by Tim Green
“Right,” she said. “Then you think, but that’s the pros. We’re talking fourteen-year-olds. So I did some research after school. Four percent of high school kids use steroids. You think, not a big number, right? Until you know that there’s sixteen and a half million high school kids. That’s more than half a million kids in this country using steroids. It makes the number of pro players look like a raindrop in Onondaga Lake.”
Josh held her gaze until she said, “Come on, let’s go see if tonight’s the night.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
JOSH LOOKED AT HIS watch—it was just after seven—and asked, “You think it will be?”
“I was thinking about the last time,” Jaden said, beginning to walk. “There’s a shift change at eight. That’s probably why he was here then. Whoever’s supplying him probably gets off the same time as my dad. Also, that day was a Thursday and it’s Thursday today, so I think we’ve got a chance. If Coach Valentine is giving steroids to the whole team, he probably has to get more every week.”
Josh tucked his bike behind a ragged patch of bushes next to the sidewalk, and they began their mission. Small houses stood cramped along the street, lurking, aged and sullen, behind withering trees, and half-shaded windows. Josh and Jaden turned the corner and scoped out the loading dock from across the street, walking down the hill and past the concrete cave without stopping until they got to the next corner.
“Where should we wait?” Josh asked. “Behind the Dumpsters?”
“It won’t smell good,” Jaden said, “but I think it’s the only place that’s safe. Let’s go in one at a time in case there’s a security guard around or something. I’ll go first.”
“I should go,” Josh said, taking hold of her shoulder. “If there’s no place to hide and something goes wrong, I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“I know the docks better than you,” she said, slipping free, “and if anything happens, I can just say I’m there to meet my dad.”
“What happens if Rocky’s there and your dad really comes out?” Josh asked.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I told my dad I couldn’t meet him tonight, that I’d be at the library. I can stay and see what happens with Rocky if he’s here and then get home after my dad.”
“I keep saying you’re smart.”
Jaden touched his hand, smiling, and said, “So, I’ll go. When I get set, I’ll text you. Hoods up.”
Jaden flipped up her hood, hiding her face and hair. Josh did the same, then watched her cross the street and climb the hill toward the loading dock. He tensed when a blue van turned the corner and chugged up the hill, slowing to turn into the loading dock area. Jaden barely looked at the van. When she got to the place where the loading area cut into the side of the hill, she took a quick right and, keeping to the edge of the retaining wall, quickly disappeared from sight into the cavelike entrance.
Five minutes seemed like five hours. The van emerged from the dock and chugged on up the hill. Before it disappeared, Josh got Jaden’s text: “OK.”
Josh crossed the street and followed her path. When he reached the entrance, he took the quick right and walked between a guardrail and the concrete wall that grew higher as the loading area cut deeper into the hillside. The five large Dumpsters still stood in the corner, two with their backs to the loading area and three along the side wall. Josh scanned the area as he crept forward, ducking down when a man in a blue uniform emerged from an open garage door wheeling a big trash can.
As he eased forward, Josh heard the man tossing bags of garbage into one of the Dumpsters by the dock. He finished and wheeled the big can back into the garage and what must be the maintenance area. Then Josh saw Jaden peek her head out from between the second and third Dumpsters along the wall and wave frantically to him. He hurried to where she was, ducking into the dark fissure between the two huge metal containers. The stink of garbage filled his nose. His heart thumped against his ribs. Jaden grasped his hand and held it tight.
“It’s gonna be pitch-black in here in about twenty minutes,” Josh said in a whisper. “Are we gonna be able to see anything?”
“Our eyes will adjust,” she said, looking ghostly in her dark, hooded sweatshirt.
“What about taking a picture of him getting the drugs?” Josh asked.
Jaden held up her cell phone and said, “It’s got a flash.”
Josh nodded. Jaden reached into the hatch on the side of the Dumpster they faced and removed a flattened cardboard box. He followed her as she moved deeper into the space between the Dumpsters, stopping just before they reached the other side. She laid the cardboard down on the slimy blacktop and pointed to it before she sat down herself with her back to the Dumpster. Josh did the same, pulling his knees up tight and using them as a chin rest. From where they sat, they had a perfect view of the loading dock and any cars that pulled in to park.
Josh steadied his breathing and settled in to wait. The shadows lengthened and deepened, and soon everything outside the cones of light from the fixtures dissolved into a murky soup. When the headlights from a car swung across the Dumpsters, they froze. The car rumbled down into the docks and came to a rest amid the handful of other cars parked against the concrete wall. Josh couldn’t make out exactly what kind of car it was. He thought it was black, but it could have been dark blue. He knew it wasn’t a big car.
The door opened, and someone got out—the shadow of a person too blurred to really see. Then the shape hopped up onto the loading dock and stood briefly under a cone of light before ducking into the shadows of the only open garage door. Josh didn’t have to guess anymore.
He had no doubt that the man he saw was Rocky Valentine.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
JOSH REACHED OUT AND grasped Jaden’s hand.
“That’s him, right?” Jaden asked in the faintest whisper, her southern accent somehow more pronounced in the dark.
Josh nodded. They stood and pressed themselves against the Dumpster’s cool metal side. Josh’s fingers played across a thick rib of steel and gripped its edge as though wind from a hurricane might whisk him away. Jaden leaned toward him so that her lips brushed his ear.
“When he gets the drugs,” she said in words he had to strain to hear, “I’ll jump out and take the picture. Then we run.”
Josh nodded but groped for her hand again and tightened his grip to get her attention. He moved his lips to her ear, smelling the strawberry scent of her shampoo, and said, “If they come after us, we’ll split up. We’ll run down the hill. I’ll keep going straight to distract them, and you take a right and head for home. We’ll text each other when we’re both safe.”
Her lips mashed against his ear, making him jump. “You think they’ll chase us?”
He could hear the alarm in her voice. He tried to calm his breathing before he said, “No. I’m only saying in case.”
Jaden nodded and looked at her watch, pressing a button on the side of it to illuminate the numbers and show him it was just eight. As if on cue, the far door in the opposite corner of the loading dock swung open, stabbing the shadows with a spear of white light that disappeared when it closed. The door began to open and close constantly now as several of the hospital employees left through the back door, the same way Jaden’s father did.
As they came out, the bright light behind them made it impossible to see their faces. One by one, they zipped around the closing door and descended the small set of stairs on the far side of the dock. One of them came close and climbed into a car parked along the dock, backing out and zipping away, tires crunching on the gritty pavement.
Josh loosened his grip on Jaden’s hand. He leaned in close again to whisper that Rocky might have snuck inside the hospital through the garage door and the maintenance area, but just as his lips brushed her ear, the far door swung open, and the figure that appeared walked right at them, toward the Dumpsters, and away from the stairs where everyone else had gone.
Jaden gripped his hand tight, then let g
o, removing her camera phone from her jacket pocket and edging toward the loading dock. The door swung shut, cutting off the bright light that kept the figure’s face in the shadows, but whoever it was kept close to the garage doors, staying on the fringe of the lights from above. Josh took hold of the Dumpster’s corner as Jaden snuck closer, nearly to the edge of the raised loading dock.
The figure moving toward the place where Rocky hid wore a long white lab coat and appeared to have a bag in one hand, although it was so dark Josh couldn’t be certain. The sound of footsteps on the concrete came from the black hole of the garage where Rocky had disappeared. Josh saw movement in the shadows, and the figure in the white coat stopped in the darkness in front of another dark shape Josh knew to be Rocky Valentine.
Jaden found a foothold in the loading dock wall, grabbed the edge, and peeked her head over the lip of concrete. She raised her camera phone, and he saw her trying to line up the shapes, knowing she couldn’t see much more than he could and that it would be difficult to center the picture.
She’d get only one shot.
Rocky and whoever his supplier was would know that they’d been caught the instant the flash went off. Josh and Jaden would have to run, and if Rocky was as quick as he was strong, they’d have to run fast.
Josh sensed the tension in Jaden’s body. He eased out from behind the Dumpsters and into the open space, crouched low and watching but ready to sprint. He could see the two figures talking and Rocky reaching for the bag. Their voices floated across the dark space in low tones. Suddenly Rocky’s shape spun toward Jaden.
“Hey!” Rocky shouted.
The camera flash exploded, blasting Rocky and his accomplice with a light so white it blinded Josh. Before he could react, Jaden rocketed past him.
From the pitch-blackness, Rocky screamed with rage.
“Come back here!”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
JOSH HAD NO IDEA Jaden was that fast. He trailed her hooded shape out of the loading dock, across the street, and down the sidewalk. Her legs flashed like blades on a hedge clipper. Behind him, Rocky kept shouting for them to stop, but that only sent fresh waves of adrenaline through Josh’s veins.
When Jaden reached the corner, Josh saw her shoot a quick glance over her shoulder, then break off to the right and down the side street. Josh leaped from the sidewalk without breaking stride, pounding down the pavement in the middle of the street and under a light, where Rocky would be sure not to miss him.
Josh kept going. He risked a quick look back. He saw Rocky reach the spot where Jaden had split off.
Rocky stopped.
Josh slowed and spun around. Rocky swung his head from side to side, deciding which one he should chase.
In a gravelly voice, Josh yelled, “Hey, mister!”
Rocky looked his way.
“Kiss my butt!”
Josh spanked his own backside. Rocky roared and headed right for him. Josh took off, his body numb from panic. After another block, Josh hit State Street, a main thoroughfare. He broke across the street and toward downtown—the opposite way Jaden had gone. Scattered handfuls of young thugs and an occasional bag person provided an obstacle course on the broken sidewalk for Josh to dodge around.
Before he took a left at the next side street, Josh risked a second glance back. He’d gained some distance from Rocky and as Josh turned the corner, he saw the muscle-bound coach bend over and grab at his side, staggering after Josh now with a hitch in his stride. Josh grinned to himself and kept running, going back up the hill and essentially making a big circle before he dashed across the street on which Jaden had turned off. He then ducked down between two parked cars to watch and wait.
After ten minutes, he saw Rocky limping back up the hill on the far side of the street. Five minutes later, he saw the black Porsche speed off, its gears whining with fury. Josh stood up and took the cell phone from his pocket. He’d missed two calls from Jaden. He checked his text messages and wondered why she had called instead of sending a text.
He hit REDIAL and got her on the first ring.
“Oh my God,” she said, crying hysterically. “Josh, oh my God.”
His heart ached at the sound of her weeping.
“What’s wrong?” he said, choking on his words. “Did you get the picture?”
“Yes, come quick,” she said, sobbing. “Josh, meet me at the pavilion in Washington Square Park. I can’t say it on the phone.
“You’re not going to believe who it is.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
THE NIGHT HAD ADVANCED far enough to show stars above the whispering treetops and the inky spaghetti strands of the electric wires. Tired as he was, Josh somehow found the energy to jog. On the gloomy side street, he tensed up at the sight of a tall, skinny hooded man bouncing on his toes and heading his way right up the sidewalk. Josh stepped aside at the next driveway, fists ready, but the man passed, sipping on a bottle of whiskey without even looking Josh’s way. When he rounded the next corner, Josh scooped his bike up out of the bushes, mounted it, and raced off toward the park. When he saw Jaden slumped on a bench under the shadow of the pavilion, he dumped his bike in the grass and broke into a run.
When he reached her, she threw her arms around him and clasped him tight, saying his name over and over and crying all the while.
“It’s what I deserve,” she said bitterly as she withdrew from his arms. “Me and my investigating. Look.”
Jaden stabbed at him with her phone. Josh took it and studied the screen. He gasped—a sharp, inward hiss through his front teeth. In the white flash of the photo she’d taken, Rocky Valentine stood taking a bag from the hands of a man in a white lab coat, a man with small, round glasses and a shock of straight dark hair.
The man was Dr. Neidermeyer, Jaden’s father.
“Jaden,” he said.
“I know,” she said, holding up her hand and dropping her chin to her chest. “I’m the one who wanted to go to the police. I’m so ashamed.”
“But we don’t know—”
“Josh, don’t,” she said, cutting him off. “We know. You know and I know.”
Josh put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.
“It’s okay,” he said softly. “You should hear my parents. If they’re not in on this, it’s only because they don’t know about it. It’s like everyone is okay with these things. Maybe they’re not that dangerous. Your dad’s a doctor.”
“You think he’d even be a doctor if people knew about this?” she said angrily, flailing her arms in the air. “He’d lose his license in a heartbeat. This stuff isn’t okay. This stuff is dangerous. I know that. Everyone knows it.”
“People use it, Jaden,” Josh said. “No one on the Titans is dropping dead.”
“Not yet,” Jaden said. “And neither are the people who breathe in a cloud of asbestos. It doesn’t kill you instantly. It’s not cyanide, but it kills you. You’re thirty, forty years old and your liver goes out, or your kidneys, or you have a massive heart attack. Maybe you make it into your fifties or your early sixties, but before it’s over, that stuff ends your life sooner than it should.”
Josh held out her phone and waited for her to take it back.
“So, what now?” he asked.
“I don’t even want to go home,” she said, tears filling her eyes afresh. “Everything he said, everything he talks about—how do I know if it’s true?”
Jaden leaned against him and Josh held her again. They sat down together on the bench. She buried her face in his chest, and Josh tugged her hood off and ran his hands through the wild thicket of hair that sprang from the band at the back of her head.
Jaden rested her cheek on his shoulder, sighed, and softly said, “He told me my mom died when I was born. They lived in Houston. They weren’t even married. He said they couldn’t afford a good doctor and after that happened, he decided he’d become one and help people like him and my mom. He said it was for her, what she would have wanted him to do.”
“That’s nice,” Josh said.
“Do you know how proud I was of him?” Jaden said, sitting up and staring fiercely into his eyes. “Was. I don’t even know if that’s what happened. For all I know, my mother didn’t want me, or he ran off with me. I have no idea. If he’d lie about this, what wouldn’t he lie about?”
Josh gripped her shoulders and said, “Sometimes parents aren’t what you think they are, but it doesn’t mean they don’t love you. Parents are just people. They’re just like us.”
Jaden shook her head and said, “No, I’m not like that. I’m going to stop him.”
“Not the police?” Josh said. “Jaden, you can’t.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
“WE’LL STICK TO OUR plan,” Josh said. “We have to. Your dad isn’t the only one this would ruin. My dad needs this job. We can stop this thing and everyone can go back to their normal life.”
“You think Rocky won’t just find another person to get drugs from?” Jaden asked. “You think my father won’t sell something else to some other dealer? Maybe it’ll be sleeping pills. Maybe painkillers. They’re probably safer than that crap.”
“I don’t know,” Josh said. “Maybe you can talk to him.”
“I’m not talking to him,” Jaden said. “Some doctor. With all those books and his computer and all those crappy papers he writes. It’s all a lie.”
Josh stood up and took her hand, leading her toward his bike.
“Come on,” he said. “I’m going to get you home. It’s late. We both need to sleep on this. You ride on the handlebars. I’ve done it with Benji, so they’ll hold you.”
Josh pedaled hard through the streets, dropping Jaden at the corner near her house. He gave her a brief hug, patting her back and telling her it would all work out, then headed for home.
“Are you okay?” his mother asked when she saw his face. She was reading a book on the couch while his dad watched something on TV.