The Lies That Bind

33: Two Blind Mice

"She's going to kill us," Vincent said, looking over at Cooper from where he sat against the wall just outside Calla's apartment, their asses half-frozen against the concrete. "You do realize that."

"Don't be so dramatic," Cooper said, with absolutely no conviction whatsoever.

Vincent just rolled his eyes and readjusted his beanie, the ends of his hair curling out from under the wool.

Shivering, Cooper drew up the hood of his jacket to ward away the cold—the very same jacket Calla had given him for Christmas, warm and soft and more importantly, hers. An appeasement. Because Vincent had been right about that, at least.

Calla was not going to be pleased to find them outside of her apartment on a random Wednesday afternoon.

Cooper had tried calling her, to give her some sort of warning that they were on their way and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it, but she hadn't answered, just as she hadn't answered his calls the night before last, or the night before that. It was her silence, more than anything, that had clued him in that something was very, very wrong.

Which could really only mean one thing.

"She's going to try and do this thing alone," he'd told Vincent earlier that morning. "I just know it."

Vincent had tried to talk him down with (admittedly) logical reassurances, insisting that Cooper was going to see Calla that weekend anyway, so why not just have a little patience and wait until then—but Cooper wasn't about to budge, not on this.

He knew Calla better than anyone. Her patterns. Her misguided, infuriating judgment calls. In her mind, the incident with Kevin had only solidified the need to keep Cooper at arm's length from the situation with Michaels, for what she likely imagined to be his own safety.

Not that she was wrong. Cooper was at risk, yes. But so was she. They were all at risk, so they were damn well going to figure out a solution together.

Vincent had seen the stubborn light in Cooper's eyes, and instead of arguing the point further, he'd merely shrugged and offered to drive them both to Ithaca, snatching his beanie and keys off the coffee table with a resigned scowl.

"Cooper?" Vincent asked now, blowing warm air into his hands.

Cooper drew back his hood to get a better look at him. "Yeah?"

Vincent wouldn't meet his eye. He gazed straight ahead, at the bare white railing that dropped down to the concrete parking lot below. "The email we got from the university, the night of the championship. About Professor Li." He dropped his hands, shoving them between his thighs. "That day in his office...you called me to distract him and it was no questions asked, but—well, now I'm asking."

It was Cooper's turn to look away. He shuddered as a gust of wind tore down the breezeway. "Don't ask."

"I—"

"Need-to-know basis, Vincent." He braced the back of his head against the concrete wall. "Trust me when I say this. You really, really don't need to know."

Vincent's boots scraped against the concrete as he shifted, restless. "Okay," he said quietly.

And really, what was there to say after that?

While Vincent lingered on things unsaid, Cooper contemplated the predicament with Michaels, lulled into an almost trancelike state as the wind rattled through the bare trees lining the parking lot below, the day flat and gray and dreary. 

In an ironic twist of fate, Stephanie Brighton had saved them, Cooper supposed; the evidence Calla had quite literally dug up from the old shoebox Steph had left behind would prove invaluable in positioning Michaels right where they wanted him. But the question remained...