Page 6 of You Can Make Me
Watching TV was too much stimulation for him, and it gave him headaches, so I moved it into the garage. I tried reading to him, but he’d get frustrated when he missed a word or got confused. A few nights, we sat out on the back patio as the moonrose over the river. I lit the firepit and we watched bats swoop above us, not coming too close to the fire. Those nights had tested me. It had been so hard not to reach over and touch him, or to pour my soul out to him and beg him to take me back, let me in, or even to fight with me.
His frequent silence was an ordeal. How long could I possibly be with another human without speaking to them? I’d been a cop, for fuck’s sake. I had talked to people for a living. I’d interrogated them when I wanted to know something, and they’d rarely refused me. But Cooper was so damned good at the silent treatment, it drove me mad.
I told myself that if I could be patient with him, eventually he’d come around. He might not ever want to rekindle what we’d started years ago, but he’d have to recover enough that he could return to his life in some capacity, right? I’d nurse him back to health, make sure he was strong enough to do his daily activities, and then…he’d be okay. Maybe not the same level of Cooper, but better than he was now. I’d stay with him as long as it took.
As I passed the entrance to the hallway, I grabbed the Magic 8 Ball off the shelf, the one the wacky old women in Laurel Canyon had made me take with me right before everything blew up. It had become my daily chuckle, my ironic source of hope. Perhaps a round plastic ball telling fortunes knew more than I did.
I shook it up and sighed.
“Poor guy. He’s probably so sick of me by now.”
I looked at the window and waited for the triangle to come into view.
“It is decidedly so. Yeah, fuck off, you stupid ball. Sick of you, too.”
But instead of chucking it through a window, as I longed to do, I set it back on the shelf, grabbed my contraband items and headed out the front door.
While Cooper rested, I pulled out the SAT phone I’d picked up. I installed a VPN blocker and used it to attend to the high volume of emails and frantic messages from Cooper’s friends, family, and acquaintances. He’d tried to throw his phone away when we’d first arrived here, during one of his rages, but I’d fished it out of the garbage, hacked it, transferred his data to a burner, and got rid of it so we couldn’t be tracked.
I hated invading his privacy, but I knew eventually he’d want to reconnect with his life. I didn’t want anyone accusing me of kidnapping the guy, either, nor to have his financial life fall apart. The last thing I needed was LAPD or my own previous employer, the Kern County Sheriff’s Department, banging down the door because he’d disappeared off the face of the planet and I’d been the last one seen with him.
First up was my weekly check-in with his mother.
“Denny, how is he? Any change?”
I usually took a walk out to the main road for these phone calls because the service was better there most of the time, plus it got me out of the gloomy house where I was ready to climb the damn walls. I didn’t know how Cooper could stand it.
“Hello, Mrs. Harris. He’s moving with a little less stiffness. He decided that he doesn’t want to take the pain medications anymore. Says they make him too fuzzy.”
“He has always been stubborn about taking medication. I suppose it’s an improvement if he’s functioning without them.”
“Agreed. I’m still trying to figure out how to get him a decent internet connection, but then again, it’s better for him to not be on the computer for long periods.”
“Is he still having headaches?”
“Yeah,” I said, lighting up a cigarette. My time helping my best friend Walter and his miracle, Dee Dee, had me picking back up this bad habit. At fifty-two years old, I knew better, but sometimes… Fuck, I had no excuse. “I’ve been keeping track.I can usually get him to tell me his pain level and where it’s focused. They’re slightly less intense. He hasn’t had a dizzy spell for a few days.”
“All progress,” she said.
Deb Harris had become an ally, although at first she’d been furious with me for not telling her where her baby boy was. It was one of the first and worst fights Cooper and I’d had since I’d taken over his care. He hadn’t wanted anyone to know where he was, hadn’t wanted to see anyone, but once his mother got ahold of Gene and then me, I made Cooper agree to let me give her updates.
“How areyou?”
I exhaled a plume of smoke. “Discouraged, but I’m okay.”
“I know, dear. Cooper’s father and I are forever in your debt for caring for our hard-headed son, but Denny, if it becomes too much, I’ll be there in a heartbeat.”
He could never be too much.“I appreciate that, but I’m fine. I wish he’d agree to visitors, or to go back to the doctor, or to more physical therapy, maybe a consult with a different plastic surgeon or dermatologist, get a third opinion, but he flat-out refuses to discuss any of it.” I chuckled. “What he doesn’t realize is that I’m always going to be more stubborn than him.” But I couldn’t maintain the smile. “I hate to see him like this when there’s got to be more I can do for him.”
“He’s got to want it,” she said, her voice cracking. “You were only just getting to know how stubborn he can be before this. None of what you’ve shared surprises me, but he’s never had to deal with anything this physically difficult in his life.”
I’d quickly figured out that Cooper must have told his mother about us, though how much she knew, I had no idea.
“I know.” It was Cooper’s ability to dig his heels in no matter the scenario that had led to the beginning—and the end—of our courtship. “I’ll keep trying to get him to agree to a visit, and ifhe keeps refusing, I promise I’ll have you out here. We’ll just have to be careful about it. This place is remote, but if anyone is watching you or still trying to find him…”
I didn’t want to freak Deb out, but even though Hunter Holland was dead, he’d been working on behalf of a serial killer, Virgil Evans—and Evans still had acolytes who would do anything he commanded. If he decided he wasn’t done with Cooper, like he hadn’t been done with Dane Donovan, then Cooper was still in danger.
“I know, Denny. I appreciate it. Thank you.” She sniffled. She’d thanked me every time we spoke. Well, once she was done yelling at me and threatening me. Did I know she knew the state’s attorney general and had connections in the FBI, and that they could find us if she sicked them on me?
