by Zoë Lane
“I do mind.”
I rolled my eyes. “What the hell is it now? Huh?”
“I want you to stay away from my sister.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Give me one good reason,” I gritted.
“I still think you’re a cheat. She doesn’t need guys like you in her life. You’re going to ruin her.”
“And you’re not going to help by smothering her to death.”
Landyn put his hands on the armrests. I placed my right ankle on my left knee to use my leg if he decided to leap out at me.
“I hope you two are playing nicely.” Coach Hicks walked over to us. “In fact, I’m going to play teacher and ask that you move, Landyn, since Sean looks like he’s already comfortable.”
“We were just talking, Coach,” Landyn said smoothly.
“Yeah. I know what happens when the two of you just talk. Up, Landyn. Find another seat.”
“Yes, sir.”
Landyn stood, his eyes locked with mine until he went up the aisle to find another seat.
The coach nodded in my direction and kept walking.
I put my headphones on, pulled the blanket up to my chin, and closed my eyes.
Lacey had been assaulted as a child. Landyn wouldn’t have told me unless he really thought I was with her.
And Lacey hadn’t said a word about it in two days.
I should’ve seen her before I left. But I couldn’t. I had to meet Malik. Then the FBI debriefed me at the airport before I got on the plane.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and used the airplane’s Wi-Fi to send Lacey a text.
Landyn told me what happened. I’m so sorry. Want to see you as soon as I get back.
Maybe she had thought I would hurt her.
Maybe I should stay away from her.
She’d said I owed her sex, but the idea now turned my stomach. Sleeping with someone didn’t sound like a good way to heal from sexual abuse.
17
COACH HICKS
I’ll inform the owner.
If it wasn’t one thing, it was another.
Do what you have to do. I’ll support you.
I breathed a sigh of relief reading Rochelle’s texts. Her back at HQ meant I would have to handle it; get us in the right place mentally to win this game.
I opened my hotel room door at the sound of a knock and welcomed Sean in. Our lawyer greeted Sean, and the three of us sat down.
“I guess I’m in trouble, Coach, if you’ve got the attorney here,” Sean said with a solemn look on his face.
I sighed. “No, I don’t think so. But there’s something we’ve got to get resolved.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sean licked his lips and sat up straight. I hated this part of the job, but I couldn’t ignore it. “The beef between you and Landyn.”
“Been there since college. He said I tripped one of his receivers. That incomplete pass cost them the game. Thinks I’m a cheater.”
I wanted to roll my eyes, but I refrained. As childish as Landyn was, this matter wasn’t anywhere near as juvenile. “Sean, Landyn has come to me with an accusation of rape,” I said flatly.
Sean’s head snapped back, and fury quickly replaced shock. His mouth opened and closed several times until the last time when his lips remained firmly pressed together. His hands came together, and he wrung them.
I handed him a bottle of water and took a swig myself. I really hated this job when I had to squash completely avoidable beef. “I’m going to take a wild guess and say that’s what you two were discussing on the plane.”
Sean nodded. “I didn’t think he’d falsely accuse me.”
“You’re denying it?”
He cocked his head to one side and gave me a hard stare. “Coach, do you think I’m capable of that? Rape? That I grew up in a bad neighborhood, worked my ass off to get a college scholarship, and was the best RB in my college’s history so I could be drafted by you and then rape the first vulnerable girl I met?” he practically shouted.
I was undeterred by his outburst. The charge sounded ludicrous when Landyn made it, but as the coach, I had to take it seriously.
“Landyn said you took advantage of his sister to get back at him.”
He scoffed. “Over some college rivalry that he’s always bringing up? I’m perfectly fine in my position. I can play on a team where he’s quarterback. I’ve proven that. What he hasn’t proven is that he knows how to be a team player. Certainly not a leader we can follow.”
He had a point. Whenever the two of them were at each other’s throats, inevitably Landyn was the one who started the fight.
“Since he’s made a complaint to me, a formal investigation will have to commence. The GM might decide to bench you for the duration of the investigation in order to avoid undue scrutiny by the press. The team doesn’t need this. Not after Billy.”
Billy’s suicide had blindsided us, calling into question the competency of the organization’s leadership. Press reporters vilified us. A rape accusation would have the NFL Commissioner breathing down our necks.
Sean groaned and put his face in his hands. “It doesn’t matter what you do,” he whispered. “You try and try to do the best you can…be good, and it’s all for nothing.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
Sean looked up. “And how much you want to bet that Landyn will convince his sister to go along with it?”
I frowned. “I’m hoping she’s not so fragile that she would lie to hurt a man’s career.”
“She wouldn’t be the first,” he said grimly.
No, she wouldn’t. “Do you know her well?”
A brief look crossed Sean’s face. He does. And probably better than Landyn would want. Which would explain his rape charge.
“Only a little.”
“You’re going to have to give me more than that.”
“We…we’re kind of seeing each other. It’s casual. But I haven’t slept with her. Landyn’s wrong about that.”
His widened eyes spoke the truth, backed up by the urgency in his voice. “Okay.”
“And what happens to Landyn when he’s proven wrong? When it’s discovered that I haven’t done anything wrong?”
I had no idea. What would one do to the starting quarterback who falsely accused a teammate of rape out of spite? Bench him? That’s what Rochelle would do. “That decision remains with the GM. I can’t comment on it one way or the other.”
“But I have to suffer the consequences. I’m the one my teammates are going to look at differently.”
“Not until after we get home.” I sighed, the idea of getting through tomorrow’s game against Carolina a nightmare.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve ordered Landyn to keep his mouth shut and convinced him that the investigation will start as soon as tomorrow’s game is over. We’ll play the game and then go home. I would advise you, Sean, to avoid him at all costs. He’s not to speak to you about this, and you’re to follow suit.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When we get home, I don’t want you speaking to Lacey Gallagher for any reason. Any reason at all. In your world, she doesn’t exist. If she tries contacting you, let myself or the GM know and we’ll handle it. She’s not to know anything about the investigation from you. I want your hands, nose, everything clean throughout this entire process. Understood?”
His mouth twisted awkwardly, and his eyes were going everywhere in the room.
“What don’t you get, Sean?”
“Well…”
“Out with it. It’s getting late and I need to rest before tomorrow, as do you.”
Sean rubbed his hands over his tight coils and sighed. “Landyn told me her father was the one who…” Visibly upset, his voice trailed off.
“Yes, I know.”
“Well, I saw him at Malik’s house.”
“Malik? The one who…”
He nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know why, or how they know each other,
but he showed up just as I was leaving to get to the airport.”
I covered my face with my hands and put my head back and groaned. Coaching this team had been a fantastical dream come true, but the situations these guys were getting themselves into were nightmares.
“And you’ve briefed the FBI already, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay…”
“I’m supposed to have a video chat with the lead investigators tomorrow morning,” the attorney said quietly.
“Okay,” I said again. “Everything I said still stands. You don’t talk to Lacey Gallagher. You don’t mention her father to her or anyone else.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Good. Get out of here and get some rest. Our attorney will let you know the process of the investigation. Every step of the way. After the game.”
The attorney stayed after Sean left. “What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I’m thinking Landyn wants Sean out of his life.”
“You question Landyn’s word automatically?”
“I don’t question it. I doubt it completely,” I said sternly. “I know about their schools’ rivalry. And I know how protective Landyn is of his sister. He knows they’re seeing each other, so what better way to get rid of the guy than by claiming rape?”
“You think Lacey will go along with it?”
I ran a hand down the side of my face. “I hope not. But it all depends on how much she really likes the guy, and whether that will outweigh the loyalty she has for her brother.”
18
LACEY
Loyalty.
What did men know about it anyway?
Landyn must’ve forgotten what the word meant, since I’m the one here at the police station officially opening a missing person’s report on my mother.
He said he was going to make it happen, and he didn’t. He dodged the whole subject for the last couple of days before going to Carolina.
With the investigator’s file in my lap, Rose, my best friend, Paige Talisman, and I were waiting in a detective’s office for him to return with coffee.
“Are you sure about this?” Rose asked.
She had looked ill ever since I’d suggested we do this without Landyn.
Probably something to do with loyalty to my brother.
“Yes,” I stated firmly. “I can’t exactly count on him to do it, so I’ll have to.”
“Landyn would’ve—”
“Rose, we both know he hated our mother because he thought she left. He still holds on to that hate, blaming her for getting herself killed.”
“Lacey,” Paige whispered alarmingly. She hugged herself, but she was used to my bluntness.
And for the record, she’d called the abuse. She figured it had to have been something so insidious for me to forget half my life.
“Well, we don’t know all the facts yet,” I mumbled apologetically.
“Which is why we’re doing this,” Detective Tate said as he entered the room with a small tray of four coffees. “Got myself a third cup. Figured I need it since we’re going to be looking into the past that is directly connected with this department.” He sat behind his desk and took a deep breath. “It’s going to be a sensitive issue. You might as well know that upfront. Even though Carter Gallagher left this force under a cloud of disgrace, he’s still blue—and that means something in the LE community.”
We all nodded our understanding.
For the next two hours, we outlined what the private investigator had uncovered regarding my mother’s disappearance. Statements from neighbors and once-friends, a history of her movements—to the best of the investigator’s ability. Even an aunt, only half-blood, who’d attempted to discover information about her half-niece but had been met with such obstruction that she’d called off her efforts.
That infuriated me.
To the point where half of me didn’t want to meet her so I could spite her, and the other half wanted to see her face-to-face to blame her for not helping family.
A family she hadn’t known existed until shortly before my mother’s disappearance.
“I’ll talk to her,” Detective Tate said reassuringly. “But I want to say again that your mother was an adult. Adults are free to come and go as they please. It might’ve been that she took off and didn’t want anyone to find her. You should prepare yourself if the investigation starts to lean in that direction. I’ll likely be pulled from the case and the resources spent elsewhere.”
The thought sobered me. For years she’d been gone and nobody had really cared enough to look for her. If there wasn’t any evidence to suggest she had been murdered… I might never find her.
My eyes burned. I kept my gaze on the tiled floor and mumbled my acknowledgment.
Detective Tate mentioned putting up flyers, inputting my mother’s information into some sort of database, and making an age progression photo, which he left to retrieve.
“You’ll be able to see what your mother would’ve looked like today,” Paige breathed excitedly. “I think that’s pretty cool, even if it’s a little morbid.”
“I wonder if I look like her,” I whispered. Landyn looked like our father, and I definitely had his eyes…but the rest of me?
Detective Tate walked back in and handed me a glossy eight-by-eleven photograph. “Here’s what we think she would’ve looked like, based on the old driver’s license photo your investigator found.”
“Oh, wow…” Paige’s voice drifted off as she and Rose leaned in close on either side of me.
I stared at the woman in the photograph. If I hadn’t known my own face, I wouldn’t have recognized her.
Where Landyn’s and my eyes were blue, hers were a sad brown. Wavy midnight-black hair wrapped her shoulders. Her nose was straight, with a slight tilt at the end. I touched the tip of my own nose and felt the same curve I saw on hers. Her small lips were similar to mine whereas Landyn had inherited our father’s.
“You look like her,” Rose said softly. She rubbed my back. “She’s beautiful. Really…”
“Yeah, she is,” I whispered.
My eyes remained transfixed on the woman I’d never known—or couldn’t remember. Even though this was a computer-generated photograph, I thought it had captured whatever mental state she was in when last Landyn remembered her: imprisoned. This strange woman looked like she wanted to leave, to be anywhere but staring back at me. She very well could’ve left us behind.
I was finally able to look away, and tears slipped down my cheeks.
“We’ll find her,” Paige encouraged.
Moisture clouded my vision of my best friend. “What if we don’t? What if he did kill her? Where do we start? How would we know where to look for her?”
“That’s where your private detective and I come in. We’ll do the heavy lifting with hypothesizing and running down theories.”
“What about their house?” Rose asked. “The one they grew up in. Maybe we can search it?”
“Depends on whoever is living there now and whether they’ll let us go in. It will be a disruption of their lives, and they might not want to comply.”
“Why not?” Paige asked.
“Sometimes people don’t want to be involved,” Detective Tate said with a shrug. “They don’t want any hint of responsibility.”
There were a million things that could happen or go wrong, and I knew I’d drive myself crazy if I thought about a single one of them. Instead, I stared down at my mother. “Where are you?”
19
SEAN
“How long do you think you’ll have to keep wearing that sling?” I asked Casper as we made our way up the stairs of the Bank of America Stadium where Carolina played.
“As long as I have to,” Casper said with a sigh. “Movement is better, and the pain is virtually gone. A twinge here and there, which is what I’m used to.”
“It’s been a couple of weeks at least.”
“I’ve been ordered by everyone not to move it u
nless directed to by my physical therapist.”
I grinned. “You mean unless Siobhan orders you to take it off while in the bedroom.”
Casper reddened. “Uh, they reassigned me to a different physical therapist.”
“Oh, really?”
“Not because of the relationship—which we’re keeping quiet—but because of…”
I nodded. Because Casper had been taking an EPO and Siobhan had found out about it.
“They don’t want any bias when it comes to my recovery.”
“Makes sense,” I said.
We reached the floor with the players’ boxes. I opened the door and let Casper walk through first. My stomach growled loudly, and Casper chuckled. We both held boxed lunches of a hot dog, sandwich, chips, and probably a cookie. Since Casper wasn’t playing, I figured I’d eat terrible with him. Other than his association with Landyn, I liked the guy.
We found a random room and walked in. It already had a few people sitting down in large leather chairs, enjoying drinks and eating what looked like shrimp cocktails, lobster, and steak.
We looked down at our boxes.
“Why the hell didn’t we get lobster?” Casper asked quietly.
“Maybe because we didn’t order room service.”
“Maybe because we’re the players.”
“And the visiting team,” I added.
A few heads nodded in our direction, and we returned the gestures. We found a couple of seats toward the front of the room near the glass panes. We could see the entire field from this room, and it looked amazing—like every other stadium we’d been in—with rows of blue chairs to match the coloring of their team name etched in the end zones.
Casper and I started eating when a gentleman in a suit walked up.
“Casper! It’s good to see you.”
Casper nearly choked on the hot dog in his mouth. He grunted, wiped his good hand on his sweatpants, and reached to shake the guy’s hand. “Dr. Kavoska. How…why…”
“Oh, I love to travel to see the games. Nothing like watching them in person. Remember my son is a quarterback? He’s been applying to all the Ivies. We should be receiving acceptance letters very soon.”