Dark Water (Cooper M. Reid Book 1) (2 page)

“I’ve missed you, Steph,” Cooper said.

“You too,” she said.

Cooper could tell that she was close to tears and he didn’t want to see her cry. He broke the hug as gingerly as he could and held her at arm’s length. He looked into her face and wanted to kiss her very badly. But they were different people now and time had done some strange things to both of them.

“Sit down, sit down,” she said. “I’m not
even
trying to get sentimental today.”

“Probably for the best,” Cooper said.

He took his seat and looked out to the sea again. With Stephanie Pagent sitting across from him and the beach behind them, Cooper felt like this might be what people meant when they referred to
Paradise.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt this happy—this
free.

Of course, the conversation they needed to have would derail all of that. They sat in silence for a moment, taking each other in. A waiter came by, sneaking up on them from the bar that sat on the backside of the pier. Cooper ordered a beer and fish tacos and then he and Stephanie returned to their silence.

As had always been the case, it was Stephanie that broke it. And when she did, she did so with her usual intense focus, looking him in the eyes with the rapt attention that he had never been able to give her.

“It’s been twenty months, Cooper,” she said. “Almost two years. That’s a long time.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” she asked.

“I do. Believe me. And one of these days, I’ll tell you why it’s been so long. I’ll tell you everything. But I can’t do that right now.”

She nodded, as if this was exactly what she had expected.

“You know,” she said, “I thought you were dead for a while. When three months passed and I hadn’t heard from you, I called your parents. They told me that they were assuming the same thing. They said the people you worked for had no answers. So me, your parents, and God knows who else…we all just assumed you were dead. I spent over a year thinking you had died. Do you know what it feels like to get a phone call from someone you had assumed was dead?”

“I can’t say that I do.”

“And now you want me keeping secrets, is that right? I’m not clear on why you aren’t telling your parents that you’re alive. Do you know how messed up that is?”

“I’m sorry, Steph. But it has to be this way for now. You were the only one I thought would be able to help me
and
keep some secrets for a while.”

“How long is
a while
?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Oh,” she said with a sarcastic smile. “I almost forgot.”

She reached down beneath her seat and put her purse on the table. She pulled a trade paperback out and placed it on the opposite side of her basket of shrimp.

“Because most of the world assumes you’re dead, do you have any idea what this goes for these days?”

Cooper looked at the book and felt his heart deflate in his chest. The title was very familiar.
Grasping the Fringes.
The name of the author was even more familiar: Cooper M. Reid.

“How much?” he asked.

“About five hundred. Autographed copies fetch around three grand. I’m not going to lie to you…I sold mine.”

“I don’t blame you,” Cooper said.

“The History Channel even did a special on you.
Spooky Smarts
, they called it.”

“Seriously?”

She nodded, selecting another shrimp and tossing it into her mouth.

Cooper wasn’t sure how to feel about that. A year or so ago, he would have probably been elated. But now it felt like he was dead and buried yet alive at the same time, fully aware people egging his tombstone six feet overhead.

He looked back down to the book and frowned.

When he’d had the book published, it had been one of the happiest days of his life. But now it was a reminder of a life that he had not used to its full potential. Of course, that had been before he had gone missing for three months. The things that had happened to him and the things he had seen—they all made the former Cooper, the one with the huge ambition and drive, seem like a careless fool.

Oddly enough, he couldn’t remember the things he had seen or what had happened to him.

“Cooper…it
is
nice to see you,” Stephanie said. “I can’t even begin to explain how nice it is. And I want to help you in any way that I can. But I don’t know that I’m going to be able to do anything illegal just to keep you a secret. If you have people in powerful places looking for you like you say, then how do you know they aren’t watching us right now.”

“I’ve been extremely careful,” Cooper said. “Before I made the decision to come here, I reached out to the only other friend I ever had. It’s a guy I used to work with...someone I knew I could trust. He’s kind of like you. He’s a whiz with computers and spent some of his youth with hacker groups. Much like you, he’s revered in paranoid online circles. He and I spent about three weeks making sure that the people that I used to work with have no idea that I am back.”

“How long
have
you been back?”

“Nine months,” Cooper said.

“All of the news reports said you disappeared while doing research for some weird case in Kansas. Is that right?”

“Close enough,” Cooper said. “But like I said…I’ll tell you everything some other time. I just don’t know that I can get through it all right now.”

She gave him a look that was partly playful but mostly hurt. “So for right now, you just need me to do some pretty sketchy favors for you, is that it?”

“Yeah,” he said softly.

“And will you expect me to just come running whenever you ask?”

“Steph…it’s not like that. Really.”

Stephanie put her sunglasses back on. Cooper wasn’t sure if this was some sort of defense mechanism or what. He had never been particularly good at reading women.

The waiter came back with Cooper’s beer and tacos. Stephanie watched the waiter go, waiting for him to be out of earshot before she spoke.

“Well, I’ve already done some of the favors,” she said. “The money, for instance. That’s taken care of. And I have the address you asked for.”

Again, she reached into her purse. This time she took out a plain white envelope and slid it over to Cooper. She slid it behind the basket of popcorn shrimp and Cooper’s fish tacos so none of the other patrons would see. Cooper took it and didn’t even bother looking inside. He trusted Stephanie and knew she would have done as he had asked.

“Thanks,” he said, stuffing the envelope into his back pocket.

“That bank account only has about five thousand dollars in it,” Stephanie said. “Well, now that I withdrew that five hundred for you, it’s less than that. How are you going to get by without a real job?”

“I have some extra cash. I took advantage of people thinking I was dead and had my friend help me sell some stuff online. My old journals, equipment, stuff like that.”

“That’s fiendish of you,” she said, but couldn’t suppress the smile. “How much?”

“About eleven grand.”

“It might sound like a lot, but it’ll be gone before you know it.”

Cooper grinned and rested his hand on the book that still sat on the table between them. “Well, if things get tight I always have this to fall back on.”

“Writing? About your usual stuff?”

“Maybe.”

“I don’t see you ever using a pen name,” she said. “You’re too full of yourself.”

He grinned, but the comment stung. The Cooper she had known
had
been entirely too full of himself. He really wanted to let her in on the kind of man he was now—about how he had changed. He wanted to tell her everything that had happened to him, but now was not the time. She had agreed to help him with a certain set of tasks that he knew might work out only to blow up in his face. When he knew for certain that what he had planned was going to either succeed or fail, then he’d tell her.

Or so he told himself.

“Things are different now,” was all he said.

“Am I allowed to ask how?” she said.

He shrugged and sipped from his beer. “I want to help other people,” he said. “All of the things I know, I want to try to put it to good use.” He nodded towards the book as he said this.

“Helping others while still
grasping the fringes
, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“And the first people you want to help are here in Kill Devil Hills?”

“Yeah. You said you got the address, right?”

“Yes. It’s in the envelope. You mean to tell me that you haven’t even called them?”

“No.”

“So you’re just going to drop by?” she asked. “You’re just going to tell these people that you found a newspaper article about them and you think you can help. Is that about right?”

“That’s it, exactly.”

“Going in confident with guns blazing,” Stephanie said. “Some things
don’t
change, it seems.”

“Guilty,” he said. “Hey, how long are you staying here at the beach?”

“Two days. Then it’s back to work.”

“You want to grab dinner tonight?”

She eyed him skeptically. “Let me think about it.”

“Where are you staying?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she said. “Now shut up and eat your lunch.”

He laughed and had to look away from her. It hurt him to realize that he may have missed his opportunity with Stephanie Owens. It made him wonder what other opportunities he had missed while chasing a ridiculous career and trying to be larger than life.

He took another gulp of his beer and looked out to the ocean. He watched the waves rolling in and then glanced to Stephanie. She was looking at him like she used to, with a cute sort of curiosity but an underlying skepticism.

It felt nice. It felt familiar.

And for now, that was all Cooper could ask for.

3

With two beers and a large order of fish tacos in his stomach, Cooper pulled his car into the small dirt driveway in front of the Blackstock residence. There was another car in the driveway, a good sign that there might be someone home. This is where Stephanie’s address had led him and the moment he saw it, he knew it was the right place.

The residence was a cozy beach house located about a quarter of a mile away from the last of the year-round rentals outside of Kill Devil Hills. Their driveway was bordered with crossties, decorative driftwood, and the scraggly beach weeds that seemed to grow on most every small dune on the east coast.

He parked the car and stepped out, trying to imagine what it must be like to arrive home every day and see a limitless expanse of ocean from your driveway. He felt inside his pocket, making sure he had the article he had printed out. He doubted he’d need it, but it made him feel better prepared for the awkward encounter that was just moments away.

As he walked to the front door, he studied the exquisitely maintained house. In comparison to the rentals he had passed on the way here, it was radiant. Even the small wooden porch was finely polished and clean.

He knocked on the front door which was adorned by a small wooden sign in the shape of a sand dollar. The word BLACKSTOCK looked to have been written by a child’s finger in the sand.

Cooper was admiring this when a woman answered the door. She looked sleepy and in a hurry. She gave Cooper an inquisitive stare and subtly inched back behind the partially opened door.

“Hello?” Jenny Blackstock said. “Can I help you?”

“I’m not sure,” Cooper said, realizing that he wasn’t quite sure how to approach the topic he needed to breach.

“Ok…,” Jenny said.

“I’m actually here because I think I might be able to help you,” Cooper said.

Wow, that sounded cheesy as hell,
he thought as he watched the woman inch back even further. He figured he probably had only five seconds and one more comment before she closed the door in his face.

“I’m sorry,” Cooper said. “That was a terribly stupid thing for me to say. Let me try again. Is that okay?”

The woman said nothing. She only nodded slowly, not really afraid, but awkwardly curious. Cooper knew that there was nothing immediately threatening about his appearance. At just under six feet tall and with cheeks that always appeared slightly pudgy despite his well-maintained frame, most people assumed that he was friendly by nature.

“Are you Jenny Blackstock?” he aksed.

“Yes. And you are…?”

“My name is Cooper Reid,” he said. “I was hoping I could talk to you about the weird events you’ve been experiencing in your home.”

Her curiosity shifted into shock. She pushed the door closed a bit more but still did not shut it. She remained quiet and Cooper used her hesitation to his advantage. He reached into his pocket and took out the two articles he had printed out five days ago. He unfolded the first one and showed it to Jenny Blackstock. He held it out to her with caution.

“This is you, right?” he said.

She looked to the article and her cheeks flushed with red. She looked up from the article, titled
A Haunted Beachfront Home
, and into Cooper’s face.

“Where did you get this?” she asked.

“The internet. The site isn’t very well known. But the guys that write for it do great research.”

Jenny was clearly mad now and was having no more of it. She shook her head, and looked to the floor. “Please leave,” she said as politely as she could while closing the door.

Dumbfounded, Cooper looked at the door and then down to the article. He folded it up slowly and then placed it back into his pocket. He had been expecting his initial conversation with the Blackstocks to be awkward, but not a straight-out failure. He hadn’t expected this at all.

He still held the other folded article in his hands, not wanting the two articles to be connected, but somehow certain that they were. And now the one solid lead he had on either of them was refusing to speak to him.

This made no sense. He had
known
to come here. In many ways, he had been
asked
to come here—although the Blackstocks clearly knew nothing about that.