The courtyard was no longer so peaceful, but she reminded herself she’d done what was best. “One of his girlfriends told me he was getting ready to have it sized to fit his finger. Any jeweler would know right away that it’s not genuine and pass on the news. So I took it. Aamuzhir might be a weasel, but he’s a weasel with unlimited funds, and you can’t have this hanging over your head for the rest of your life.”

He was staring at her as though she’d stepped in from another planet. “You stole the ring?”

“I had to.”

He looked more horrified than angry. “You realize if he doesn’t figure out you’re responsible, he’ll blame one of those girls or someone on his crew. Do you have any idea what he might do to them?”

“He won’t do anything.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I kind of do.” She made herself meet his eyes. “I . . . left a substitute.”

“I’m not following you.”

“The real thing,” she said in a rush.

He cocked his head. “You couldn’t have. The real ring is in my bedroom safe.”

She didn’t say anything. Just sat there and waited for him to figure it out.

“Piper . . .” His voice was a slow tsunami relentlessly rolling toward the shore.

“I had to put an end to this. He had to be neutralized.”

“So you . . .”

She took a deep breath. “I took the fake and gave him the real thing.”

The tsunami hit the shore. “You cracked my safe!”

“Not technically.” Duke had introduced her to the world of locks—the way the tumblers, drive cams, and wheel flies worked. She’d celebrated her fifteenth birthday by cracking his safe, but breaking into Coop’s had required only a little trial and error. His combination had turned out to be his high school, college, and pro jersey numbers. She’d been in and out of the safe before he’d made coffee. “Your combination was easy,” she said.

“You got into my safe and stole my Super Bowl ring.” Disbelief etched every word. “Then you took it to that bastard’s yacht, sneaked into his bedroom, and exchanged the copy for the real thing?”

“You never wear it,” she said, more unsure by the second of the wisdom of what she’d done. “I’ll make it right, Coop. I don’t know how, but I will. This had to stop for your own good.”

“I’d already handled it!” He shot up from the couch, took a step away, then came right back at her. “While you were breaking and entering, I neutralized the son of a bitch. And I did it without handing over my ring!”

“What do you mean you neutralized him?”

He told her. Spitting out the words. Telling her about his nonexistent mercenary friend and the implied threat he’d delivered. Growing more and more furious with each word. “You stepped so far across the line you’re in another universe.”

“Coop, I—”

He leaned forward. In her face. “You have no idea what I went through to earn that ring. The drills, the two-a-days. The surgeries. Watching tape at four in the morning before anybody else saw it. Beating the coaches to the office. I studied fucking thermodynamics!”

“I didn’t—”

“I earned that ring with blood and brains and more pain than you can imagine.” The ferocity he unleashed had built his legend, but she’d never imagined it unleashed on her. “I’ve played in hundred-degree heat, in weather so cold my hands were numb. Do you know what I did to get ready to play when it was that cold? I held my hands in ice water—kept them there—just so I could get used to the feeling. And I smiled while I did it, and do you know why? Because I wanted to win. Because I wanted to make my life mean something!”

She came to her feet, her heart in her throat. “I’m—”

He stormed off, leaving her alone in the middle of a tranquil courtyard that smelled of oranges and lemongrass.

17

The drinks in the sports bar were cheap, the tourists few, and the locals uninterested in a woman sitting in the corner staring blindly at a televised soccer game being played somewhere in the world. It was two in the morning. A few men had approached her, but Piper had turned such blank eyes on them that they’d quickly left her alone.

She was lower than low, and now she was doing what all messed-up detectives did when they were lost. She was getting drunk.

She should never have taken his ring. She wouldn’t have if she’d been smart enough to come up with another plan. But she hadn’t been smart enough—not as smart as he’d been. Some detective she was turning out to be. And now here she sat, drowning her ineptitude in liquor.

She polished off her third drink. Ordered a fourth. She was swilling old-fashioneds, but with no cherry, no orange, straight bourbon whiskey, extra hard on the bitters.

Duke Dove would never have done anything so half-brained. But then, Duke had been a pro, while she was still an amateur.

Her fresh drink arrived. She thought she might be getting double vision, but she sipped it anyway. The ice cubes clinked against the side of her glass as the chair next to her squeaked on the wooden floor. She didn’t look up. “Get lost.”

A familiar hand—a familiar, ringless hand—plunked a bottle of Sam Adams on the table. Another mistake on her part—asking the hotel doorman for directions to the nearest cheap bar. She’d never thought Coop would follow her.

She stared up at the soccer game. “I’m not a team player,” she finally said, her speech only slightly slurred.

“I’ve noticed.” The words crackled with hostility.

Her fresh glass sported a waxy lipstick imprint that hadn’t come from her. She took a sip from the other side. “I don’ know how to be.”

“You against the world, right?”

“Tha’s the way it’s always been.” She stuck her index finger in her drink and shifted around the ice cubes. “Today I hit the downside.”

“Way down.”

“I’m not looking for a pass, if tha’s what you’re thinking. I did something stupid because I din’t have a better idea. I’ll figure out how to pay you back.”

He scraped his thumbnail down the middle of the beer label, ripping it in two. “Like you said. Not a team player.”