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tired-looking, you should see inside. Well, people didn’t have real high expectations of the place, but it served a purpose. You may have noticed, it’s not a fancy town.”
    Mac already had Cooper’s cell number, but in a gesture of friendliness, he gave Cooper his before they said goodbye at the diner.
    Since Cooper had no plans or pressing business, he spent a couple of days just driving around the area—up to Coos Bay, into the hills, to the casino in North Bend—keeping his trailer as a home base. One sunny afternoon, he got out his laptop and found a chair on Ben’s deck, facing the bay. In just a few days, he’d come to the conclusion the damp, foggy morning was typical of the Oregon Coast. Sunshine usually arrived midmorning, at the latest, but it was cold enough this October afternoon to require a jacket. Before he opened his laptop and logged on, he saw her again—the woman and her dog. She threw the stick and waited for the large black-and-white dog to bring it back. The dog had the longest legs; he was half as tall as the woman. It was the same woman—red slicker with the hood up, black knee-high rubber boots, hands plunged into her pockets while she waited for the dog. She was walking toward his end of the beach, but before she was close enough for him to get a glimpse of her face, she turned and headed back toward the town.
    He logged on, checking his email, looking up from time to time to watch the progress of the woman and dog. She was too far away for him to be taken by her looks, but he was intrigued nonetheless. There was something about her that was so...lonely. They probably had that in common. Cooper had no trouble getting to know people or making friends, yet he rarely did. He was a loner; he knew that about himself. It didn’t take much to turn a man solitary—being the new guy too often, being controversial now and then, a couple of unsuccessful attempts at a lasting relationship with a woman....
    He sent a note to Luke Riordan—they’d been a scrappy pair of combat-ready helicopter pilots fifteen years ago and Ben had been their mechanic. Not too surprisingly, Ben had been the most stable of the threesome. So Cooper filled Luke in on the details of Ben’s death. Cooper described the property, the beach, the town and the fact that Ben’s place might end up just being auctioned.
    Then he emailed his father and his oldest sister, Rochelle, to tell them where he was, although his cell was working just fine and they could reach him if there was any family business. His parents and three married sisters lived in or near Albuquerque. When he could, he made short visits to New Mexico, but he didn’t spend a lot of time there. Cooper was close to his family, but their relationship was complicated. There was a part of him that felt he’d failed them by never settling down, marrying, having a family and a stable career...and there was a part of him that thought they’d had unreasonable expectations and tried to push him in directions he wasn’t capable of going.
    He heard an engine from the highway far above. He shut down and closed his laptop. Leaving it on the chair, he walked around the deck and witnessed an old pickup come down the road from 101. Even before he saw the driver, he knew this must be Rawley. The truck was ancient enough to be a classic, but the engine ran smooth. That had to be Ben’s work. The tires were new and shiny, cleaned and buffed to new-car life.
    Then the guy parked and got out—yes, had to be Rawley. He was a skinny, balding, grizzled man in his sixties, looking pretty worn-out, and he wore an American flag shirt with his old jeans. He had a scarf or rag bandanna tied around his head and a gray ponytail, circa the sixties. He walked right up to Cooper.
    Cooper stuck out his hand. “Rawley?” he asked.
    The man’s expression didn’t even change. Rather than shaking Cooper’s hand, he put a thick envelope in his grasp. Then he turned to go back to his