Cooper Graham was the Stars’ former quarterback and Thad’s best friend. The instant the twins spotted Thad, their tug-of-war over the boxes turned into a race to see who could get to him first. Thad diplomatically scooped them both up at the same time, one under each arm. “Look what I’ve got. A pair of elephants.”
“We not elephants!” Will squealed.
“We monkeys!” Isabelle shrieked.
“Truth,” Coop said.
A pretty, dark-haired woman in leggings appeared and gave Thad a hug. Thad introduced them. “Liv, this is Piper, Coop’s deluded wife and the owner of Dove Investigations. Piper, this is the great Olivia Shore.”
Piper Dove Graham didn’t look anything like Olivia’s idea of a detective. No cigarette hung from the corner of her mouth, and the leggings she wore instead of a dirty trench coat revealed no sign of a paunch. “I feel like I should curtsy,” Piper said.
Her grin was so engaging that Olivia immediately laughed. “From what Thad’s told me, it should be the other way around. I’ve never met a detective, let alone a female one.”
“We’re pretty great,” Piper declared, with an even bigger smile.
“Liv’s on vocal rest,” Thad said. “And in case you’re wondering, that means she talks whenever she wants, but not if I ask her a question she doesn’t want to answer.”
Olivia nodded agreeably. “That’s true.”
Isabelle wanted Thad’s attention, and she grabbed his face between her hands. “Where do piggies keep all dey money? In a piggy bank!”
Both twins found this hysterically funny.
“Good one, Izzy,” Thad said, setting them both down. “Although you might work a little on your delivery.”
“I got a bettuh one!” Will exclaimed. “Why do a birdie fly? ’Cause it’s a poopy-face birdie!”
Piper groaned. “That’s a clear sign you kids need to run upstairs and find your helicopters so you can show them to Uncle Thad. He loves helicopters.”
The kids scrambled from the room, each trying to beat the other to the hallway. Coop raised an eyebrow at his wife. “You hid their helicopters, didn’t you?”
“Don’t act like you’ve never hidden them.” Piper turned to Olivia. “I’m down with anything that buys us a few minutes of peace and quiet. Turns out, my husband is only a man of honor when it comes to football. He promised me all I had to do was give birth and he’d take over raising them. I was so besotted I believed him.”
Coop grinned. “By the time she figured out I’d conned her, it was too late. She’d already fallen in love with the little hellions.”
Piper smiled.
“They’re both a couple of do-gooders,” Thad told Olivia. “Coop runs the largest urban gardening project in the city along with a training center to help disadvantaged kids get jobs.”
“My wife’s a lot more impressive,” Coop said. “She’s become an expert on putting child sex traffickers behind bars.”
Piper nodded. “Only because it’s illegal for me to kill them.”
Coop draped an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Do you see why I have to sleep with one eye open?”
Olivia had never met a couple like these two, so obviously in love and so respectful of each other’s work.
“Thad told me over the phone that you’ve run into some trouble.” Piper gestured toward one of the room’s two couches. “He gave me a general idea but I’d like to hear the details from you. Why don’t you tell me about it while the men check on the children?”
“I’m staying here,” Thad said. “I love those two kids, but Liv tends to minimize the situation.”
“No, I don’t,” Olivia said. “All right, maybe I do. It keeps me sane.”
While Coop dealt with his children, Olivia and Thad filled Piper in on everything that had happened on the tour. Only at the end, when Thad finally went off to join Coop in the kitchen, did Olivia tell Piper about the dressing room incident.
“A lot doesn’t add up here,” Piper said.
“At first, the Las Vegas police thought the whole thing was a publicity stunt. Thankfully, they found the limo.”
“But not the driver.” Piper glanced at the notes she’d been making. “I’ll do some checking around. In the meantime, keep your eyes open, and call me right away if anything else happens.”
“I will.”
Piper tapped her ballpoint pen on the notepad. “You and Thad . . . Did you hit it off right away?”
“Not exactly.”
“What then?”
“Is this relevant?”
“Not a bit.” Piper grinned. “I’m nosy, and he’s obviously crazy about you.”
“Attraction of opposites,” Olivia said.
“Maybe, maybe not. He’s an interesting guy. Did he tell you that he does a lot of unpaid work for me?”
“What kind of work?”
“Investigative. Thad is a genius when it comes to finance, and human trafficking is a multibillion-dollar industry. Sex traffickers use banks to deposit money and launder it. Thad understands the banking and financial industry in a way I don’t, and when he looks at financial reports, he sees things that get past me.”
It all came together. This was what was behind his secretiveness when he was on his computer and the whispered phone calls she’d witnessed. “He never said a word to me.”
“He downplays his own do-gooder instincts. And, practically speaking, it’s better for him to keep a low profile. Jocks have access to people who won’t talk to investigators.”
As Olivia tried to absorb this new information, the twins charged back in, their helicopters in tow, and demanded their mother’s attention.
*
On their way back to Olivia’s new apartment, she confronted Thad with what he hadn’t told her. “Don’t you think you could have mentioned this to me?”
“It’s no big deal. Piper does the hard work.”
But it was a big deal and a testament to his character. “I know why you do it. You’re secretly one of the Avengers. Finance Man.”
He smiled. “It’s interesting work, and don’t tell your pal Garrett this, but I get as much satisfaction helping put those creeps behind bars as I do on the field.”
“Fascinating.”
*
Thad spent Sunday night at her new apartment. Since the final week of rehearsals took place in the evenings, she tried to sleep in on Monday morning, but she was up at seven after a fitful, nightmare-plagued night. In twelve hours, she would have to show up for sitzprobe. What was normally her favorite rehearsal was now a writhing snake pit.
When she emerged from the bedroom, she found Thad sitting with his laptop at her new kitchen counter, a mug of coffee in his hand—rumpled white T-shirt, sweatpants, bare feet. Her heart turned over in her chest. This was all she wanted. The two of them forever. She wanted to make his breakfast and have him make hers. She wanted to wash his socks and rub his shoulders when he got home from a long day. He would go into coaching. She’d sit on the sidelines and cheer on his team and maybe make lasagna for the squad. Did they even call it a squad?