Free Head Over Heels by Susan Andersen Page A

up with his clipboard.
    â€œI’ve got your estimate ready,” he said. “You have a minute to sit down with me and go over it?”
    She thought of the offended anger she’d seen in Coop’s eyes and—more unnerving yet—a glimpse of something that had almost looked like…hurt.
    Then she shook her head and turned her attention back to Kody. Don’t be an idiot. A Sherman tank couldn’t hurt that guy . “Yes, sure,” she said. “Let’s grab a seat over here and you can tell me what the damage is going to be.”
    Â 
    A red mist hazed Coop’s usual cool and logical reasoning process while he stalked down the street, and he all but ripped the driver’s door off its hinges getting into his car. He slammed it shut behind him, started the car, then peeled away from the curb. Heading out of town, he picked up the interstate just beyond the Big K, stomping the accelerator to the floor the instant his car’s back wheels cleared the freeway on-ramp. He punched on the CD player, cranked up the volume, and blasted down the highway, speakers wailing and engine screaming.
    The car roared through dun-colored, snow-dusted hills and brown flatlands, past apple orchards that hosted row after row of skeletal trees. He blew past nondescript little burgs of cinder-block buildings, and didn’t slow down until the skies suddenly opened up about fifteen miles out of town. Then, turning the windshield wipers onto their highest setting and the defroster to full blast to dissipate the rapidly fogging glass, he took the next exit, got back on the freeway heading north, and put the pedal to the metal once again.
    The rain poured down in sheets, and a few milessouth of Fossil the car hit a patch of standing water and hydroplaned along its surface. The back end fish-tailed as Coop fought to gain purchase on the road beneath, and easing up on the gas, he wrested back control of the car and immediately slowed down. No sense killing himself because Veronica Davis had a suspicious mind.
    He didn’t know why it bugged him so much—in a faraway corner of his mind, he actually applauded her caution. She seemed to be doing whatever she could to protect Lizzy, and who could argue with that? Except…
    He’d worked damn hard to command a measure of respect in his life. God knew his own mother had never thought he’d amount to anything, and he’d worked his ass off to prove her wrong and become the type of man he could be proud of. He sure as hell didn’t appreciate being lumped in with pedophiles and who the hell knew what else.
    But there was no sense brooding over it. It was high time, in fact, that he quit thinking about little Miz Davis entirely. During his brief sojourn at the Tonk, he’d gleaned bits and pieces of information on Crystal’s murder. He’d also heard some of the popularly believed reasons why Eddie fit the bill as prime suspect. But he hadn’t learned nearly as much as he’d hoped to, and he sure hadn’t learned anything that would clear Eddie’s name. It was time to step up his efforts.
    Coop drove to Fossil’s small downtown business section and pulled into a neatly paved lot. Then he simply sat for a moment, listening to the rain bounce with a tinny patter against the car roof as he stared upat the cantilevered angles of a fifties-style redwood structure. A discreet sign above the entrance read FOSSIL PROFESSIONAL BUILDING .
    Exhaling vigorously to settle the sudden tension that twanged warnings along the nerve endings down his spine, he collected his checkbook from the glove compartment and climbed out of the car. He quickly locked up and dashed through the pounding rain. Damn, it was cold! He should have worn a coat.
    A moment later he stopped in front of a door that read NEIL PEAVY , ATTORNEY AT LAW , and shook himself off like a wet dog. He dried his hand against a protected section of the black T-shirt he