Size 12 and Ready to Rock

I shake my head. “She didn’t give me copies of his e-mails, but I can try to get some from her.”

“Okay,” Cooper says. “He’s smart, but I doubt he’s smart enough to forge the IP address in his e-mail headers.”

“What kind of website is that?” I ask, squinting at Cooper’s screen. I’m pretty sure I need glasses for looking at computer screens, but I’m trying to fight the inevitable. “One that’s only available to detectives?”

“And anyone else who pays fifteen dollars a month,” Cooper says. “You shouldn’t shop so freely online, by the way. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve had to take down your social security number? And your loyal fans have tracked down this address and put it on Google Earth. I’ve had to take that down a few times too.”

“Aw,” I say, leaning over to kiss his whisker-scruffed cheek. “My hero.”

“Yes, well,” he says, looking embarrassed. “I wouldn’t want any rat-poison-tainted cupcakes delivered here.”

“I think I can resist the urge to eat food that shows up on our front stoop,” I say. “And what makes you think Gary Hall isn’t his real name?”

“Because I just found two hundred Gary Halls,” he says. “All in their mid to late forties, all of whom seem to have lived in Florida at some time or other. I’ll never be able to figure out which one is the Gary Hall we want. Seems a little convenient to me.”

“Can’t you find out from their marriage certificate?” I ask. “Or their divorce certificate? Those are matters of public record.”

“Sure,” Cooper says. “But we won’t be able to get our hands on either of those until the courthouse opens Monday morning.”

I point to the computer. “Can’t you look them up online, like they do on CSI?”

He lets out a cynical laugh. “Oh, you sweet, naive girl. Some information is still available only in paper format, and then only to immediate family members. If you aren’t a family member, you have to physically present yourself at the county clerk’s office, usually with a small bribe, in order to obtain it. And the county clerk will still give it to you only if you’re as suave and debonair as I am, with a bold yet insouciant twinkle in your eye. Otherwise, they’re always on break.”

“I can’t believe you called yourself debonair,” I say. “Bold yes, and definitely insouciant, but debonair? And I’ve never noticed you were particularly suave either.”

“Suave enough to get you, baby,” he says with a wink.

I reach for another Oreo, ignoring him. “Can’t you track him down through the high school’s website?”

“You mean this one?” he says, pointing his laptop screen at me. I blink at the blue-and-white background.

“Does that say Lake Istokpoga High School? How do you even pronounce that?”

“It’s Seminole Indian for ‘many men died here.’ A group of them were swallowed by whirlpools trying to cross the lake.” Cooper has swung the laptop around and is reading from the high school’s web page. “Lake Istokpoga is only four feet deep in most places. Boaters need to be careful not to get stuck in bogs. Interesting that they mention this but not that the town is the birthplace of Tania Trace.”

“Maybe it isn’t something they want to advertise,” I say. Lucy has come back inside, her bone apparently buried to her satisfaction. She trots over to lean against my chair for praise, and I stroke her soft coat. “Especially considering the high school choir teacher ran off with her.”

“Still,” Cooper says, clicking through the school’s website, “you’d think someone might have mentioned it. But it’s not a very detailed site.”

“Tania said it’s not the largest school district—”

“Or . . .” Cooper says in an Aha! tone, turning the computer screen toward me, “maybe no one there is aware of who Tatiana Malcuzynski grew up to be.”

I stare at the photo he’s discovered of the first high school choir in the district ever to place in the Florida state finals. Grinning at me cherubically from the second row of sopranos is Tania Trace . . . but unless I’d been looking for her, I wouldn’t have realized it. She’s six years younger, thirty pounds heavier, and a few inches shorter than the Tania with whom I’ve spent most of my evening, her hair a fluffy black aurora around her face and her teeth in braces.

“Okay,” I say. “So she’s basically unrecognizable.”

“What about him?” Cooper taps the screen, and I get my first look at a photo of Gary Hall.

Brown-haired and brown-eyed, neither attractive nor unattractive, not the kind of man who’d ever stand out in a crowd, he looks exactly like . . .

A forty-year-old high school choir teacher.

“Mr. Hall,” I breathe.

“The game,” Cooper says, “is on.”

“Are you going to shoot him?” I ask.

“I am going to do what I’ve been hired to do,” Cooper says, closing his laptop. “Protect my client.”

“So,” I say, “you’re going to shoot him.”

“If he is threatening my client and happens to wander into range,” he says, “then probably, yes. Do you have a problem with that?”

I keep my hand on Lucy’s head. “Not so long as you don’t miss,” I say.

Chapter 19

Other than my bed, there aren’t a lot of places I can stand being on a Sunday morning, but Fischer Hall is one of them. That’s because no one there gets up before noon on weekends—unless they have to, for check-in or checkout. I usually have the place all to myself.

And this morning I need that kind of peace and quiet so I can concentrate. I have a lot of work to do.

I pull open the front door and say hi to the security guard, a woman named Wynona who often works nights, a shift that can sometimes get a bit rough if drunks wander in from the park (or happen to be some of our own residents). But Wynona is no-nonsense enough—and large enough—to handle just about anyone, drunk or sober.

Wynona nods at me over the large coffee she’s holding in both hands, but doesn’t speak. I don’t blame her. It’s been a long night for me too. I have a similar cup in my own hands, even though I know they’ve probably stocked the cafeteria with breakfast for the girls and their chaperones. I couldn’t wait. I nod back.