Oooh, the plot thickens. What happened to mom? More importantly, what did Cooper do to mom!?

This seems to give us some answers from the flashback, yet poses even more. A very touching moment between the two here.
Two notes. You’ve got a couple pieces of dialog/thought that end in a period followed by a lower-case letter. Not sure if you meant to have upper-case or commas. 4th paragraph and last line.
Also, in that line, “coulda pulled the trigger,” did you intend for him to think coulda? It almost feels more like he meant shoulda.
Great job nonetheless.

I really love what you’re doing with this series. I can’t wait to find out what he did to the mother.