“If I was, you just woke me up!” Ashley shouted from the master bedroom. “Could you grab me a couple water bottles on your way?”

Cooper went to the kitchen—a massive cooking space with top-of-the-line appliances and the quartz countertops—and grabbed two bottles from the ones Lincoln kept on the counter for Ashley; she preferred them room temperature. She stole an apple for herself and headed to the bedroom, water, snack and supplies balanced carefully in her arms.

Ashley had been on bed rest for a whole month now, with varying degrees of freedom, depending on the doctor’s report in any given week. In that time, she’d fashioned herself a little nest in the bed. Cooper found her surrounded by pillows and blankets, with only her eyes peeking up high enough to see the television set. Those eyes turned to Cooper.

“Wasn’t expecting to see you,” Ashley said. Her voice sounded drained.

Cooper stepped closer so she could actually see her sister amid the bedding. “Thought I’d drop by and see how my favorite sister’s doing.” From the looks of things, she wasn’t doing well. The TV was turned to a shopping channel on which two older women were trying to sell viewers some kind of super vacuum. The nightstand was littered with empty plates, bowls and cups. Ashley’s laptop was laid upside down on Lincoln’s side of the bed. Ashley’s usually pristine hair was pulled back in a matted, dirty ponytail, and what little polish was left on her nails was chipped badly. Her face was puffy, her eyes red, and her stomach uncomfortably large.

She panted, as if Cooper’s trip up the stairs had winded her, and pushed herself up so that she could better see. “Did you bring the water?”

Cooper handed the bottles over.

“You’re a lifesaver. I’m
so
thirsty, and I’m so tired of seeing that nurse.”

“She seemed pretty nice at the door.”

“Sure,” Ashley replied, and then paused to gulp some water. “But she’s here all the time! Every day while Lincoln’s at work, Rhonda is by my side. She won’t let me do anything.”

“That’s her job, Ash. She’s here to take care of you.”

“But I want to get out of bed and do something!”

“Yeah, well, she’s also here to protect you from yourself.” Cooper plopped the armload of pedicure supplies on the bed. “Brought you a present.”

“A present?” Ashley asked, her weary eyes lighting up for a moment. “You brought me a present?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Cooper did her best Vanna White impression to display the supplies. “It’s a pedicure in a box!”

Ashley grinned. “A pedicure? I haven’t had a pedicure in forever!”

“Well, we spared no expense today.” She lifted the items one by one as Ashley craned her neck. “We have a rosewater wash, exfoliating rub, aromatherapy foot massage oil and . . . Rockstar Pinkly polish. I picked it out myself.”