Leigh agreed to meet him at a restaurant off I-35 on the south side of town. Maybell’s Café. The place looked fine when she googled it, but she arrived to discover that it was adjacent to a giant truck stop crammed with eighteen-wheelers. She drove around to the back and pulled into a lot reserved for normal-size cars.

She got out and looked around, more than a little irritated by Cooper’s choice of venue. There were plenty of places they could have met that weren’t surrounded by roaring diesel engines and exhaust fumes. She held her breath as she crossed the lot and entered the diner.

A glass case filled with pies greeted her. Chocolate pies, cherry pies, banana pies, all missing a few wedges and all piled high with whipped cream. Leigh passed the dessert case and squeezed through the crowd of Levi’s-and-flannel-clad men milling near the register. As they looked her over, she regretted her outfit today—yoga pants and a loose top that showed off her sports bra. Not her usual client-meeting attire, but this wasn’t a usual meeting, and Cooper Collins wasn’t even a client.

She scanned the restaurant and had no trouble spotting him in a booth in the back. The bespectacled grad student stood out in the room filled with long-haul truckers.

Plus, he was sporting a nasty shiner.

She crossed the restaurant, and the little warning bell that had been going off in her head since his phone call became a full-blown siren.

She slid into the booth across from him. The table was sticky with syrup, and she tucked her purse onto the seat beside her. Cooper had a half-empty mug of coffee in front of him. The bridge of his glasses was taped, and he had a bad case of bed head.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“I got mugged in the parking lot next door.”

“When?”

“Couple nights ago.”

Leigh’s mind raced as she tried to plug that bit of info into what she already knew about his activities this week.

“So, you’re staying at the motel?” she asked.

“For now.” He gazed down at his coffee mug, shaking his head. “People won’t leave me alone. They keep coming by my work and my home.”

“Oh yeah?”

He gave her a sharp look. “Robert saw you, by the way.”

“Robert?”

“When he was walking his dog.”

Robert would be Hooch’s dad.

“The police have been by, too. Twice.” He looked over Leigh’s shoulder. “Do you think you were followed here?”

“Who would follow me?”

“That detective guy. Reynolds.” He paused. “I saw the two of you talking on the porch of your office.”