She told the police all of it and tried not to imagine what would have happened to Karah and Jada if Hank hadn’t gotten the apartments confused. Or what would have happened to all of them if Coop hadn’t shown up.

She waited until eight in the morning to call Heath, who came running into the emergency room barely half an hour later, his face as pale as a hospital sheet. His questions were terse but thorough, and as soon as he understood that Coop was going to be all right, he reverted to his normal manner with a nod toward his client stretched out on the hospital bed. “Nice nightie.”

“Leave him alone,” Piper snarled.

Coop and Heath exchanged looks she ignored. She didn’t want anyone harassing Coop about anything right now.

Later that morning, Piper talked to both Karah and Jada on the phone. Hank was in jail for attempted murder, along with a slew of other charges. Karah blamed herself for everything. “He was really sweet when we started dating, and by the time I realized how sick he was, it was too late. That’s why I left St.Louis. To get away from him. I never thought he’d follow me.”

Piper tried to comfort her and then spoke with Jada. Their conversation was reassuring. “Mom is going to make me see a counselor for a while to make sure I don’t, like, go psycho or anything because of what happened, but I’m pretty sure I won’t. And guess what else? After the police left, Mom said she’d take me out for pancakes, and with everything that happened, I wasn’t paying attention, and Clara shot me. I’m officially dead.”

“Oh, no. I’m really sorry.”

“I know. I thought I’d be more depressed, but it’s kind of okay because it was Clara who shot me, and her and I are kind of getting to be friends.”

“Still, after everything that happened today, that’s rotten timing.”

“Yeah, but I could tell she, like, felt really bad about it, and she needs the money even worse than I do, so I told her it was okay, and we’re going to hang out tomorrow and work on our project about child sex trafficking. The good thing is that I don’t have to carry around those stupid Nerf guns anymore.”

The doctors overrode Coop’s protests and insisted on keeping him overnight. Coop had already kicked Heath out, but he seemed to expect Piper to hang around, not that she would have left.

The orderly assigned to transport Coop from the ER to his private room looked like a nice kid, but Piper stayed by the wheelchair as they traveled up an elevator and down several long corridors. Coop fumed the whole time, not from pain, but because the medical staff wouldn’t let him walk.

There were too many people hanging around outside his room, and Piper wasn’t having it. “If you’re not his doctor or nurse, you shouldn’t be here. Move on.”