"We could have one."
"I'm all ears."
Phoebe tap-tap-tapped into her phone. "Don't you have Boston PD at your disposal now?"
"Um, no."
He might have a job waiting for him-and he did, according to his captain, who'd called this morning-but what he didn't know was who might be waiting for him. Raymond had a lot of friends who'd profited from his little enterprise, and not all of them had been caught in the dragnet. Some of them might still think it'd be good to teach certain cops a lesson about going after fellow cops.
And Cooper didn't need any more frigging lessons, thanks very much.
"Okay, no police network." She nodded, then brightened. "How about a teenaged network?"
"No." He shook his head. "If she's out here somewhere, she's out here undercover. Putting out some citywide teen APB is exactly what we can't do."
"Okay. I get it, but I bet you my pinky we'd find her before the police would, anyway."
"You're probably right." He elbowed her. "And thanks for your help. But I think we've gotta do this the old-fashioned way."
"Which is?"
He pointed to his head, then her phone. "With our noggins. Let's find the arena, then fan out from there. Her hotel's gotta be close to the show, and I'm betting she'd find a park close to the hotel so she doesn't risk getting lost."
"Million hotels. Just saying." Phoebe scrolled madly on her phone. "And you're going to have to go it alone after the next one. I need to go get ready for the concert."
"We'll find her." Cooper nodded fiercely. "We have to."
-
An hour later, Shelby looked around the small crowd for the thousandth time, but … no Cooper. She'd started playing forty minutes ago-just a bunch of country covers by her favorite artists-and it hadn't taken long for people to start pausing their walks so they could listen. Ten minutes later, she'd counted twenty people gathered around, and that number had doubled since then.
The impromptu audience was friendly and polite, clapping sweetly at the end of each piece, and someone had even thrown a request her way a few minutes ago, which had prompted three more from other people.
She loved this-loved sitting on a park bench with her guitar in her lap, playing to people who were only ten feet away. She loved how her voice floated in the air, unfiltered and unenhanced by electronics. She loved watching faces and seeing people mouth the words to the songs she sang. She loved pointing at them to join in the choruses, and hearing their voices float back to her.
She loved it, but this afternoon, it wasn't filling her like it always had when she'd done it with Daddy. She was throwing out wispy spider-threads toward her audience, but she didn't feel like together, they were weaving a tapestry.
She looked down at her fingers as she played the last notes of the current song, mostly so she could stop looking at the crowd, praying to see Cooper's face.
He wasn't here.
And she was out of time.
"Would you guys like to hear something I wrote?" she said, before she could reason with herself not to put her own music out there so soon. What would she do if they hated it? Or if they clapped politely with tight jaws, then requested another Carrie Underwood?
But the hoots and claps fueled her confidence, so she took a deep breath and strummed the opening chord of her second-favorite song on what she hoped would be a country album someday. Maybe Carrie would let her open for her, somewhere a long way down the road.
Her fingers took over, and once she started singing, the crowd faded away, and she closed her eyes, transporting herself straight to Whisper Creek. She didn't know when-or if-she'd ever get to go there again, but this song took her back to blue skies, gentle breezes, and the warmth of a family that had taken in a ragtag bunch of broken people and had made them whole again.
Including her.
Whole might be a stretch, still, but she was getting there, and they'd given her a place to find her footing again. They'd given her friendship and love. They'd given her … Cooper.
As her fingers fell from the strings on the final note, she opened her eyes.
He'd be here now. She could feel it.
But as she scanned the audience once more, her face fell. He wasn't. And now she definitely was out of time.
She took a deep breath, looking up at the sky. She had one song she'd hoped to play for him-one that said all the words she wished she could say, all the ones she wished she had said-and she'd be damned if she'd leave the park before she sang it.
So he wouldn't hear it. She'd done her best, in her own way, to connect with him. It was a big city, and the chances of him finding her were minute, even if he was looking.
She'd go back to the hotel, she'd sit quietly while her team made her into Tara Gibson, she'd go out on that stage tonight and be Tara Gibson, and then she'd dutifully get on her bus at midnight and roll out to Philly.