Fadeaway by E. Vickers (ebook smartphone TXT) 📗

the police I left with Jake that night because…wait for it…I didn’t leave with Jake that night. Seth is the one who has information worth hiding.”

Daphne turns to Seth. “What information?”

He looks at me and shakes his head, but she deserves to know.

“Seth told Jake he hated him. Right before the game. Right outside the training room.”

Daphne’s face goes so white that I wonder what I’m missing. Did something happen in the training room before I got there?

“I’ve never lied to you, Daphne, and I never will. I saw what I saw.” Seth can barely look at her now, and I know I’m missing something. But then he clears his throat and keeps going. “Kolt and Jake left after midnight. It’s not my fault if he was too impaired to remember it.”

I step up in his pretty-ass face. “Impaired? Are you serious? Are you calling me a liar and a drunk in the same sentence? Because I’m a lot of things, but those aren’t on the list.”

Seth throws his hands up. “I’m just telling you what happened. Spin it however you want, but I’m going to trust what I see with my own eyes.”

“You see what you want to see, Seth. But are you noticing the pattern here? ‘Jake’s missing? Blame it on Kolt!’ ‘Trouble with my girlfriend? Blame it on Kolt!’ Take responsibility for once in your freaking life.”

I’ve gone all Hulk and I don’t even realize it until we’ve switched places and it’s Daphne’s arms reaching around me from behind.

“We’re done here, Kolt,” she says softly right in my ear. “Take it easy. Let’s go. He’ll let us know when he’s ready to apologize.”

I stop struggling. She’s right. And he’s not worth it.

But also he’s lying. He has to be. And I can’t let him get away with it.

“The police are about to get some new information,” I say. “It’s not coming from me, but I can promise you this: they’re going to figure out what happened, and then they’re going to know who’s been telling the truth.”

Seth’s face goes blank. He steps away from us, back into the shadows. “I’m done here,” he says.

Daphne’s watching, wary. “Aren’t we going to go hang posters?”

“Go ahead,” he says. “It sounds like Kolt has enough info to break this thing wide open, whether I help or not.”

Daphne and I stand there in the half dark as he walks away. She takes the ball, dribbles it a couple of times. Picks at a corner of leather that’s coming up.

“Were you being serious about the police getting new information?” she asks.

I nod. I picture Jenna’s face, and there’s no doubt she’s got the guts to tell them what I haven’t.

“Is something finally going to happen?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if Jake turns up by the end of the week. One way or another.”

He’s been sneaking to the parking lot to watch the construction crew all week. They’re remodeling the offices and bathrooms on the second floor of the pharmacy, and some loudmouth on the crew happened to mention which day they’d be painting. Sure enough, they left one small, high window open that night to let things air out. Must have figured nobody would even think to look for an open window when it’s this cold.

He climbs the fire escape and eases himself onto the ledge that runs below the windows. He still exercises constantly, so he’s got the strength and the trust in his body he needs to climb all the way to the open window without worrying too much about the brick courtyard below. It feels right that the game he’s given everything to is giving him this one small thing in return.

His muscles are tight against his T-shirt as he grips the top of the window frame and lifts himself through the opening. He has sixty seconds to disable the alarm, but he installed this very alarm system last summer to make some extra cash. Of course, they’ve changed the code, but he still remembers the manufacturer’s override.

The alarm is already flashing its final ten seconds by the time he gets down the stairs and to the box, but it’s enough time to punch in the code, and he exhales, long and deep, when the light turns from red to blue. With any luck, it’s the only time he’ll see anything flash red and blue tonight.

The hardest part is over. His plan is probably going to work.

He hesitates then. This isn’t who he was raised to be. He sees his father’s face, the one who taught him to hold his head high, even in defeat.

The thing is, he shouldn’t be defeated. His team redeemed him. Everything was supposed to be better on this side of a championship. But it’s all gone to hell. If he could see any other way forward, he would take it. He would hold his head high, and he would take it.

But there is no other way, so he straightens his shoulders, snaps the gloves tight, slides off his backpack as he crosses to the controlled-substance cabinet. Maybe this isn’t who he was raised to be, but there’s no denying it’s who he is now.

One by one, he takes bottles from the shelf and dumps each into a gallon-size ziplock bag, returning the empty bottles to the exact right places. It’ll buy him a little extra time, anyway. Nothing will look off when they open the store in the morning. But enough people in this town are addicted to these pills that no doubt it’ll all be discovered tomorrow.

He could probably sell some of the pills to those very same people. God knows he could use the money; that’s why he was installing alarms last summer in the first place. But he’s not so desperate that he’s selling them. Yet.

When he has everything on his list, he does it all in reverse:

Puts the bag in the backpack.

Resets the alarm.

Eases out the open window.

Slides along the ledge.

Climbs down