Page 6 of Rebels and Roses

It did sound strange, but those events weren’t automatically connected. It could all be a coincidence. A weird one, but a coincidence, nonetheless.

“This all happened in London, right? When your place was broken into, did they have any CCTV footage?”

Tom frowned, and then shook his head.

“No. No, man. I don’t live in London anymore. I haven’t for a while. I live in Denver with my girlfriend Erica. Fiona’s not in London anymore either. She’s in Miami. You didn’t know that?”

“I haven’t talked to Fiona since the divorce was final. Is your family still in London? Or did they move, too?”

Fiona and her family were American but had moved to England - among several other countries while they were school-aged - due to their father’s work at a multi-national corporation.

“Nah, they retired to Naples, Florida. Dad goes fishing almost every day, and Mom sits by the pool and reads. When the weather is nice, she gardens and has lunch with some friends she made there. About twice a year, they go on month-long vacations all over the world. They still don’t like having too many roots in one place. They joke that they’re spending our inheritance.”

That wouldn’t be easy to do. The Kemp family was sitting on generational wealth, plus the father Drew had been extremely successful in his own career.

In other words, they were loaded.

That was one thing that had brought Cooper and Fiona together. They’d both come from wealthy families, and their dads were total assholes. Drew Kemp had taken one look at Cooper and immediately decided that he wasn’t good enough for his little princess. They’d barely shaken hands yet, and the relationship was dead in the water.

“This is an interesting story, Tom, but I’m not sure why you came to me about this. If you think you’re being followedand harassed, you should talk to your local police. As for your apartment being broken into, that does happen.”

“I’ve talked to the police,” Tom replied, frustration in his tone. “I’ve told them about how I’m being followed, but they say there isn’t anything they can do about it. Even after my condo was robbed, they didn’t do a thing. They just took down the information and said they’d watch the pawn shops.”

“Did you get your stuff back?”

“No. My insurance paid for a new television and laptop.” Tom’s fist came down on the tabletop with a thump, and a few heads whipped their way at the sound. “But they didn’t give a shit. They didn’t dust for fingerprints or even try to find out who had done it. If I’d been home, they might have killed me.”

Now Tom was being a tad overdramatic. If he’d been home, Cooper had a feeling that the burglars would have simply passed him by. They probably only wanted to break into homes that weren’t occupied at the time. That would make their “job” a hell of a lot easier.

“You still haven’t told me why you’re here. I’m not a cop. I’m a writer.”

“I know, but you know a lot of cops and detectives. Fiona told me about all of your contacts in the law enforcement world. The ones you use for research for your books.”

Cooper did have a wide network of contacts when he needed to research a storyline. He tried to make his books as realistic as possible, even if that meant actually interviewing killers and cops alike.

That didn’t mean, however, that he could simply dial one up and ask them to spend their time looking into some allegations by his ex-brother-in-law. They had their own workloads without him tasking them with something else. Thomas Kemp, however, probably hadn’t heard the word “no” very often in life. Like his sister Fiona, he didn’t like it much.

“Okay, let’s start at the beginning again,” Cooper said, trying to hold onto his patience.

He’d left a warm bed and a willing woman for this meeting, thinking that Fiona had contacted him. Which reminded him…

“First of all, when you sent me a text, why did you use Fiona’s phone? And does she know that you have her phone?”

For the first time that evening, Tom looked unsure of himself.

“I took her phone,” he confessed, not able to meet Cooper’s gaze. “I didn’t think you would pay any attention to a text from me, but I knew you would from Fiona.”

Shit. This was so screwed up.

“Does she know you have her phone?”

“Yes, she’s been sending me texts telling me I better bring it back. And I will. I just needed to talk to you first.”

“You were in Miami with Fiona?”

“No, she came to visit me in Denver. I’d been telling her about my suspicions. She came out to talk to me in person.”

“What did she say?”

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