Bound for Danger (11 page)

He just stared back at me, not looking friendly. “I heard Perotta let you back on the team already,” he said. “After Principal Gerther basically forced him.”

Some other guys from the team, including Dorian, were sitting at the table too. Suddenly I could feel all their eyes on us.

Frank nodded. “Yeah. Coach realized we were the victims in the whole hazing thing, so we didn't need to be punished.”

Jason's eyes narrowed. “I just don't get it,” he said, cutting his eyes from Frank to me. “Why are you so determined to stay on the team? Why are you trying so hard? You're obviously not basketball players.”

It was a good question. “We're trying to prove something to ourselves,” I said honestly. “Haven't you ever felt like that before? We don't want to quit.”

Jason seemed to take that in, and even gave a little nod. He looked back up at me, his eyes sincere now. “I respect that,” he said.

Beside him, Dorian let out a snort. “The only thing you two are proving,” he muttered, “is that you're bad basketball players.”

Most of the table laughed at that. But Jason was still watching us, thoughtful. He looked at Gabe. “Why don't you talk to them, like they want?” he asked.

Gabe looked a little cowed as he slowly got to his feet. He looked nervously from me and Frank to Owen. “Where do you want to go?”

“Let's just go to the soda machines,” I said. We walked over to the wall, where it was quiet except for the hum of the machines.

“What do you want?” Gabe asked. His words were rushed and clipped. He clearly wanted to get this over with ASAP.

“We want to know what you know,” Frank replied in a low voice. “You helped lure us to Farragut Alley the night we were hazed with Ty, Pete, and Jayden. So clearly you're in league with whoever's doing this.”

Gabe's eyes bugged out. “That doesn't mean I'm
in league
with them,” he insisted.

“Then why don't you tell us what happened?” I asked.

Gabe sighed and looked at the floor. “Okay,” he said. “I was walking my dog the night you sent that e-mail about wanting to talk to other people who'd been hazed. I hadn't even seen it yet, but I guess someone had. Because all of a sudden someone grabbed me and pulled me into a van with tinted windows. They put a bag over my head, just like when I was hazed, and they said I could cooperate or they'd see to it that I'd get thrown off the team.” He paused. “I'm sorry, you guys, I never meant to hurt anyone. I didn't know what they'd do. But I've worked too hard to get thrown off.”

I looked at Frank. He shrugged.

“You didn't hear any voices you recognized?” I asked.

“No,” Gabe replied. “Even the van, they were using that . . . distorter thing.”

“The modulator,” I put in.

“Yeah.”

Frank let out an annoyed sigh. “Gabe, really, after a year on the team, you don't have any idea who these guys are? No one does? These masked guys just show up and beat everyone, and all of you younger players are just like ‘whatever, cost of playing sports'?”

Gabe looked up then, glaring at Frank. “I don't know any more,” he said, slowly and deliberately, “but I wouldn't tell you even if I did. Look, I said I was sorry. But why don't you just do what Jason said and quit the team? It's not
your
job to fix this.”

“We're not going to quit, Gabe,” Frank said.

Gabe sighed. “All right,” he began, lowering his voice again. “Then why don't you try to talk to Diego Lopez? I told you before, he up and quit the team really suddenly. There were rumors they'd done something horrible to him, but he wouldn't talk about it. Maybe
you
could get him to talk.” He paused, looking back at his table. “But I can't help you anymore.”

With that, he scurried back to the table where Jason, Dorian, and the others were waiting.

T
HERE ARE WORSE PLACES TO
start,” Joe remarked as we watched Gabe take his seat back at the table with the team's star players. “He mentioned that Diego kid before, remember?”

“Who is he, even, though?” I asked, automatically pulling up my phone and opening Facebook. Diego Lopez . . . Diego Lopez.
There you are.
Several Diego Lopezes popped up, but only one was a teenager from Bayport. I pulled up the public part of his profile. He was a medium-size kid with shoulder-length dark hair and dimples. I thought I'd seen him around school before.

“Send him a message,” Joe said, so I typed out:

Hi, Diego. I hope this doesn't seem weird, but I've just joined the basketball team and I'm trying to get to the bottom of this whole hazing situation. I heard you might have had a personal experience that was kind of freaky. I'm not trying to get anyone in trouble, but I'd like to hear your story, if you're willing to tell it. It will be 100 percent confidential. Thanks, Frank Hardy.

“Nice,” Joe said. “Strong, but not threatening.”

“That's my specialty,” I replied, hitting the send button.

• • •

One element of being back on the basketball team that I'd almost forgotten was that we'd have to
play basketball
again. And we had a home game that afternoon, the last one before regional championships. Tensions were running high, but surprisingly, when Joe and I got to the gym and started changing into our uniforms, not one player said a single mean thing to us. Steve O'Brien even came up to me and told me he was glad Coach P had let us back on the team. Ty and Jayden gave me fist bumps as I settled onto the bench.

I was expecting to stay on the bench for the whole game—just like before. Not only was I arguably the worst player on the team, but now Coach Perotta kind of hated me personally, too. It wasn't exactly a recipe for success. But I
was perfectly happy with that. It's not like I was staying on the team to become a basketball star.

But just after halftime, Xavier Rawlins fell on his elbow and let out a yelp. Coach Perotta called a time-out, turned around, and looked right at me. “Frank, you're in for Xavier!”

“Me?” I squeaked, looking around at the bench. I was the only Frank, though.

“
You,
Frank,” Coach Perotta said, pointing to the court. “Remember what I've taught you, okay?”

I stood, glanced at Joe, who was also on the bench (he'd played a little in the first half, though, and hadn't embarrassed himself), and shakily walked toward the sidelines, where the ref was about to start the clock again. I took my position. The whistle shrilled, calling the game back into session.

And then things began to move very quickly, blending together like a dream. Dorian had the ball, and I was playing defense for him, trying to help him get it down the court. Then suddenly he was surrounded and I was clear. He nodded at me and passed the ball. I tried to get as low as I could—like Coach P had shown me—and dribbled it down the court.

I was getting close to the basket. I looked for someone to pass it to, but no one was open. I caught Jason's eye, and he mimed that I should try for the basket myself.

Me?
I wanted to say.
Frank Hardy?

Then I faked right, moved left, and threw it.

AND IT WENT IN!

My teammates erupted in cheers. I could hear Joe and the other guys on the bench chanting, “Frank! Frank! Frank!” It was like something out of a movie. I stood there and tried to soak it all in, and then . . .

“Frank!” Gabe yelled. He was passing the ball to me. And I was up again.

All in all, I probably only played for three minutes or so before Coach P pulled me out. But it felt like an eternity. A perfect eternity. I played
well!
I made
two baskets!

When I returned to my spot on the bench, in my mind, I returned as a champion.

Bayport won the game, securing our place in the championships. Even Owen had played for a couple of minutes, and he'd done well. When we went back into the locker room to change, everyone was in a good mood.

Jason came up to me as I was buttoning my shirt and slapped my shoulder. Owen, who'd already changed, was waiting for me on the bench nearby. “You were
on fire
out there, Frank,” said Jason. “I guess we're lucky Coach let you back on the team.”

I could feel myself blushing. “Aw, thanks, Jason. You were good too.”

Dorian was just behind Jason, and I half expected him to point out that that was a stupid thing for me to say to the star player. But instead he looked at me with real respect. “I guess you
have
been paying attention in practice,” he said. “You're really improving.”

I looked at him. “Maybe players who are struggling just need to be given the time and space to improve,” I said pointedly.
And not beaten until they can barely move,
I added silently.

Dorian just nodded at me briefly, and then he and Jason walked out together.

• • •

On the drive home, my phone dinged. Since I was behind the wheel, I asked Joe to take a look.

“It's a Facebook message from Diego Lopez,” he said. “Want me to read it out loud?”

I nodded.

“‘Thanks for the note, Frank, but I don't really want to talk about it.'”

“Arrgh!” I growled in frustration.

“If he just sent it, is he online now?” asked Owen, who was in the backseat. We were supposed to drop him off at the bus station, where his car was waiting, on the way home. “Send him another note. Try to convince him.”

Joe looked at Diego's message again. “Yep he's online.”

“Tell him we only want to help!” I directed Joe. My brother nodded and typed away.

Ding!
“‘You can't help,'” Joe read aloud.

“Tell him we can't help if no one will talk to us!” I said. Joe typed the message.

Nothing for a couple of minutes.

“Tell him we want to stop this from happening to others,” I said.
My phone was silent until we got to the bus station, and I was beginning to give up hope. We could try to keep bugging Diego, but it would all be useless if he had no interest in telling us the truth. We couldn't
force
him.

But just as I pulled into the bus station lot, my phone dinged again.

I parked the car and grabbed my phone from Joe so I could read it myself.

All right—I'll meet with you.

But it has to be somewhere out of the way, where no one will see.

Like where?
I wrote.
Pick the place, we'll meet you there.

There was a pause of a few seconds. Then his reply dinged.

There's a baseball field in Waltham Park in Chins River,
he wrote back.
Meet me there at ten p.m. Just you two please!!
I showed Joe, then wrote back,
Okay, see you then.

“A deserted baseball field in a deserted park on a deserted road one town away?” Joe asked. “That sounds like a
great
idea if we're looking to get abducted again.”

“But I'll be with you guys,” Owen's deep voice intoned from the backseat.

“You will?” Joe asked, turning to look at him quizzically.

“Yeah,” I said, turning too. “I thought you were just our bodyguard for school and team events.”

Owen shook his head cheerfully. “Nope,” he said, “I'm
here for you whenever you need me, day or night, rain or shine. You just say the word. Besides,” he added, “Gerther is paying me by the hour.”

• • •

At 10:02 that night, the three of us sat in our car, in a parking lot by the baseball field at Waltham Park. Our headlights were trained on the field.

“Nobody's here,” Joe said, his voice heavy with defeat. “Is this another setup?”

“If it is, I'll keep you safe,” Owen said, looking up from his phone, where he was playing a game. “Just hang out for a few minutes. Maybe the kid's just late.”

Joe sighed. I stared out the window, willing Diego to show up.
We need answers,
I thought. As much as we knew about the hazing on the basketball team, we still had no idea who was behind it.

Then, finally, at 10:07, a dark red sedan arrived. It pulled into a parking place a few yards away, and then the engine turned off and the driver's-side door opened. A smallish guy got out. I recognized his dimples from the photo on Facebook: Diego.

I looked at Joe.

“I guess it's not a setup after all,” he said, looking pleased. We unclipped our seat belts and climbed out, leaving Owen in the backseat.

“Hey,” I called to the kid. “I'm Frank, and this is my brother, Joe.”

He looked nervous, even though we hadn't seen anyone for miles. “Um, hey. Diego.”

“So, Diego,” I began, moving closer. “What can you tell us about what happened to you?”

“Well . . . ,” Diego said. He was looking around, like he expected to see the masked guys jump out from the woods. “It was a long time ago. . . .”

“This past fall, yeah?” asked Joe.

Diego nodded. “Right, yeah, this fall. I wasn't playing well.”

“Were you not playing well like you were playing badly, or were you just new?” I asked. This seemed like an important distinction as far as hazing was concerned.

Diego looked at me. “Um, I was new, I guess.” He paused. “Anyway, I . . . They told me to meet them. . . .”

“Who did?” asked Joe.

Diego looked confused now. “It was—they were—”

“Who told you to meet them?” I asked.

Diego looked from me to Joe.
Is this guy for real?
I wondered. I guessed it was understandable for him to be nervous, but this guy was all over the place.

“It was . . . it was Jason who invited me,” he said finally.
Jason,
I thought with a frown. I wanted to believe Jason was a nice guy . . . but could it be coincidence that he seemed so involved in setting up the victims? “But I don't know whether he knew what would happen. Maybe he told other people I was meeting him, and they took the opportunity to grab me.
He told me to meet him at Athlete's Warehouse, so he could give me advice on what sneakers to buy to help improve my game.” He paused again. “As soon as I got out of the car, someone put a bag over my head and shoved me in a trunk. When they took off the bag, it was pitch dark, and there were these guys wearing masks.”