Cooper rolled her eyes. “Your fact-finding visit is all Mrs. Brooks is talking about.” She waved to the woman in question, who was just putting down the phone.

“You make me sound like a gossip hound,” Mrs. Brooks said reproachfully. “Why shouldn’t I let the staff know who to impress?” The edges of her eyes crinkled. “Be glad I didn’t suggest Mitch roll out a red carpet for you, Ms. Simmons. He’d have dragged one out of God knows where. He’s a very resourceful young man.”

Cooper laughed. “He’d find one, all right. Okay, so I agree. We must show Ms. Simmons a good time.” She grinned at Felicity over the double entendre.

Felicity absolutely refused to meet her eye in case she blushed.

“Not too good a time,” Mrs. Brooks said dryly. “I’m a happily married woman. And don’t act like I can’t hear you dripping with innuendo.” She arched an eyebrow at Cooper. “I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Cooper said primly.

“Sure you don’t. By the way, just so you know, Dr. Mendoza treated one of your regulars in here yesterday. Norma came in to see if there was a tumor in her cat”—she paused to tap a few keys—“Lucille. It turned out to be the kidneys you noticed that felt irregular. Lucille was given blood and urine tests, which came up clean. Everything else was fine. The cat’ll probably outlive us all.”

“That is wonderful news,” Cooper said, then turned to Felicity. “Sometimes kidneys can feel weird in animals and get mistaken for a growth. So Lucille’s fine. This is great!”

Felicity gave a stiff nod to hide her enormous relief, which earned an incredulous look from Mrs. Brooks.

“You and animals,” the older woman muttered, so low she probably thought Felicity wouldn’t hear. “What does Brittany see in you?”

At the mention of her name, the dog lying beside Mrs. Brooks’s chair picked her head up, realized who was here, and bounded over to them with a series of delighted woofs.

“I don’t know why you’re so excited to see me,” Cooper said, giving her a thorough pat. “I went through your joy of a reunion with me three hours ago. And two hours ago. And twenty minutes ago. I swear, the life of a dog must be fantastic, getting to greet their favorite humans repeatedly, as if they haven’t seen them for weeks.”

Felicity smiled at that until Brittany headed her way, looking up at her with a loving expression that just begged to be met with pats. “Don’t look at me like that,” Felicity said, sliding her hands in her pockets out of temptation’s way. “We’re not friends.”

Brittany sat at her feet, bumping her thigh with her head. Felicity whimpered internally.

“Unfortunately,” Cooper said with a gleeful look, “your bond was sealed the moment you fed her on Monday.”

“Lucky me.” She sighed and stared down at Brittany, offering her most imperious stare. “I apologize for giving you false expectations with the ham. I didn’t want it to go to waste.”

“Do you really dislike animals so much, Ms. Simmons?” Mrs. Brooks asked askance.

Cooper laughed. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen her yesterday at the open day. She was up to her chin in cats, looking like she was in heaven, snuggling them all.”

“I am fairly sure you mistook me for someone else,” Felicity protested.

“That seems more likely,” Mrs. Brooks said, disbelief clear in her eyes.

“Ri-i-ight. Okay, come with me,” Cooper nudged Felicity. “Let’s get a coffee and discuss strategy. I’ll even introduce you to more tasty carbs.”

With a sigh, Felicity shook her head and said, “If you must.”

* * *

Felicity soon found herself a few streets away eyeballing a bakery called Capri. Fatty, sugary cakes filled the window. “Really?” she muttered, aghast.

“Do you mind? I have to inhale some rainbow cookie when I can’t figure things out. Helps me think.” Cooper grinned.

“Rainbow cookie?”

“It’s big around the Bronx. Legendary, even.”

“If you say so,” Felicity said in a dubious tone.

“I do. So you grab us a pair of counter seats, and I’ll order.”

Felicity pursed her lips and nodded.

Before long, two steaming coffees slid onto the counter in front of her along with sachets of sugar. One coffee was milky, the other dark. “Wasn’t sure how sweet you liked it,” Cooper said, taking the counter stool beside her, “but I was pretty sure you’d go for bitter black.”

“Is that a critique of my personality?” Felicity asked, pulling the darkest cup closer. “Good guess, though.”

“It’s more a powerful boss-lady thing. Dee took her coffee this way, too. Y’all think it makes you look tough. It doesn’t. It makes you look insane.” Cooper pulled her own drink close, added three sugars, and gave it a stir. Then she tugged a plate in front of herself. The cake slice had layers of pink, yellow, and green with a lash of chocolate icing. An edible rainbow.

“How very…gay,” Felicity mused.

“Or…fitting?” Cooper suggested, tone teasing. She grinned and forked a portion off. “Try some?” She offered the fork.

“No, thanks.” At Cooper’s pout, Felicity added, “I’m not a cake fan. This isn’t about my genetics again. Cake’s simply too sweet for me. I have a savory tooth.”

“Fair enough.” Cooper took a bite herself and sighed happily. “More for me.”

Felicity smiled and sipped her coffee. “So is Harvey ducking me? Well, us?”

“Well, I’m not sure what’s going on.” Cooper sighed. “I told him we wanted to talk to him about the vet-tech program because Rosalind seemed to think he was going forward with it. That’s when he got a bit spooked and weird, and he was gone before I knew it.”

“That’s really suspicious. And yet the first day I was here, Mrs. Brooks assured me everything was completely aboveboard financially. Didn’t you say the office only ran at all due to her? She’d know if something was off, wouldn’t she?”

“I think she’d know.”

“So maybe Mrs. Brooks is in on this, too, somehow. Whatever this is.”

“No.” Cooper recoiled. “She’s absolutely dedicated to this charity. And by the way, so’s Harvey. I mean he loves it.”

“But you agree he’s hiding something? Come on, Harvey is the worst liar.”

Cooper took a sip of coffee, her mood turning morose. “He’s an honest man. Well, I always thought he was.”

“Cooper? Has there been any sign that he’s been sliding money around before? Maybe something you paused over at the time but pushed aside?”

She slowly shook her head. “No. And I’m having a hard time believing it now. It’s all so…un-Harvey. It’s not like he needs the money for himself.”

“True. His wife’s success makes embezzlement seem an odd choice. And I really think she believes her husband when he says he’s setting up a vet-tech program. I saw it in her eyes.”

“Well, Rosalind is no fool,” Cooper mused. “Her whole family benefits from her business smarts. She set one brother up with a sporting-goods store. Her sister runs a fashion label that Rosalind funded. Her other brother’s overseas, studying in Italy. Various nieces and nephews have trust funds. She’s in charge of it all.”

“And she gave Harvey an animal foundation to run.”