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the narrow bed, and then straightened his legs and arms.
    Heather pulled off Coop’s sandals and put them on the floor beside a pile of dirty clothes, noting the garbage and empty beer bottles scattered around the room . He’d trashed it since she’d cleaned a week earlier.
    “He’s got demons,” Skeet said with startling kindness, looking first at Coop and then at her, his eyes widening as if embarrassed by his own words.
    Heather studied her father’s face, weathered by the coastal sun and wind, the deep lines smoothed into pale streaks in his current state of unconsciousness. Why did he do this to himself?
    A particular evening popped into her head . She’d been in second grade. Betty Ann, the coolest girl in town, had invited her over after school. With Betty Ann waiting outside on a bike, she’d dashed into the house and found Coop sitting on the sofa. He’d tried to wipe away the tears when he saw her, but she’d realized right away he’d been crying. Even then she knew not to ask why. After sending Betty Ann off alone, she’d made them both peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and stretched out beside Coop on the sofa. She’d watched TV with her head on his chest while he slept. Listening to him snore, she’d wept because she didn’t know how to keep him from being sad.
    After all these years, she still didn’t know.
    Heather followed Skeet from the house and back to the bar. “Thank you for the help,” she said at the door.
    He glanced back as he stepped inside. “It’s nothin’.”
    She gazed out at the dark emptiness of the Gulf. Maybe her father really did fight demons. He’d spent two years of his life in Vietnam, and he never spoke of it in front of her. She’d always wanted to ask him about the war. Unfortunately, she didn’t know how to do that, either.
    Rubbing the back of her neck, she glanced to her right and noticed a light at the old Miller place. There hadn’t been anyone there in the five years since Mrs. Miller had died. Was Starks living in the old house? She hadn’t heard a car pull up before he arrived for dinner, so he must have come from somewhere close.
    What was it about the man that she found so intriguing? He was sure of himself, but not in the swaggering, braggart way that Red was, or old Chief Boudreaux had been. Starks knew he could handle whatever was thrown at him, just as he’d handled the Johnson boys.
    He also seemed to be aware of everything around him. She’d watched the way he registered movement behind him even as he spoke to her, as if he were a wild animal disguised as a man. She wondered what kind of animal he could be. Maybe a tiger. One of those white tigers with blue eyes, attractive but dangerous. Or was he more like a cobra that would try to hypnotize her into complacency before striking?
    Heather started once again for the storage room. She wanted to be done with the evening so she could go home and climb into a warm shower. She couldn’t wait to wash away the residue of cigarette smoke and stale beer.
    ~~**~~**~~
    A lone screaming siren destroyed Saturday morning’s peace.
    Jake sat up, swung his feet over the edge of the bed, and rubbed his face. The siren’s volume grew steadily as it approached.

CHAPTER 2
    B y the time the ambulance passed in front of his house, Jake was running to his car, his thirty-eight, phone, and keys in hand. He caught up to the emergency vehicle shortly after it turned off the paved road less than a quarter mile from his driveway.
    Patrolman Kenny Rhodes, a young man as skinny as Red Daily was big, stood beside the squad car in front of a pale pink house illuminated by halogen lights. Jake recognized the elderly woman hovering near the door as the patron of Coop’s who had driven past him on his walk home. She wore badly applied red lipstick, a crooked wig, and a huge pink bathrobe. “Hurry,” she yelled at the ambulance driver. “ Hurry! ”
    EMTs jumped out of the vehicle and ran into the house.
    Jake clipped