“So you’re saying you guys aren’t working together?” I asked slowly. I knew he was going to kill me here. Why else would he bring me into Rink 2? He wasn’t going to tell me everything and let me go. If anything, he’d probably try to frame Eric for it, the same way he was framing Eric for raping Ashley.
“You’re not an idiot, Mika,” he said. “Of course he didn’t rape Ashley. Do you really think he could?”
I wasn’t sure if the question was rhetorical so I didn’t say anything.
“We tried to get him to have sex with her again, but the drug must have been stronger than I realized because he couldn’t even get it up.” Kevin rolled his eyes, pulling the gun from his pocket and pointing it at me. I raised my arms up. “We had to settle for snatching a pubic hair.”
“And you thought a pubic hair would be enough?” I should keep my mouth shut. I should comply with whatever he wanted.
But I couldn’t. I had to understand the thought process behind this.
“It did, didn’t it?” He grinned but there was no warmth in it. “Nowadays, everyone believes the victim. Everyone is too afraid to question her, to raise a sliver of doubt. When Eric told me he was going to hire you after extorting him didn’t work and Ashley was going to go public, I thought you’d be the same way.”
“Why would you think that?” I asked. My arms were starting to hurt. I really needed to get in shape.
“Because women are supposed to believe women.” He said it as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Girl power and all that bullshit, right? Yeah, you might look into things but at the end of the day, you would tell Eric you couldn’t get involved.”
“But why get involve?” I asked. I took a step towards Kevin. And then another. If I was going to die, I wouldn’t stand and wait for it. “You’re his best friend, Kevin.”
“I wasn’t his best friend,” he spat. “Eric took the life I should have lived if it wasn’t for my stupid fucking injury! He had everything I wanted. I hated him. I thought I’d be happy after you guys broke up, but he turned into a pitiful mess. I couldn’t find joy in pathetic misery. But if I ruined something he so carefully crafted – his reputation – if I took away his ability to play, he’d finally understand what it was like.”
“So you teamed up with Ashley?” I guessed.
“She was complaining after the season last year about how Eric talked and talked about you but how he made no move to ask her out after their night together,” he said. “The plan unfolded in my head after that. You could say Ashley was my muse. She wanted to hurt him just like I did.”
“And me?” I asked tentatively. “What are you going to do with me?”
“Kill you, obviously.”
I tackled him to the floor. A gun shot went off and hit the ceiling. I screamed. I hopped up, pulling myself away from him. I wanted to kick his wrist, wanted to get the gun away from him. He muttered expletives I ignored. He grabbed my wrist mid-kick and pulled. I lurched forward. With my other foot, I managed to thrust back and kick him in the face.
“You bitch!” he screamed, letting me go.
Instead of focusing on the gun, I ran. I needed to get out of here. I needed to escape.
He growled. “You are so dead!”
Chapter 23
A gunshot pierced the air. My eyes widened. I couldn’t see where the bullet went, but I could see the wisp of steam that pierced the cold air from where it started. I held my breath, waiting for the pain.
No.
He knocked me down when the shot missed. He was hurting me, choking me.
Another shot went off.
Kevin grunted and rolled off of me. Breath crashed into my lungs the way waves crashed into the shore. I picked myself up and stumbled away. I didn’t feel the cold. Not anymore.
“You okay?”
The second I heard Beech’s voice, I let out a sob. It was over. Finally, it was over.
Beech still had his gun pointed at Kevin, dark eyes narrowed. His entire body was tense as he slowly stepped towards Kevin, currently writhing on the floor. He was wailing about his knee. Splatters of blood fell onto the concrete floor.
I didn’t care. Let the fucker bleed out for all I care.
“Kevin Benjamin,” Beech said. “You are under arrest.”
I tuned out as Beech read Kevin his miranda rights. Patrol officers spilled into the rink, guns drawn, waiting for Beech’s orders. There was no way Kevin could escape. There was no way he would be able to hurt me or anyone else again.
“Hey.” Beech was suddenly in front of me, hand cupping my cheek, tilting my head up so I would meet his eyes. “Hey. Chalmers. You in there?”
I furrowed my brow and hissed. I didn’t realize my head was hurting until now. Until the threat of Kevin was gone. I was hit with a wave of dizziness and nearly stumbled back. Beech tightened his grip on me to prevent me from falling. My head was light.
“Whoa, whoa. Let’s sit down.” He gently led me out of the rink and onto one of the bench’s in the warm lobby. I shivered even now, like I was dealing with residual cold. Beech eased me onto the grey bench. “There you go. There you go.”
He took my hands in his. I hadn’t realized how big they were before. Beech wasn’t the tallest or the buffest guy. And yet, he still made me feel safe – more than anyone else except maybe my father. But his hands were able to hold onto mine, his long, elegant fingers were able to wrap around me, holding onto me, making sure I knew he wasn’t going to let go any time soon.
“Mika.” My first name on his lips was a strange and wondrous thing. I wanted to hear it again but I was too shy to ask for it. “It’s okay. We got him. He can’t get you.”
“And Ashley?” I asked, taking my eyes off our hands to look at him. “Where’s Ashley?”
“You think she has something to do with this besides being a victim?” he asked.
I didn’t know, but something about her felt off.
“The thing I keep coming back to is the pubic hair,” I said.
I pressed my lips together, thinking. Under normal circumstances, I would have walked around, pacing until I came up with some sort of explanation even if it was wrong. Instead, I stayed wrapped up in the warmth of Beech’s arms. I didn’t want to leave just yet. I didn’t want to step back and step back into our usual roles that definitely did not have any sort of physical affection between us.
“Eric admitted to having sex with her after the last playoff game April eighteenth,” I said. “That was consensual. Maybe she got a pubic hair during that encounter and saved it.”
Beech tilted his chin down, his face contorted in a look nothing short of disgust.
“She went out of her way to save one pubic hair?” he asked. “What, so she could plant it on herself a few months later?”
He was right. It didn’t make sense.
“What if,” I said slowly. I had the beginning of an idea but I didn’t quite know how it would pan out. “What if it was Kevin. Kevin has access to Eric’s equipment. Maybe he found a hair on his jock strap.”
“So he and Ashley planned this?” Beech said, his voice still doubtful.
“I’m thinking he and Ashley teamed up to pin a rape on Eric when Eric wouldn’t give her the money,” I said. “So if we broke it up by timeline, Kevin introduces Ashley to Eric. Ashley and Eric have consensual sex. Ashley thinks this will lead to a serious relationship. It doesn’t. She’s angry. Maybe at this point, she and Kevin come up with a plan to extort Eric. They all meet up at the club. Kevin drugs his drink. Eric doesn’t remember Ashley. They either hook up again – consensually, though Eric is drugged and drunk so maybe an argument could be made that he was raped – or he’s drugged enough where they assume he won’t remember having sex. I’m assuming they did just because of the pubic hair. It’s also why I do think Ashley’s involved.”
Beech nodded. His fingers gently stroked my hair and I sighed, placing my head back on his shoulder and giving myself this time just to enjoy him. He
did smell like cigarettes but it was wrapped in his cologne, giving him a musky, masculine scent.
“I don’t get it,” Beech said. “I though Foresburg and Kevin were friends. Why would he do this to Foresburg? Jealousy?”
I nodded. “I don’t know why else he would,” I said, my hand resting on Beech’s hip. I could feel his warmth through the thin material of his shirt. I could fall asleep against him. “When he was chasing me, he kept going on and on about how Eric was living his life. I guess Kevin was actually drafted by an NHL team but opted to go to college and blew his knee so he never got to do anything with it. I guess the two met at that draft and when Eric was drafted by Irvine, they stayed friends.”
“When you were together –“
“Kevin seemed completely normal to me,” I said. “I mean, he was kind of weird, sure, but not to the point where I thought he was going to kill me.”
“Could you detect his jealousy?”
I paused for a moment. I didn’t want Beech to stop playing with my hair. I didn’t want to leave his embrace. I didn’t want this moment to end, even if we were talking about my ex. I didn’t care. Beech didn’t make me feel ridiculed or ashamed about my past. He made me feel comfortable, like he was genuinely curious.
“Not really,” I said. “Every now and then, I suspected it. But I didn’t take it seriously. Kevin was successful in his own way. I thought he had gotten over the injury thing and was focusing his attention on other things.”
I could feel Beech shake his head even though I couldn’t see him. “Guys don’t just get over things like that,” he said. “Being an NHL player would have changed his life. There’s no way he wouldn’t have been slightly resentful of that.”
“You sound like you know this from personal experience.”
A couple of officers walked past us but Beech didn’t let go of me. It was getting dark outside and my skin continued to prickle with goosebumps. Every now and then, a shiver would ripple through my body and I would bury myself against Beech even more.
“I’ve never been a sports guy,” he said. “Look at me. I’m not tall and I’m not bulky. But I’ve been up for sergeant more than a few times and despite passing the exam, I’ve been passed over a few times. I’m not going to team up with someone and pin a murder on the chief or anything, but it’s easy to get sucked into resentment. It’s not fun.”
I picked up my head so I could look at him. I knew we were close, but I hadn’t realized just how close we were until I was directly in front of him. If I pushed up on the balls of my feet, we’d be kissing.
Suddenly, I remembered our almost kiss in Property. My cheeks warmed but I couldn’t look away from him. His eyes rooted me to my spot. I sucked in a deep breath, hoping he didn’t hear it. I didn’t want him to think I was nervous. I didn’t want him to think he affected me this way.
“I, uh,” I said in a low voice. My face burned even more as I forced myself to continue my thought. “I didn’t know you wanted to be sergeant.”
He looked down at me with dark eyes that were nearly black. I felt sucked in by him with no chance of escape. Not that I wanted to.
“Of course I want to be sergeant, Mika,” he told me. “What, you think I’m satisfied behind a desk, solving 459’s all day? I’m not some slacker who doesn’t give a shit.”
“I didn’t think you were.”
I opened my mouth, ready to continue when he abruptly released me and stepped back. I was suddenly thrust into a coldness I didn’t like, one that caused a shiver to run down my spine.
I wanted his arms around me. I wanted his hands in my hair.
“Mika?” a familiar voice called. Other arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me into a hug. “Oh my God, you’re okay. When I heard Beech say you were in danger over the radio, I got here as quickly as I could.”
Daniel Boone. I should have known.
I let my arms wrap around him, but it wasn’t the same. They didn’t make me feel safe the way Beech’s did. They didn’t make me feel like I could let down my walls and ugly cry and tell him everything I was feeling.
But I let him. It was easier this way.
I was able to untangle from him when my father arrived. I told him everything. He apologized for being a smartass and, like everyone else, he was just glad I was all right. Eric didn’t show up. I couldn’t blame him. He might not even know what happened, which was probably a good thing.
While Beech spoke to the chief – for such a high profile case at such a high profile location, it only made sense for the chief himself to arrive at the scene and get press – I looked at Kevin in the back of the car. His eyes were on me. They were accusing but also sad. His entire life had amounted to this. Despite his injury, Kevin had had so much potential. Eric Foresburg was his best friend. And he gave everything up for revenge.
Because he was jealous.
“Ready to go home?” my father asked. “I can drive you and leave my car in the back.”
I nodded, pulling my eyes away from Kevin.
As my father led me to the car, I felt a stare on my back. I turned, thinking Kevin shifted so he could intimidate me for as long as he could.
But it wasn’t Kevin.
It was Beech.
And the look in those dark eyes seemed to indicate that we had a lot to talk about.
Epilogue
I didn’t want to be here.
Not really.
And yet, when Eric asked to see me just before the Buccaneer’s first preseason game, I couldn’t say no.
I was weak.
I stood in front of the Bucc’s locker room, a magenta pea coat over my jersey. Even with skinny jeans and knee-high black boots, I was still cold. Five Point had always been cold but it had been more than just the atmosphere. Despite myself, I could still see Kevin’s blood splattered on the concrete close to the entrance of the rink. They had scrubbed it and bleached it and done everything they could to remove it. Now they were black dots that looked like spilled paint. No one would even notice except those that knew what it was.
It had been a week since Kevin was arrested. I still woke up in the middle of the night, sweat dripping down the back of my neck, heart racing, as I tried and failed to get away from Kevin. In the three years that I had been a PI, I had never been this scared before.
Even now, I couldn’t explain why. I had seen angry people before. I had been threatened and even attacked after confronting a cheating husband or a thieving employee. But there was something in Kevin’s eyes, something maniacal and untamed.
I shuddered just thinking about it.
“You okay?”
I looked up only to see Eric, dressed in full gear save for his helmet, watching me. He was careful to stay on the carpet so he wouldn’t damage his skates. I was surprised he still didn’t use skate protectors because that one time he forgot he had them on and skated on the ice and fell flat on his face in front of thousands of fans. Now, he’d rather damage the blades of his skates than be embarrassed in front of so many people again.
I forced a smile, my body softening under his gaze.
“Yeah,” I said.
“You seem worried about something.” He took off a glove and stepped towards me until he was directly in front of me. “Whenever you’re worried about something, you get this wrinkle right here…” He smoothed the wrinkle between my brows until my skin smoothed over. “Between your eyebrows. Whenever I saw that look on your face, I knew I was in trouble.”
I laughed, despite myself. Eric always had a knack for distracting me from my thoughts, for making me forget what I was worried about in the first place.
“Am I in trouble?” he asked, his voice surprisingly tentative.
I shook my head. “I’m just glad everything is okay now,” I said. “You’re back on the team. You’re about to play the first preseason game. I’m surprised Dad let you play, what with it being a preseason. Isn’t he worried you’re going to get hurt?”
“I asked to play,” Eric
said. “And I think he wanted everyone to know I was back.”
“Well, I saw the crowds coming in,” I said. “It seems you have a lot of fans.”
Eric snorted. “Fairweather, at best,” he said. There was a hint of bitterness in his voice but it wasn’t malicious. If anything, it seemed disappointed. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m appreciative of them. And I know there are a few people who stood by me no matter what. But I’m still reeling over how quickly everyone turned against me the second Ashley came out with her statement.” He shook his head.
“You can’t let it get to you,” I said, reaching out and taking his hand in mine. “There will be a small, select group of people who still think you did it, despite all the evidence against it. Despite the fact that charges have been dropped and that Ashley recanted and that Kevin was arrested. It doesn’t matter. Sometimes, people just want to watch you burn.”
“I just don’t get that. Why would anyone choose to feel that way? I’m not saying I deserve automatic belief, but I do so much for the community. I give back in so many ways. Why not at least give me the chance to tell my side of the story?”
I lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “I think people have been so disappointed in their heroes that it’s easier for them to just believe the worst in people because then they aren’t disappointed if something like this did happen and it was true,” I said. “In a way, they’re protecting themselves. I’m not saying I agree with what they’re doing, but I understand it.”
There was a moment that hung over us. I wouldn’t necessarily call it awkward and it wasn’t uncomfortable, but it was poignant and I wasn’t sure as to why.
Ice Breakers Page 14