The Deep End

by Traci Hunter Abramson

  Wearily, he made his way toward his hotel room. His team’s game against the St. Louis Cardinals had ended an hour previously—a long and painful loss for the Phillies. The fact that Matt had spent most of the game looking for his wife in the stands certainly hadn’t helped his performance on the field, and he had been glad to see the game end. Now he glanced down at his watch, not surprised to see that it was already one o’clock in the morning.

  He slid his keycard into the lock and stepped inside, light spilling into the room from the hallway. His spirits lifted immediately when he saw the silhouette of a woman standing next to his bed, wearing a thin, flowing nightgown. Excited that CJ had managed to stop in St. Louis after all, he flipped on the light. His jaw dropped when he realized that the woman was not his wife.

  Eyes wide, Matt ducked back into the hall and checked the room number to verify that he was in the right room. He looked back into the room and noticed his suitcase next to the dresser where he had left it. Now certain that he was in the right place, he kept a hand on the door to keep it open and managed to find his voice. “I’m sorry, but you’re in the wrong room.”

  “I don’t think so.” She smiled seductively, moving slowing forward. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Wondering how this stranger had gained access to his room, Matt leaned back against the door, opening it wider. “I’m sorry, but you need to leave.” When the woman continued toward him, Matt took another step backward. “Look, I don’t want to have to call security.”

  Her smile never wavered. “Why would you do that? I love you.”

  Matt’s stomach clenched at her words, and he could only wonder which of his teammates had convinced this woman to play such a twisted practical joke on him. The shaving cream on the edges of the bases was moderately funny when he slid into second base at the last home game and ended up with a gooey mess all over his uniform. He could even find some humor in the way his teammates had hidden all of the towels when he and one of the other rookies were in the showers after a game in New York. This, however, wasn’t even remotely funny.

  With a shake of his head, Matt stepped back into the hallway and let the door close between them. Certain that he knew which of his teammates was behind this latest episode, he moved down the hallway and knocked on the door next to his.

  Leon Davis answered the door in the process of taking off his tie. “Don’t tell me you locked yourself out of your room.” Humor and curiosity laced his voice.

  “Look, the joke’s over. Tell the woman in my room it’s time to leave.”

  “What woman?” Leon asked with amusement as he glanced down the hall toward Matt’s room.

  “This isn’t funny,” Matt insisted. “There’s a woman in my room, and I have no idea who she is.”

  “I don’t know anything about it.” Leon shrugged innocently, but his grin remained in place.

  “What do you mean you don’t know anything about it?” Matt’s eyebrows went up, concern creeping in for the first time. If Leon wasn’t responsible, then why was the woman in his room? Matt let out a frustrated sigh, clinging to the notion that Leon knew more than he was admitting. “Nothing happens on this team without you knowing about it.”

  “Very true,” Leon agreed. With a shrug, he added, “It sounds like you need to find out what she wants.”

  “You seriously didn’t set this up?” Matt asked warily. When Leon shook his head, Matt motioned inside. “Can I use your phone?”

  “Help yourself.” Leon stepped aside.

  Matt called hotel security and then waited in the hall with Leon until two members of the hotel staff arrived several minutes later.

  The minute the two security guards entered Matt’s room, the woman started shrieking, screaming that she was Matt Whitmore’s guest. Matt stepped forward, insisting that he had never seen the woman before. They tried to simply escort her out of the room, but she refused to leave, and the security guards finally had to forcefully remove her from his room.

  One of the guards winced when the woman kicked him in the shin as he pulled her into the hall. She turned to look at Matt, her eyes cold and brittle as she shouted, “You can’t treat me like this! I’ll make you sorry!”

  Leon shot Matt a sympathetic look. “Boy, you sure can pick ’em.”

  “I didn’t,” Matt pointed out with a shake of his head. “I’m going to bed.”

  Once inside his room, he circled the suite, checking to see if the woman had damaged the room or his belongings. Thankfully, he didn’t notice anything, but he didn’t manage to settle down and get to sleep until nearly three o’clock in the morning.

  He was just drifting off when his phone rang. Concerned for CJ, his heart raced as he snatched up the receiver. Expecting to find Doug on the line, Matt heard muffled laughter and a man’s voice. “This is your wake-up call, Mr. Whitmore.”

  “Go to sleep,” Matt growled at whatever teammate had initiated the call. He had no doubt that the call was someone’s latest attempt at a practical joke.

  He hung up the receiver and rolled over in bed, but thoughts of CJ kept him awake for another hour. He still couldn’t believe that he hadn’t heard from Doug or CJ for the past few days. Every time Matt called Doug, the phone rang once and then went straight to voice mail, so the sense of unease that had settled over him continued to intensify. While Matt hoped that Doug had inadvertently turned off his cell phone, he wondered if something serious had happened to Doug or even CJ.

  The wake-up call he had scheduled for six o’clock didn’t come until seven, leaving Matt scrambling to grab a quick shower. Since this was the third time this week that his wake-up call was late, he had to assume that one of his teammates was behind the problem. The water turned cold within thirty seconds, making his shower even quicker than he had planned. With CJ still heavy on his mind, Matt packed up his clothes, set his shoes by the table, and laid his suit jacket over the arm of a chair just before a knock sounded at the door.

  He opened the door to find a room-service waiter with a cart containing food and a pot of coffee, the latter something he clearly hadn’t ordered. Upon hearing that Matt didn’t want coffee, the waiter entered the room and proceeded to remove the pot from the tray, knocking it over and spilling coffee into Matt’s shoe. Flustered by his clumsiness and the mess caused by it, the waiter apologized profusely, promised to replace the shoes Matt had intended to wear that morning, and promptly spilled oatmeal on Matt’s suit jacket.

  Matt took one look at the gooey mess oozing down the sleeve of his favorite jacket, shook his head, and acknowledged that this was going to be a lousy day.

  Embarrassed beyond words, the young waiter grabbed the cloth napkin off the tray and began wiping at the jacket. Matt just shook his head and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Accidents happen.”

  By the time he convinced the waiter that it wasn’t necessary for him to replace the soiled clothing, Matt only had seven minutes before he was scheduled to be on the bus transporting the team to the airport.

  The elevator was out of order, forcing him to jog down six flights of stairs, his shoe squishing with each step, and somehow the bellhop managed to lose his luggage between his room and the lobby. The bellhop insisted that he had loaded it into the service elevator but that the doors had closed, leaving the luggage in the elevator and the bellhop still standing in the hallway on Matt’s floor. Though the bellhop raced down the stairs to meet the luggage, the elevator was empty when it reached the lobby. Obviously, the elevator had stopped somewhere on the way down, and someone had taken Matt’s luggage.

  The search for his missing bag was underway nearly ten minutes before the police arrived to ask Matt to file a police report about the incident in his room the night before. The two officers informed him that the troubled woman in his room the night before had pulled the same stunt on no less than four other celebrities in the past six months.

  In each situation, the woman had managed to gain access to the celebrit
y’s hotel room and declare her love. When her affections were not returned, she threatened to expose some fictitious story of improper behavior to the tabloids unless she was compensated for her pain and suffering. Because hotel security had finally called the police when the woman continued to create a disturbance earlier that morning, she was already being held at the police station. Unfortunately, Matt’s statement was needed so that the police could continue to detain her and hopefully get a psychiatric evaluation ordered by the judge.

  Already running behind schedule, the team manager excused Matt to go down to the police station, ordered the hotel staff to find his missing luggage, and made a call to the team’s front office to have them arrange for a later flight back to Philadelphia for Matt.

  Once at the police station, Matt was able to explain the events of the night before in less than an hour. After he had identified the woman in his hotel room from the photos he was shown, one of the policemen took him back to the hotel, where he was able to retrieve his missing luggage.

  He wasn’t sure how it had ended up in the kitchen, but he didn’t have time to ask before the hotel manager arranged for a driver to take him to the airport. The oatmeal-stained suit jacket had been sent to a one-hour dry cleaner and was with his luggage in the car. Matt diverted to a department store long enough to pick up a new pair of shoes to replace the coffee-logged ones, and made it to the airport with nearly an hour to spare before his newly scheduled flight.

  Just as Matt was thinking that the day might not be a total loss, it got worse. First class was overbooked, and he was the lucky soul who got to fold his six-foot-three-inch frame into the middle seat of the back row. The man on the aisle was even taller than Matt and probably outweighed him by at least sixty pounds, most of it around his middle. The woman in the window seat had a child on her lap that was probably around a year old. The baby looked cute enough when they started taxiing onto the runway, but as soon as they lifted off, he started screaming like a banshee.

  The woman tried to calm her baby down with the basics first: a cup of juice, crackers, his favorite toy. Within fifteen minutes, the boy was shrieking beyond reason, and the flight attendant came back to try to help. Nothing helped. After nearly an hour, the boy’s screams turned into muffled sobs and he looked like he was finally going to drift off to sleep. His little body relaxed against his mother for a moment, right before he leaned forward and vomited on Matt’s arm. Matt just raised his eyes heavenward as the woman thrust a burp cloth into his hand and began a litany of apologies.

  Matt wiped at the spot on his sleeve, choosing not to think about the mess on his new shoe that he couldn’t reach anyway.

  Any window of time he might have had to stop by his house on the way to the stadium disappeared when the plane sat on the runway for nearly forty-five minutes after landing, waiting for a gate. He tried to fight the concern and anxiety that continued to build about why he still hadn’t heard from CJ and attempted to console himself that it wouldn’t be long before he would see her. With that thought in mind, he stepped through security, smiling when he saw the driver the team had sent for him so that he wouldn’t have to find a cab.

  With his luggage in hand, Matt climbed into the car, leaned back, closed his eyes, and assured himself that tonight he would be home with his wife beside him. Maybe by then he could laugh about his day.

  * * *

  Matt scanned the seats down the first base line, nerves fluttering in his stomach. She wasn’t there yet. Why wasn’t she there yet? He glanced over at the friends’ box where most of the other players’ wives and girlfriends were seated. Many of them chatted among themselves, especially those whose husbands had been with the team for several years.

  The air hummed with excitement as the national anthem was sung and the first pitch was thrown. Children chattered away happily, many of them wearing baseball gloves in the hopes of catching a foul ball. Parents made their way to their seats, laden down with the requisite cotton candy and popcorn. The weather was nearly perfect, just shy of seventy degrees as the sun began to set in the clear sky. Nothing could compare to a spring day in the major leagues.

  Matt stepped out onto the field, taking his position at first base. Once again, he glanced into the stands to the section where CJ should be sitting. He could identify her seats instinctively after catching a glimpse of her at several of his games during the first few weeks of the season. Her seats were on the third row directly behind the Phillies’ dugout, making it easy for Matt to spot her.

  At first, CJ came with a friend from church. After Tara and Lacey showed up, they began taking turns accompanying her. Since he played an average of six games a week, he expected they were going to get their fill of baseball this season. Matt knew that coming to his games with someone helped CJ maintain the illusion that she was just another face in the crowd. Still, he looked forward to the day when she would take her place with the other players’ wives.

  If all went well, CJ would be able to sit there with them before summer ended. At least she would be able to sit there when she wasn’t out of town preparing for the Olympics. Though CJ was full of doubts, Matt was confident in his wife’s ability to make the cut. The FBI’s ability to keep her safe during competition was another story.

  The first two innings passed with no score. As he took the field at the top of the third inning, Matt checked the stands once again. Surely Doug or Keith would have told him if something was wrong. Even as that thought crossed his mind, he saw Keith in the stands. Matt glanced at the seat next to Keith, surprised to see Doug Valdez instead of CJ.

  The excitement of the game drained from Matt as the possibilities flooded through his mind. Hot waves of fear rolled over him, and worry showed in his eyes when he met Doug’s stare. Matt could hear the shouts from the stands, he was aware of the signal the catcher gave to the pitcher, yet he barely noticed the feel of the baseball glove on his hand.

  The first batter struck out as Matt’s mind whirled with possible reasons for CJ’s absence, many of them too scary to entertain. A line drive hit right at him snapped Matt back to reality. He caught the ball instinctively, more to prevent himself from getting hit than to get the out. The rest of the inning seemed to drag on as two men managed to get on base and a third player kept hitting foul balls to prevent another strikeout.

  When the third out was finally made, Matt considered how he might contact Doug for information. He was still on the steps to the dugout when the equipment manager handed him a note.

  “What’s this?” Matt asked the older man.

  “Man asked me to give that to you. Said it was important.”

  “Thanks,” Matt muttered, making his way to the bench as he tore open the envelope. He breathed a sigh of relief when he read the contents.

  Everyone’s okay. Meet you after the game at your place.

  The note was unsigned, but Doug’s presence left no doubt as to the note’s origin. Running a hand through his short blond hair, Matt rolled his shoulders, trying to relieve the tension centered there. With a sigh, he grabbed a batting helmet and prepared to get back to work.

  * * *

  CJ paced across the living room of the sparsely furnished apartment, unable to relax. After spending three days in a hotel in Chicago—thankfully one with a lap pool—CJ had finally ended up in Miami with her security entourage in tow. The Phillies game was on the radio, reminding her that she would have been watching the game in person had the weekend not taken such an unexpected turn.

  If she remembered Matt’s schedule correctly, he would have just returned that morning from a seven-day road trip. Doug had spoken to her when she was in Chicago, and he had assured her that he would get word to Matt about her whereabouts. She had hoped that Doug would have gotten word to him in St. Louis, but apparently Doug and Matt had played phone tag over the past several days, and Doug wasn’t about to leave a message of such a sensitive nature. Knowing Matt, when she failed to show up, he probably just assumed the marshals hadn’t let
her stop in St. Louis.

  Since Matt often went straight to the stadium on travel days, he might not even know she was missing until she didn’t show up for the game. Word had already filtered down that one federal marshal had been shot at the swim meet. His prognosis was still uncertain, but the surgery appeared to have been successful in removing the single bullet that had penetrated his chest just centimeters from his heart. The shooter had been killed, but Malloy had gotten away.

  Tara was still on CJ’s security detail, and Lacey had joined them en route to Miami. CJ and Tara had flown from Chicago to New York, where Lacey had met up with them. Then they hopped planes twice before finally ending up in Tampa Bay. From there, they had driven to Miami.

  The security level was higher than CJ had seen it in a long time. Even now, Lacey stood guard outside the door, while Tara was out getting supplies for the week they anticipated staying at their current location.

  Though it was difficult, CJ tried to push aside her concern for the injured marshal, instead focusing on how she might regain some control of her life. For more than two years, she had been operating under the assumption that after Chris Rush was convicted this whole ordeal would end and she would be free to live a normal life. Since the appearance of Jimmy Malloy, she was second guessing that notion. Would Malloy really leave her alone after Rush was put in prison once and for all? Or would he wait until she thought she was safe and then finish what he had tried and failed at so many times before?

  Though she had seen photographs of him, CJ had never seen Malloy in person until the swim meet in Minneapolis. Had he come out of hiding because the stakes were higher, or did he think that she was a threat to him also?

  Malloy had arranged Chase’s murder—CJ was certain of that. On the day Chase died, CJ had heard the two men who shot him reveal that Malloy had sent them. In addition, the police had confirmed that the men arrested were Malloy’s associates. Chase would still be alive today had it not been for Malloy. Yet CJ also knew, after testifying in many trials, that almost everything she knew about Malloy was hearsay. She wasn’t a credible threat to him—at least the government didn’t think so. That opinion had solidified over the past several months since Malloy had been noticeably absent. From the information Doug had given her, everyone believed he had left the country and set up shop somewhere else.