Second and Short

by Michel Prince

  “Chicks dig scars.” He cut his eyes at her. “I’ll be more upset if you do a straight line.”

  “Well then, you’re in luck.”

  “Hey, Dalton.” The sergeant who met him at the airstrip came into the curtained off area. “You up for questions?”

  “Are they dead?” he asked. “Either way, I’m going to need a lawyer, right?”

  “That’s your right and no, they are all alive.”

  “And Willie?”

  “She’s fine. She’s with my partner.”

  “Does she have a lawyer?”

  “Why are you so worried about lawyers?”

  “I just signed a deal for three point eight million dollars a year. If I’m being charged under the morals clause, I lose that. If I’m not, the civil case is still looming over my head.”

  “Why are you worried about Willie?”

  “Because I love her.”

  “Do you love her enough to beat the man she was supposed to marry within an inch of his life?”

  “Questions like that make me call my lawyer.”

  “The press has already picked up this story. An attorney is on their way. One of your teammates arranged it for you.”

  Dalton closed his eyes fully. “Then I’m going to let this intern earn her stitching merit badge or whatever the doctors get to say they can do something.”

  “That’s your right. Willie’s being offered witness protection.”

  Dalton opened his right eye, only because he could feel the tugging through the numbness of the Lidocaine. “How long will she be gone?”

  “I don’t know. Just like I don’t know if she’ll take it.”

  “Should she?” he asked.

  “Hector’s got a lot of friends and he’s going for the insanity defense I’m betting.”

  Dalton should have killed him, that was the only way Willie would ever be safe. “How long before you know if she’s going to take it?”

  “I don’t make people disappear. It’s not my style. I’m more of a face the bastard head on, but then again, with how many bodies we’re finding at Hector Molina’s favorite dumping spots he’s not the normal bad guy.” The sergeant turned to leave, but stopped when he got to the curtain. “I’m not sure she’ll take it though. Something about leaving people behind.”

  He ducked out of the curtain and Dalton closed both eyes. Soon he felt delicate hands on his and warm water washing out the cuts on his knuckles. Opening his eyes, he prayed to see Willie, but it was another hospital worker.

  “Is Ms. Fire still around?”

  “I believe she was discharged.” Taking a sterile gauze, the woman began wrapping his hand. He’d seen the look in Willie’s eyes. He didn’t blame her for staying away. Who wanted to go from one monster to another?

  “Hey, Dalton,” the officer he rode with to the scene popped his head in and tossed him his phone. “You left this in my squad car.”

  “Thanks.”

  Turning it on, a dozen messages set off beeps and chirps. Scanning through them he found one from Dani. My father sent a lawyer to you. He has them in every state. Always the best. I guess he’s coming from Las Vegas. Wait for him. Don’t say a thing. I’m working with Carter on the spin since this is hitting all the sports channels. What you did was heroic. Don’t let anyone tell you different. I’ll be here when you need to work it all out and I’ve got three therapists to help you. Just tell me when. We love you Dalton.

  Other messages came from his father, the rest of the line, and even Mr. Cuemark saying he was sending a lawyer too. The local news played with reporters outside of the medical center where he was being taken care of. His main doctor came in and introduced herself.

  “Mr. Gresham, I’m Dr. Washburn. I’ve been asked to give an update to the press on all those involved and their condition. Due to HIPAA privacy laws, you are afforded rights, but I know you and Mr. Molina are the two people the press care about.”

  “Will I be physically ready to play football this weekend?”

  “Um.” Dr. Washburn looked taken aback by the comment.

  “That is all they’ll ask after the police answer if I’m going to be charged with anything.”

  “You won’t be. Not after everything those men put the women through. You’re a hero.”

  “Can I play?”

  “No broken bones, no concussion, no reason to stay out.”

  “Good, please release me so I can get to my plane.”

  “You got it.” The doctor looked down at the chart and then back up to him. “Even gentle giants are still giants inside.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Any man can be pushed into violence. You shouldn’t be punished because God made you strong, faster and bigger than most. I’ll leave you my card for the civil trial. You showed restraint with those men. Most men with your strength wouldn’t have.”

  Willie woke up screaming and drenched in sweat. Her mother rushed to the bedroom where she’d been sleeping.

  “Baby, it’s okay.” Holding her head to her mother’s chest, she rocked her like she was an infant.

  Both women had been shaken that day and the only thing that made Willie feel safe enough to leave was that Hector physically couldn’t leave. Dalton had done enough damage that moving was a chore for him. The toxicology screen showed he had cocaine in his system along with other drugs she’d never heard of.

  “You shouldn’t have looked behind that counter, Willeen. No good came of that.”

  “I got Dalton to stop. If not, he might have killed that man.”

  “What is it with you and violent men?”

  “Dalton’s not violent,” she rebuffed as she took off the t-shirt she’d been wearing and patted her head with the few dry places she found. “He’s gentle.”

  “Like Hector? You stuck up for that man when I questioned who and what he was.”

  “He’s nothing like Hector. If he was, he’d be banging on the door or sending people to fetch me.”

  “Instead he’s abandoned you.”

  “I might have ruined his football career, mama. How can a man even think about being with a woman who does that? The drama I brought to him over the last few days is more than any one person should have to endure.” Willie got out of bed and dug through her bag for anything to change into. All she could find was the jersey a cop gave her at the hospital. Dalton had brought it from Denver for her. Slipping it over her head, she could feel his arms around her again. Protective and strong. “And who are you to question smart choices. My father wasn’t exactly the blue-ribbon winner when you met him.”

  “Yes, he was. With his long hair and deep tan. He spoke to me. For hours on end and each day we took a step away from the drugs, then the alcohol. Soon I was his addiction.”

  Willie curled up her knees and pulled a pillow to her chest. “Randy bought a bar by Lost Lake.”

  Her mother turned her eyes to the floor. “That poor child. We tried so hard to talk his mother into letting him come live with us. Especially after you were born. Each phone call made it more evident her hatred of me.”

  “He still blames you for dad leaving.”

  “When your father first got sober, I told him to go back to her. He had a child to think about. He did, for about a month. Temptations were too great there and Randy’s mother wanted nothing to do with sobriety at the time.”

  “That must have been hard for him.”

  “He no longer loved her. Choosing me over her was like picking an ice cream cone over a root canal. Randy was the hard part for him. That’s why he took you back there every summer. We talked about moving back, but your father was a stubborn man. They hurt him and he couldn’t reconcile his feelings.”

  “You would have moved with him?”

  “He was the love of my life. The hardest thing I ever did was let him go back to Wisconsin for his son. It tore at my heart something fierce, but it was what he needed to do to be fully mine.”

  Willie twisted her f
ingers and thought about the choices she’d made over the last week of her life. Going to Denver when she knew the risks were there. Putting not only her life, but Dalton’s in jeopardy. All because she hadn’t unburdened herself with the man she wanted to be with more than anything. Would that be her moment? Could Dalton ever forgive her for leaving him without so much as a note?

  “I couldn’t face him,” she confessed to her mother. “I wanted to rush to his arms, but he was paralyzed and in shock. Then at the hospital it seemed too late. Mom, he saved me. He saved you. You know that, right?”

  “He had Hector against the wall. There was no reason for what happened next.”

  “Did you not see Hector’s men with their guns trained on his back? They could have lit him up like a Christmas tree.” Willie shivered. “He did what he needed to, to protect me. We were supposed to fly back to Chicago. How much easier would his life have been if he took that flight instead of one to find me?’

  “So, what are you going to do now?”

  “I’m going back to Wisconsin first. I know I have a place there.”

  “But the Nevada State Patrol will only give you protection here,” her mother reasoned. “Or are you going into witness protection?”

  “If I was, I wouldn’t have told you I was going to Wisconsin.”

  “Right.” Her mom held her hands. “But Willeen, wouldn’t it be safer for you to be in witness protection? We’ve already figured out how to talk to each other.”

  “I’m not running. Not unless Dalton can come with me, that is if he’ll still have me.”

  “Are you sure about him?” her mother asked as she cupped her cheek.

  “I know who he is, it’s time he finally learns who I am. No more secrets. I’m going to put it all out there and hopefully he won’t run.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Mr. Gresham,” the stewardess said as she shook his shoulder. “We’ll be landing soon to pick up Mr. Cuemark before continuing on to Chicago.”

  “Thank you.” Dalton shifted and buckled his seatbelt.

  He hated flying commercial. Leg room, tight seats, over worked stewardesses that seemed to take out their frustrations on you. If this all sorts out, he might consider this whole private plane thing. He thought the team plane was nice, but with only six captain chairs and a couple of seatbelts on a couch, he found a new way to travel.

  “Dalton,” Mr. Cuemark said as he boarded the plane and sat across from him.

  A few others came behind him. Family and friends, he assumed. Mr. Cuemark was in his late sixties, but kept his hair a rich jet black. With a three-piece-suit and custom cobbled shoes he exuded the old money he came from. Railways, Dalton had heard, mixed with stocks and grain futures. All of which went over his head.

  “I’ve been keeping up with the happenings. I heard you spoke to a lawyer for the Albrights. Probably a good idea. He’s got fingers in each state while I’m a hometown boy.”

  “Yes, sir.” Dalton had never spoken to Mr. Cuemark besides a random handshake at a fundraiser, team party or along the sidelines. Now he was face to face after he’d lent his plane to him. Strange how his life had changed so quickly.

  “My grandsons are big fans, although none as much as Grayson. He got to skip school, you upset my daughter with that one, but hey you can’t please them all.” Mr. Cuemark ordered a bourbon for himself and a beer for Dalton. “Now I know you’ve talked to the police a thousand times by now I’m sure, but I’m not the cops. I need the truth. Every step. The commissioner is on my ass to find out everything so we can avoid a scandal. Is the hero thing correct?”

  “I’m not sure. He grabbed Willie by her hair and I snapped.”

  “Willie? That’s your girl, right?”

  “Maybe?”

  “Maybe? You did all this shit for a maybe?”

  “She’d never seen the blood thirsty part of me. The monster.”

  “Very few who spend time around you see that side. Hell, your coaches even wondered where the marketing guys came up with that bullshit.”

  “It sold jerseys.” Dalton held his battered and bruised hands out in front of him. “She saw that side and I haven’t spoken to her since. I lost so much of my life by playing that role. Now I’m working my way out and the thing I never was, I became in a moment.”

  “Son you’re a goddamned hero. At least that’s what I’ve been hearing. You protected the woman you love. Hell, you could take her on tour if you wanted.”

  “That’s not what she wants.” Dalton let out a long breath of air. “All I want is to go back to playing football.”

  “That’s what we want too.”

  “But—” Dalton began Mr. Cuemark.

  “But nothing, you haven’t been charged with shit. The fucking commissioner can bitch all he wants. You’re on my damn team and you’ll be playing Sunday.”

  “Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down.”

  “Never thought you would. Your loyalty to the team is why you got that pretty hike in your pay.”

  “Not my devilishly handsome profile pics?” Dalton jeered as he stroked his beard.

  “You gonna be good to play on Sunday, because the last thing we want to do is rush you?”

  “I’d never abandon my team. Not after everything they did for me.”

  A few hours later they landed in Chicago and Mr. Cuemark had a car take Dalton home. Finally alone, he pulled out his phone and called Willie. It went directly to voicemail. She might not even have her phone anymore. Knowing that he could only do one thing and pray she still had her phone. Sending a text, he tried to share how much she meant to him.

  Today, tomorrow and always.

  When Willeen finally turned her phone on to call Stanley when she landed in Milwaukee, a dozen messages chirped their unread status on her phone. She’d called him from her mother’s and he said he’d been following the best he could on the sports channels. She couldn’t remember the last time she had her own phone on. It must have been Rachel’s message that was the last she read.

  While she waited by the door for Stan to pick her up, she went through the texts from the few people who knew her number. Of all the messages, only a few stood out. Dalton had sent her a handful of texts first looking for her, then only one. Sent the day before. He still loved her. Was that even possible? Her finger hovered over the phone button when Stan honked his horn and she jumped. When they were on the road, she double-checked the time stamp unable to believe it could be so recent.

  “And I was worried about the football player,” Stan grumbled from the driver’s seat. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You don’t ask questions, Stan.”

  “Right, it’s my fault.”

  “It’s embarrassing. How could I be so weak? Where had my moral compass gone that I could watch a man die in front of me and not run to the cops?” Willie tucked her phone away. She wasn’t about to call Dalton with an audience. “Even now, I’ll be having to fly back to Vegas a dozen times before it’s all over.”

  “Do I need to set up extra security around the lake?”

  Willeen got lost in the passing traffic as she pulled in on herself. Trouble. Trouble and drama is all she brought to people’s lives right now. Until this was all done she couldn’t be around anyone, only she didn’t know where else to go.

  Stan shook her shoulder. “Hey kiddo, I don’t mind. You can stay in my spare room if you want. I just want you to be safe. That’s all that matters to me. Hell, even Randy came by my cabin to ask about you.”

  She snapped her head to look at Stan. “Seriously? Randy?”

  “He even asked if he could help in anyway. Have you been at the bar in the evening so you didn’t have to be alone. Even when it’s dead there’s a handful of people.”

  “People I’d be endangering if I was in there.”

  “That’s not the way he sees it. You’re his baby sister. Drunk and angry at the world doesn’t change the fact your blood to him. The only he has left.” Stan took his exit
off the interstate to the county highway they would have to be on for the rest of the trip. “Randy was raised angry. He doesn’t know a different emotion. His dad was pissed and hateful so he left. Then Randy was surrounded by a single mother and grandparents who saw your dad in the small boy they were supposed to raise. If you were a daily reminder of a broken promise of love imagine how you would view the world. Your dad was good, but it took years and the love of a good woman to get him there. Violet met him where he was at and never asked for more. Some men settle in at that point. Others strive to be better.”

  “When I hear stories of my dad before my mom it’s like they are talking about a character.”

  “Kind of like that football player. The blood thirsty gridiron thing.”

  “I guess,” she replied. “Only I saw that side of him in Reno.”

  “Did you?” Stan pursed his lips. “Strange, I always thought blood thirsty meant uncontrollable need. Is that how he reacted?”

  “He was pretty controlled…” she trailed off as the vision of his fists held together over his head flashed in her mind. “…for the most part.”

  “News says he beat Hector pretty bad. Same with two other men.”

  “He did. The tight space gave him an advantage. He was behind a counter so they couldn’t gang rush him.” Shaking the vision from her head, she saw they were at her cabin.

  “You okay being here? Or did you want to go somewhere else?”

  She thought of crashing in Bucky’s cabin. No one would think she would be there, but it was closer to the road. “No, I’ll be fine.”

  “Why don’t you come over tomorrow?”

  “Your truck sounds fine.”

  “We’re actually going to get the Grizzlies game. Lie to me and tell me you don’t want to watch it.”

  “Have you heard if he was going to play?”

  “Seems so. They’ve talked of suspension from a game, but since he’s not charged with anything they have no recourse.”

  “Is he a villain? I haven’t been able to watch anything, but bad eighties sitcoms and chick flicks.”

  “You?” Stan let out a laugh. “I’m glad your mom was there for you. You know I’m not that touchy feely.”