So, he’d been to her office. She was getting more and more uneasy with this conversation. Brandon believed Cooper was a suspect. Leigh had told him that was unlikely, but now she was starting to rethink her assumptions. Just because she was skilled at reading people didn’t mean she could identify every whacko. Some people defied type.

“No one followed me here,” she told him. “And I’d like you to explain what you’re so worried about.”

“I will, but we should go next door to the motel. It’s safer.”

A waitress stopped by. The sixtyish woman looked tired and hassled as she flipped open her notepad. “What can I get y’all?” she asked without eye contact.

“Just a check,” Cooper said.

“I’ll have coffee,” Leigh said.

“Anything else?”

“That should do it.”

The woman walked off, and Leigh leveled her gaze at Cooper. “I don’t take meetings in motel rooms. Whatever you want to talk about, do it here.”

Frustration flared in his eyes, and he darted a look at the door. “I really don’t want—”

“Talk. Now. Or I’m leaving.”

Leigh wouldn’t really leave until she got some information out of him. But she didn’t like his theatrics, and she definitely didn’t like the black eye and the secrecy and the avoidance of police.

He raked his hand through his hair, making it stick up even more.

“I don’t know where to start,” he complained.

“You said this is about Vanessa. Start with that.”

He took a deep breath. “I met her in February. We dated. I told you about all that.”

“Okay.”

“And I told you I hadn’t heard from her in a while, but actually I had.” He paused, watching her reaction to the admission. “She called me in June. She was really upset. Distraught. Her ex-boyfriend—”

“Mason Lloyd.”

His gaze narrowed. “You know about Mason?”

“I know some.”

“Well, he was harassing her. Calling her, texting her, showing up at her place after she broke up with him. He wouldn’t let up, and it was getting to her. He kept escalating, and she thought he might be violent.”

“She thought?”

“Yeah. I guess he’d mentioned something once about someone having a restraining order on him or something. She was worried, and she wanted help.”

“Why did she go to you?”

He looked annoyed by the question. “I don’t know. Because I’m nice?”

“And what did you do?”