Pitch Black (6 page)

She called the bank and made a mid-morning appointment to discuss it with the vice president. If she got it set up, she could include the donation information in this article.

AFTER LEAVING THE SMOKY RIDGE
, Gabe decided to head out to the high school. As always when he was driving around town, he made an unnecessary swing past the
Buckeye Daily Herald
’s office.

The instant he turned the corner, he saw Maddie walking down the sidewalk on the right side of the street with her back to him. Her posture was ramrod straight, hair was pulled back into a sleek ponytail, and she wore a skirt suit that couldn’t look more out of place on their homey downtown streets. To complete the Philly-business shell, she had an expensive-looking tote slung over her shoulder.

He couldn’t help thinking how much he preferred her in that huge UT sweatshirt with her hair loose and naturally curled.

A smile played on his lips.
Maybe wearing nothing but that sweatshirt . . .

He drove slowly. Once he got just behind her, he matched her speed.

She kept up her businesslike pace, eyes focused straight ahead.

Oh, well, hell. This was just too tempting to pass up.

He flipped on his siren—just one loud blip.

Every muscle in Maddie’s body jerked tight. Her step faltered and her foot tipped off her three-inch heel.

She turned. The look of surprise on her face clouded with irritation the instant she saw him . . . laughing.

Stalking to the curb, she motioned for him to put his passenger window down. The look on her face reminded him of his third-grade teacher’s after he and his best buddy liberated the classroom’s pet gerbils from their cage. “Are you, like, what . . . twelve?”

Trying to suppress a chuckle, he said, “I’m sorry, sugar, but you were asking for that one.” Little Peggy was right; it was time for Maddie to begin to fit in.

“What do you mean, asking for it?”

He could see her annoyance beginning to fade, so he went for it. “Be a good idea to stop walking around here like an alien from another planet. Get yourself some sensible shoes, maybe a pair of Dockers pants.”

“I’m working!
These
”
—
she ran her hand down the length of her body, as if displaying a prize—“are my work clothes.”

“All I’m sayin’ is if you want to fit in around here, maybe it’s time to knock the formality down a notch or two. Slow down. Stop and say howdy to folks you pass.”

She straightened and fixed a mocking glare on him. “Who says I want to fit in?”

She turned and resumed her Yankee march up the street.

When he tooted his horn as he passed, she wrinkled her nose and gave him an I’d-delight-in-wringing-your-neck look—however, she did wave.

What a proud, stubborn woman. Why couldn’t he leave her alone?

WHEN GABE SIGNED IN
at the high school office, he wasn’t surprised to discover that both Colin Arbuckle and J.D. were absent from school today. Spending a night on a mountain with a dead body would have taken an emotional toll. As a teenage boy, Gabe had always capitalized on each and every reason to miss school; this should qualify in spades.

Apparently not for Ethan Wade, however, who hadn’t even been late in his arrival this morning.

Gabe hadn’t planned on questioning the boys here anyway. Better to address them away from their peers. He’d call on Colin and J.D. as soon as he left here.

He found Coach Lawrence watching game tapes in his little office off the gymnasium locker rooms. The smell of this place hadn’t changed in the fifteen years since Gabe had graduated—shower steam and dirty socks. If he closed his eyes, he’d be right back in freshman phys ed, fighting the combination lock that never worked right and dreading old Mr. Phelps’s lazy man’s approach to gym class . . . running endless laps.

Gabe rapped a knuckle on the door jamb.

Lawrence jerked his gaze away from the TV screen. “Sheriff.” He stood. “What can I do for you?”

Stepping inside the cramped office, Gabe got right to the point. “Zach Gilbert tested positive for anabolic steroids. That’s what killed him.”

He waited, gauging Coach Lawrence’s reaction. Had he known Zach was doping? Had he encouraged it? Lawrence had been brought in last year after the previous coach had gone three years without a winning season. High school football was damn near a religion in this town, and folks were impatient.

For a beat or two, Lawrence stood stock-still. Then he spun around and slammed the playbook in his hands against the side of a metal filing cabinet. Gabe flinched as the bang reverberated in the close space.

“Damn it!” the man swore between clenched teeth. He kept his profile to Gabe. His breath came in angry bursts from his barrel chest. “God-fucking-damn it.”

“I take it this is news to you,” Gabe finally said.

In the next instant, Gabe feared lightning bolts would actually shoot from the man’s ice-blue eyes.

“What kind of man do you think I am? Holy Christ . . . ”

“I just know the kind of pressure you’re under here—”

“Hey! I want a championship as much as everyone else in this town, but I would never compromise the safety of a single player to get it.” He shot Gabe another stabbing look. “There are thousands of high school coaching jobs. I don’t need
this
one that badly.”

Plenty of men had been tempted by less. But Lawrence’s reaction seemed genuine. For the moment, Gabe believed him. “What about others? I can’t imagine this is an isolated case. It just doesn’t work that way.”

Lawrence sank down in the chair he’d been sitting in when Gabe entered the room. “If I missed it in Gilbert, it’s entirely possible that I’ve missed it in others.” He gave his head a slow shake. “I made my policy clear at my very first summer practice. Zero tolerance.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “No alcohol, no failing grades, no knocked-up girlfriends, no drugs—which I made clear included performance enhancers. An undisciplined athlete is an unreliable athlete.”

Gabe nodded. “I’d appreciate it if you keep a close eye on your team. And let the other coaches know to do the same. I want to know if we have a serious issue in this community.”

Lawrence stood again. “No problem. I’m gonna be all over this.”

“Be in touch,” Gabe said as he shook the man’s hand.

On his way out of the building, Gabe paused by the double doors to the cafeteria and looked inside. The clothes and hairstyles had changed, but if he closed his eyes for a single second, as he had in the locker room, the rumble of dozens of adolescent conversations and the smell of sticky spaghetti and burnt garlic bread shot him right back to his high school days.

“Excuse me, do you need some help?”

Gabe turned to see a young woman with a blond ponytail and a photo ID badge that marked her as a teacher looking at him with concern.

Feeling like an idiot, he said, “Thanks, no. I was just on my way out.”

She smiled and went on into the cafeteria.

It struck him then that he was older than many of the teachers. Man, when he thought back, all of his teachers had seemed friggin’
ancient.

Nostalgia had a way of stacking the years into a visible mountain between you and your youth. He decided to put it away and not drag it out again any time in the near future.

Then another thought rolled down the steep slope of life’s reminiscences. When his dad had been thirty-three, Gabe had been twelve years old. He tried to imagine himself with a twelve-year-old child.

He might never be a father at the rate he was going.

Knock it off, Wyatt.

As he started away from the cafeteria door, he noticed Ethan sitting at the end of a long table all alone. In a sea of youthful movement, he was an island of stillness. He painted such a picture of misery that Gabe stopped and studied him for a moment. The boy had pushed his untouched food tray away from him. His elbows were planted on the table and he rested his forehead on the heels of his hands. It was the defeated droop of his shoulders that struck Gabe the hardest.

He almost walked through the door, but stopped short. True, he wanted to talk to Ethan further about what had happened on the mountain, but this wasn’t the time or place. The kid had enough trouble without Gabe pulling him out in front of the entire student body.

Besides, if he waited until Ethan was home, Gabe would have an excuse to see Maddie.

He left the school thinking he shouldn’t be so looking forward to questioning a kid about a death.

THE PRESSURE IN ETHAN’S HEAD
threatened to make it explode. With every heartbeat, he felt his eyes bulge. He pressed the heels of his hands against them to keep them in their sockets. He could almost see the top of his head blown open by the force of his own pulse; his blood and brains on the cafeteria wall.

Blood and brains . . . blood and brains . . . like Mr. McP.

The thought kept circling in his head, building more pressure.

He tried to stop thinking. He’d been trying for two days. But there was no relief, no sleep, no peace.

All Ethan had wanted to do was protect Jordan.

It had been that way from the start. The first time Ethan had laid eyes on Jordan, the kid reminded him of a whipped dog, so unaccustomed to anyone reaching out to him except to bully and punish that he instinctively shied away. Ethan knew that feeling all too well.

But while Ethan’s life had made him strong, Jordan’s seemed to have knocked all the toughness right out of him.

They’d met the first week after he’d moved to Buckeye:

Ethan approached the skateboard half-pipe at the public park. He didn’t have a skateboard, but looking at the cool skate park, he thought maybe he’d ask for one for his birthday next week. M had been bugging him about what he wanted. Since she couldn’t give him what he really wanted—to not have his fifteenth birthday before he started his freshman year in high school—maybe a skateboard would be fun.

The park wasn’t real busy, just a couple of guys with their boards inside the fence. Ethan leaned his elbows on the top of the chain link and watched. They were both younger than him and they were pretty good working the half-pipe; one of them was getting some pretty serious air.

Then Ethan spotted a skinny kid sitting on a bench just outside the gate. He held his skateboard across his bouncing knees. His fingers drummed on the board. He kept his gaze lowered, looking at everything except the kids inside the fence.

Ethan recognized the posture, that desire to be invisible, right away. He’d been the same way his first weeks on the street.

He walked around the fenced area and sat on the bench next to the kid. He couldn’t tell how old he was; he looked twelve or thirteen, but as pale and scrawny as he was, Ethan guessed he was probably older than he appeared.

“Hey,” Ethan said. “You going in?”

The kid’s gaze came up for a fraction of a second, then returned to the skateboard in his lap. He shrugged. “Maybe later.”

Ethan pointed to the skateboard; it was new, the wheels barely even roughened. “Pretty sweet.”

“Thanks.” The word was almost too low to hear over the rumble of the other skaters’ wheels.

“Hey, dweeb, thought we told you to go home,” one of the guys inside the fence called.

Ethan watched as the kid on the bench retreated like a frightened turtle, drawing his head lower into his shoulders.

The other skater kicked up his board and carried it over to the fence. “Yeah. You’re too scared to do anything. Why are you hanging around here?”

Ethan looked up. “How ’bout you guys leave him alone? He’s not bothering you.”

“Wrong. He’s bugging the shit out of us. Little nerd can’t even ride that thing.”

“Looks to me like he just got it,” Ethan said.

“Yeah, well, he’s too chicken to use it.”

Ethan looked at the kid sitting next to him, who was totally focused on the skateboard wheel he was fingering.

Ethan asked quietly, “Did they throw you out?”

One bony shoulder rose. Then he looked sideways at Ethan without raising his head. “My brother Todd gave me the skateboard,” he whispered. “I
have
to learn to ride it.”

“Hey, dude,” one of the kids called from just inside the fence, “you don’t want to hang with that pussy.” He pointed to the scared kid.

Ethan was off the bench and had the kid by the shirtfront in a heartbeat. He lifted Skater Boy’s shoes off the ground, pulling him up until they were nose to nose over the fence. “Leave him alone, or I’m going to shove your head up your buddy’s ass.” His teeth were clenched as he ground out the words.

Skater Boy’s eyes widened and he raised his hands, palms up. “Dude, relax.”

The other skateboarder hung back, out of Ethan’s reach. “Yeah, dude. What’s wrong with you?”

“Pricks like you, that’s what’s wrong with me. Leave him alone. Next time, I’ll feed you your own balls.” He let the kid down.

The instant the kid’s feet hit the ground, he jerked away, taking a step back. “You’re a crazy fucker.”

“Crazier than anything you’ve ever met. Remember it.”

Instead of coming out the gate, the two skaters went to the side fence and climbed over, shooting nasty looks at Ethan as they did.

Once they were over, Ethan made a move like he was going after them.

They broke into a run and didn’t look back.

He grinned down at the kid on the bench. “I’m Ethan.”

The kid looked up, gratitude in his eyes. “Jordan.”

“Come on, Jordan, let’s get you riding that thing.”

Jordan had been the most cautious, least coordinated kid Ethan had ever seen. But by the end of that afternoon they’d gotten him so he could coast along on the thing without falling and busting his ass.

They’d parted friends that day.

Over the summer, they’d hung out a lot, enough that Ethan could tell something was wrong with Jordan as they’d driven up the mountain on Friday. He’d been silent the entire drive—which wasn’t entirely unusual, as he tended to be quiet around his stepdad. But there was a weird nervousness about Jordan: jittery hands, bouncy knees, and a scared-rabbit look in eyes that would not meet Ethan’s.