“Oh, you have social graces now?” Timothée asked.
“I might do. Oui.” Aidan waited until the waitress left the table before speaking again. He continued in English. “So, we’re not talking about you.”
“No.”
“We’re sure as hell not talking about me.”
“Obviously.”
“And work is off the table because I’ll have to kick your ass if we talk about that last game.”
Timothée smirked. “You have another spare fifteen hundred bucks lying around?”
Aidan jutted out his chin defiantly. “That was a crock.”
“Aidan, you body-slammed Gerrick. How did you not expect a fine?”
“Oui, but he didn’t bounce. That should have been taken into consideration. They should deduct at least five hundred.”
“Quit your bitching. Fifteen hundred is better than twenty-two.”
“You’re lucky that’s all it was. You unhinged the penalty box door.”
“Bullshit. That thing was defective.”
“I guess so… after you kicked it seven times.”
“Now, see, that’s how lies get out. I only kicked it six. It was raggedy, and your cheap-ass club only wants any ole schmuck to pay for it. It wasn’t worth ten bucks, let alone twenty-two hundred.”
Folding his arms, Aidan leaned on the table and grinned. “Okay, no work. So, what are we talking about?”
“Well, now, hold on a minute. No one said work was completely off the table. How well do you know your goalie, Gatien Glesseau?”
“You should be well familiar with his fist.”
“Ha-ha, asshole,” Timothée sneered. “Now answer my question.”
“Not very, but he seems like an okay guy.”
Timothée chuckled snarkily. “I see you’re making tons of friends with your sparkly personality as usual.”
“I bet I’ve made more than you,” Aidan heckled back. “Why are you asking?”
“Javahn asked me. He thought I may have met Glesseau through you. He said he wanted to ask him something, but he didn’t say what.”
“Probably about Glesseau’s new restaurant in Saint Anne. It’s been receiving rave reviews and was featured on Good Morning America.”
“You’re probably right. He may have wanted reservations.”
“Good luck with that. I hear it’s booked until the end of the year.”
Timothée whistled. “Well, damn.”
“Next topic?”
“What do you think of Lesley’s assistant?”
“Helena? She’s always been professional with me.”
“No. Ryker.”
Aidan shook his head. “Never heard of him.”
“Seriously?”
“It’s a pretty good-size firm, but I’ve only worked with Lesley. On a few occasions, I’ve had to leave a message with Helena.”
Damn. Dead end. No dirt.
“Why? Did something happen with this Ryker fellow?”
“No.” At least not yet.
Shifting in his seat, Timothée neutralized his expression to hide his disappointment. But honestly, he was unsure why it upset him. He’d spoken with the guy less than fifteen minutes, and the conversation hadn’t been smooth. In fact, Ryker had gotten an attitude with him toward the end. What had that been all about? Timothée was the client, and wasn’t the customer always right? Ryker was supposed to be kissing his ass, not the other way around.
“Poor guy.”
“What?” Timothée drew himself out of his head and refocused on Aidan.
“He pissed you off.”
“Who did?”
“This Ryker person.”
“I never said that.”
Aidan smirked. “You didn’t have to. It’s tattooed all over your ugly mug.”
“Bologna, and fuck you.”
“Sell your crock denial to a court jester. I know what it looks like when someone crawls beneath your skin and begins to worm around.”
Bullshitting Aidan was futile, but that didn’t mean Timothée wasn’t going to try.
“Just because you’ve known me since juniors doesn’t mean you know me.”
“Uh-huh.”
Another moment of silence passed, and the waitress brought their drinks. Timothée traced the rim of the glass as if it were a worry stone. “So, you going to ask me?”
“Ask you what?”
“If I did it.”
“Why would I?”
“Afraid of being implicated after the fact?”
“Chasseur, I know you didn’t.”
Timothée smiled. It had been more than a year since anyone had called him by his nickname. “You’re the only person. The media has already sentenced me to the guillotine with Toby Harrelson leading the march.”
“That guy is a weasel. He claims I threw him in a dumpster.”
“Did you?”
Aidan hunched his shoulders. “Maybe. I don’t remember. I blame the scotch. Doubtful, though, because had I, he wouldn’t have gotten out. I would have welded that bitch shut.”
Timothée parted his lips to speak, but his ringing phone interrupted him. He glanced at the unfamiliar number and allowed it to go to voice mail. Seconds later, the phone rang again. Same number. This time he swiped Decline. But when it rang a third time shortly thereafter, he answered. “What?”
Aidan nearly spat out his beer. “That’s not going to win you any congeniality nominations.”
“Mr. Croneau,” the voice on the other end of the line greeted. “This is Ry—”
“You! What do you want?”
“Mr. Cron—”
“My name is Timothée.”
“Fine. Timothée. I need to schedule a consultation with you to discuss coordinating your philanthropic exemplification and improving the populace discernment of you.”
Timothée blinked. “Boy, if you don’t start making sense.”
“Boy?” Ryker snapped.
Someone’s testy. “Oh God, pauvre bête. Don’t tell me you’re one of those politically correct bleeding-heart types who’s easily offended by a fart. It’s a Southern—and probably other parts of the country, too—colloquialism, as is son, child, dude, man, and youngen. It means doodley.”
Ryker emitted a grating sound.
Did this boy just growl at me like he’s rabid? “What was that?”
“Timothée”—Ryker spoke slowly as if Timothée couldn’t understand normal-paced speech—“you and I need to have a face-to-face meeting where we, as in you and I, have a conversation about what fans—people who attend the games—think of you.”
Oh, now he’s being condescending. Timothée’s face transformed into a maze of harsh lines and severe angles. He didn’t feel he had much of a choice but to agree. Otherwise, Ryker would keep pestering him. “When?”
“The sooner the better. How about tomorrow morning?
“Can’t. I have morning skate.”
Ryker made a strange noise before asking, “You’re planning on going to morning skate? Are you sure you want to do that?”
“What do you mean, am I sure?” he replied, his voice bobbing between irritation and disdain. “I have a game next week.”
“Then we’ll meet at seven.”
“In the morning? As in a.m.?”
“Ante meridiem. That is correct. That should give us plenty of time to talk before your morning skate.”
You little shit. “Fine.”
He disconnected and slammed his phone on the table.
Aidan grinned. “I thought I could be a dick, but my game is nothing compared to that.”
Timothée nodded. “I know. I swear he’s going to make me lose sense of all that’s holy. That was worse than he was earlier.”
“I meant you.”
Timothée’s mouth fell open. “Me?”
“Should we revisit who’s made more friends?” Aidan’s voice softened. “You know I don’t generally dole out advice, but here’s some.” He reverted to French. “I
know you’re scared and hurting.”
Timothée began to protest, but Aidan held up his palm and continued.
“Otherwise, you wouldn’t be lashing out like this and spouting shit you only half mean. Let people help you. I know you’re used to tackling the world by yourself, but you don’t have to be alone in this.”
Timothée thought about protesting again but took a swig of his drink instead. He could argue with most. Lie to most, including himself. But he couldn’t with Aidan.
4
Ryker
That asshole. Ryker stared at the blank smartphone screen. He hung up on me. He didn’t even give Ryker time to tell him the location. Ryker was used to difficult clients, but Timothée Croneau took it to another level. Boy? Where does he get off? It would be one thing if he was plain nasty all the time, but there were moments that he seemed decent—vulnerable and wounded. Or maybe Ryker was just a sucker for a pretty face.
What have I gotten myself into?
He couldn’t back out now. Lesley had already given him his first assignment. If he quit, she’d hang it over his head and never allow him within fifty feet of any of her clients. And not only her. The entire agency would string him up. He’d be blackballed, and Edgar would categorically demote him to grunt work.
With his peppermint tea in hand, he padded across the short distance from the fridge to the queen bed in the bedroom of the apartment the agency leased, then flopped in front of the open laptop. The Northcove Mutineers homepage had loaded. Ryker scrolled to Timothée’s roster photo and clicked the link. Not surprisingly, it only listed basic statistics—name, birthday. November second. Hmm. Scorpio. Explains a lot. Height, weight, goals, assists, and penalty time. Holy smokes! This guy spends a lot of time in the box. Three hundred forty-two minutes already this season. Ryker knew the number was high, but damn! That would work against them. How was he supposed to present Timothée as unproblematic when he obviously was problematic?
He scribbled a note on his pad before exiting the page and going to Timothée’s social media accounts—or rather what Ryker thought were his accounts. Several popped up, but none had verified status, and only one had any posts or uploads. And the one “active” was pathetic. It consisted of several of the same headshot. Or, at least, they looked the same. Possibly they were different years. There was an action shot of him scoring the victory goal that took the Owls to the playoffs, a shot of him sitting in a postgame interview—looking annoyed—and a photo of a… Ryker did a double take. A breakfast burrito?
How had Bub allowed Timothée to get away with not being on social media? Then again, Bub was old-school, and Timothée had so much talent that his skills on the ice did all the work. Well, maybe before when he was with the Owls. Now he struggled—keeping the puck longer than he should, hesitating to pass to teammates, and overall looking lost on the ice. Still good, just not his best.
Next, Ryker clicked on a fan page. Oh brother. Scratch that. Call it an anti-fan page. The first photo was of Timothée in the penalty box wearing his Owls uniform and yelling at a Mutineer fan at a preseason exhibition game. The second post was a video of him attacking the penalty box camera with his stick.
Third time’s the charm, right? He clicked another link. Wrong. A video opened of the Mutineers versus Civets carnage that led to eight player suspensions, one expulsion, over $47,000 in fines, and too many injuries to count.
“Croneau steals the puck from Metoyèr and makes his way down the ice, being chased by the pack. He’s freight-trained by Stepanov but quickly scrambles back to his feet. A battle now between Metoyèr and Tremblay for the puck in the corner. Metoyèr gains control and is cross-checked by Benoit, getting tripped up. No call by the refs, and the puck rolls close to center ice but is collected by Croneau with his long reach. He’s barreling toward these defenders with no fear and nothing but determination to get his team on the board. And boy, does he have some speed on him. He’s being clocked at 35.3 kilometers, and he’s making this rat pack chase work for a paycheck. He circles around Bale. Enok now racing toward Croneau, and— Wow! Enok is clobbered by Benoit, who comes off his feet with a shoulder hit to the head. Croneau gets caught in the collision and steamrolls Glesseau into the net. And Glesseau isn’t taking kindly to that. He comes up swinging, and here we go again, folks. The lids and mittens are scattering.
“The blow by Croneau on Glesseau didn’t look intentional, but at this point, nobody cares. Too much has happened between these clubs that rationale has exited the arena. Croneau and Glesseau are going at it. This is a legitimate heavyweight clash of titans. Big bombs are being thrown as Bale grabs Croneau by the collar, pulling him off his goalie, and now it’s a two-on-one situation. Croneau is catching blows from both sides, but he’s still doling them out like a Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robot. He’s doing everything—under, over, straight, cross—with the intention of laying waste to whomever he connects with. But what he must be asking is where are his teammates? Why aren’t they jumping in to even things up?
“Bale with a solid uppercut, and the trio hits the deck in a heap. The linesmen are trying to break it up, but Croneau is still yelling and trying to get to Bale. Just look at Croneau’s face. He’s incensed. That’s not a nursery rhyme he’s reciting. And since the linesmen are blocking his path to Bale, he’s charging Glesseau. Stepanov steps in, and Croneau takes a swing at him. The linemen quickly get between the two and push Croneau toward the box. Now Croneau is challenging the entire Civet bench as he skates past. He has completely lost it.”
Ryker puckered his lips and stared at the screen. What a whole-ass mess. He was certain Lesley had gotten Timothée a nice paycheck, but sometimes it wasn’t about the money. He didn’t belong on the Mutineers. Then again, who did? For the life of him, Ryker couldn’t understand what crackpot thought it was a good idea to have a professional hockey team located in Northcove, Mississippi, where the population barely numbered 50,000 and the temperature rarely dipped below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Whatever the owners had been smoking, Ryker could use a puff at the moment to sort this mess out.
Maybe a hometown native angle appeal. It’s a stretch but may be worth a shot.
Aside from Timothée, none of the other team members were from the region. And Timothée had played in Canada so long, his Southern card might need to be revoked. But even if he remained a card-carrying member, he’d grown up far across the river in Mandeville, Louisiana. No two cultures could be more different than Northcove and Mandeville.
While Mandeville was smaller than Northcove, its residents were more affluent. If one peered into a Mandeville sewer, instead of finding the It clown with a cluster of balloons, one would discover an investment banker wearing high-end cosmetics and brandishing a crisp stack of Benjamins.
However, it wasn’t only the money that created a divide between the two cities. The food, music, and attitude had little in common. Add to that the fact that high school football reigned as the poison of the people in Northcove, and most residents didn’t give diddly about hockey.
Of course, if Ryker believed the grapevines—and there was no reason for him not to—Northcove served as a temporary location. The end goal, reportedly, was to relocate the team to Atlanta. However, Atlanta had a history of failed hockey franchises. If owners wanted Atlanta to open its arms to another hockey team, it needed a winning record, which the Mutineers did not have. Last season, they’d only managed to score twelve goals. Yep, that’s right. Twelve for the whole damn season. They needed a rock star with experience, and in swooped Timothée to save the day—or so the owners hoped.
Sure, Timothée could put points on the board, but he was no favorite. The first thing he did when he rolled into town was purchase the city’s community garden for pennies and bulldoze it flat so he could extend the road from his house to the interstate for a shortcut. Then he proceeded to have five magnolia trees on his property cut down—in the Magnolia State. Not a fan favorite thing to do, but it sure made the front page of the Northcove Post.<
br />
But Ryker surmised there was another reason the Mutineers had sought to purchase Timothée’s contract from the Owls. The owners’ contention was to have him guide the fledgling team. Not only was the Mutineers the youngest team in the league, but the average age of their roster was twenty—not even legal drinking age. Besides Timothée, only two other players had played professionally more than three years, and each of them was troublesome. From what he’d overheard Lesley say—yes, he’d been eavesdropping—Timothée wasn’t making an effort to form a camaraderie with his teammates. And if that wasn’t a large enough hunk of manure to shovel, top the stinking heap with a murder investigation.
Ryker sighed. The handsome faces were always the most trouble.
Help me, Jesus.
Leaning against the headboard, he inhaled sharply as he focused on the video and watched a pane of plexiglass crash to the ice followed by an eight-minute line brawl. It had to be a record. He fast-forwarded through a commercial to Timothée’s line taking the ice. Twenty-eight seconds later, another skirmish. “Hellfire!” he muttered. Timothée had a brutal right uppercut.
Ryker had seen the replays multiple times, but this was the first time he’d noticed the expression on Timothée’s face as the camera panned the bench. Disgust. Utter disgust. A fish out of water.
Okay, he knew the problems. What was the resolution?
Officially, the police hadn’t named Timothée as a suspect, but that was a joke. Everyone knew that in modern language, being a person of interest equated to being a suspect in the eyes of the public. However, as long as nothing was official, the league hadn’t made any recommendations for suspension. And since Ryker didn’t expect law officials to be sharing any plans of arrest with him, the timeframe he had to work with was dubious. That meant he needed to move swiftly and efficiently. None of Timothée’s sponsors had quirked out—yet. However, that was a sledgehammer that could strike anytime as well. At this point, Ryker could roll dice as to which event would occur first.
Penalty Kill Page 3