Impulsive (31 page)

"The one and only," she replied, trying to hold back her
tears.

"No, babe. Right now there's at least three of you."

"Concussion," Dan concluded.

"Answer the officer, Ty. Do you hurt anywhere else?"

"My cheek, my forehead... my right hand." Ty's voice,
still weak, took on a panicky note. "I can't feel my fingers!"

Moments later, Tom declared disgustedly, "Jess, you klutz!
You're kneeling on the man's hand! His throwing hand, at that!"

Abashed and apologetic, she scooted off his hand, trying not to
jar his head in the process.

"So, do you remember what happened? Did you trip? Fall?
What?" Dan prodded.

Ty started to shake his head, a move he immediately regretted.
Wincing, he rasped, "The last thing I recall is getting Gabe's combination
lock undone. I was going to wait for Jess before opening the door, but I
thought I'd unlock it, at least."

"And then?"

Ty frowned, trying to remember. "The lights went out, I
think. Literally and figuratively. The next thing, I woke up with my head about
to split wide open."

"An apt comment, since it actually is split open," Officer
Ken noted. "I think we can safely assume someone clobbered you. Did you
hear any noises before you got hit?"

"Just Jess when she flushed the john."

"And the lights went off before you were hit? You didn't see
anyone, catch even a glimpse or a shadow?"

"I didn't see squat. Why?"

"Obviously someone hit the light switch, and if it wasn't her
or you, it stands to reason there was a third party involved. Presumably, the
person who hit you."

"The bag," Ty said suddenly.

"Who? What?"

"The bag," he repeated impatiently. "Gabe's duffel.
Is it still in the locker, Jess?"

"What's all the fuss about a duffel bag?" Fred wanted to
know.

Jess nodded toward Gabe's locker. "Would one of you officers
do the honors, please? It's number twenty-two."

The lock was lying on the floor at the base of the locker, but the
door was still shut. However, when Dan pulled the panel open, there was no
duffel bag inside. Only Gabe's uniform and protective gear were there.

"What about his shoes?" Jess thought to mention.

"Nope."

Ty let loose a low, careful curse. "Damn! Someone took it."

"The police?" Jess hazarded hopefully.

"Why would we have it?" Dan questioned curiously.

"Your department is investigating Gabe Rome's possible
poisoning," she explained. "They searched his house today. We thought
perhaps they'd done the same here. You might check with Detective Haggardy,
because if his crew doesn't have that duffel, then it's quite possible the
person responsible for this whole mess has taken it."

"I'm still not making the connection," Tom stated
confusedly. "Is there something in the gym bag that could point to the
perpetrator?"

"Bingo." This from Ty. "Give the man a Kewpie
doll."

"So the guy Miss Myers heard leaving after the thumps and the
lights going off is the one who bonked Ty and took the bag?" Fred
proposed.

"That's my guess, too," Jess concluded dismally,
"and he's probably guilty of a whole lot worse. Including intentional
murder."

"So, why didn't he kill me?" Ty wondered aloud.

Jess shuddered. "For whatever reason, I'll be eternally
grateful he didn't."

Amid his protests to the contrary, Ty was transported to the
hospital via ambulance. Jess followed in Ty's car, and behind her came the two
patrolmen in their police cruiser. Jess was still so unnerved that she stalled
the Trans Am twice en route, and was amazed that the officers didn't pull her
over and ask to see her driver's license.

As the emergency staff checked the extent of Ty's injuries, the
officers questioned Jess again, trying to elicit more details and to verify
others. Just when it seemed they were satisfied at last, Detective Haggardy
waltzed through the emergency ward doors and the routine began anew.

Finally, Jess had had it. "Look, fellas, I'll carve it in
stone if you want, but can we give it a rest? All I care about right now is
finding out how badly Ty is hurt."

"One more time," Haggardy urged. "I want to make
sure I understand this cockamamie theory you two and the Rome woman cooked up
that someone is out to destroy the Knights. Tell me again why you suspect the
team doctor, this Johnson."

"Because he's the one who did the drug testing on the team,
and had the best opportunity to alter the results," she reiterated
wearily. "Also, he might have prescribed Brice Tackett's antihistamine,
perhaps in the wrong dosage. We're not certain about that, but we do know that
Doc was treating Gabe when he got sick, and diagnosed him with the flu. He'd
also given Gabe a special medication for his athlete's foot, in an unlabeled
bottle."

"Which you, being a hot-shot investigative reporter, consider
suspicious," Haggardy commented snidely.

"Under the circumstances, yes, and so should you," she
insisted heatedly. "Gabe was exposed to arsenic in some manner, whether by
absorption or ingestion, and every avenue should be thoroughly explored. Why is
it you always suspect the spouse first?" she grumbled. "Corey is as
true blue as they come."

"So you keep saying. Okay, say Johnson is our culprit. We
still don't have any evidence to support that assumption. The mysterious duffel
bag, if there ever was one, is nowhere to be found. Also missing is this
supposedly tainted athlete's foot remedy and Rome's football shoes. Am I
correct so far?"

Ty was admitted overnight for further observation. In addition to
a moderate concussion, he had a smaller bump on his forehead and a few slight
abrasions to his right cheek, these apparently sustained in his fall onto the
concrete floor. When they had him transferred to a private room and settled for
the night, Jess stayed until his medication took effect and he fell asleep.
Then, sadly in need of a shower and a change of clothes, she drove herself home
to her own apartment.

No sooner had she stepped into the hall, than the phone rang. Sure
it must be either Corey or the hospital calling, Jess ran to answer it. To her
dismay, but not surprise, it was her godfather on the other end of the line,
with the requisite lecture she had hoped to postpone.

Without preamble, he commanded, "Jessie, I want you to resign
your position as kicker and stay the hell away from the team until all this
nonsense stops. It's too dangerous."

"I can't do that, Tommy. I won't," she replied flatly.

"Don't argue with me. If anything were to happen to you, your
mom would skin me alive."

"As everyone is so fond of reminding me, I'm a big girl. I
can look after myself," she insisted.

"Face it, Jessie, you have a nose for trouble. For your own
well-being, it's time you tucked it back into your own business before you get
it snipped off."

"No can do, Tommy. As I said, it seems that someone, for
whatever reason, is deliberately taking aim at team members, and I'm going to
get to the bottom of it if it kills me."

"Which it very well might!" he shouted.

"Don't yell at me. I know you're concerned, but what kind of
reporter would I be if I didn't investigate this? Besides, if it wasn't my
business before, it most assuredly is now. Whoever is behind these vicious
incidents made it in-my-face personal, first by attacking my friends and now by
assaulting Ty tonight. I'm not about to ignore it, Tommy, and let him get away
with murder."

"Damn it, Jess! If you take this as some kind of challenge,
you're bound to regret it. Knock off the hot-shot reporter act and use your
common sense for once! Leave it to the police, and stay out of it! Consider
that an order, young lady!"

Jess's nerves, stretched to the breaking point along with her
temper, snapped. "Stuff it, Tommy. You might mean well, but you're
overstepping the godfather role. You have no right to censure me or issue
mandates. You're not my father, after all."

"Maybe not, but I should have been!" he shot back
sharply. Before she could assimilate that statement, he abruptly hung up.

For several seconds, Jess frowned dumbly at the buzzing receiver
in her hand, as if some mechanical malfunction had been at fault. Finally, with
a confused shake of her head, she slowly replaced it in the cradle. "Whew!
What was that all about?"

As she started to turn away, the blinking red light on her
answering machine caught her attention. Deciding whatever was recorded couldn't
possibly ruin her day any further, she punched the playback button. There was a
short message from her mother, just to touch base. A reminder from her
dentist's office that her semiannual checkup and cleaning was due. Corey,
asking for the latest update. And a short, succinct threat in a muffled voice,
which warned, "You were lucky tonight, and got off easy. Take heed, or
you're next, lady."

Jess stumbled backward, away from the machine, as if it had
suddenly grown fangs. She stared at it, aghast, as the tape clicked off and a
thick, ominous silence surrounded her. Her brain was reeling with the shock,
her heart pounding, her knees turning to Jell-O. Having Tommy rant and rave at
her, out of the kindness of his heart, was one thing; receiving a threatening
message from an unknown source was another matter entirely. Actually, it scared
her spitless!

Especially when she realized that she was all alone in the
apartment—or hoped she was! She'd flipped on one light in the living room as
she'd dashed for the phone, but other than that, the place was dark. Moreover,
she wasn't sure she'd taken the time to lock the front door behind her. Just
then, the furnace kicked on, and the unfamiliar sound in the otherwise quiet
apartment nearly made her jump out of her shoes.

"Get a grip, Jess," she told herself shakily.
"You're losing it, girl. You've lived by yourself for years, and it never
bothered you before." Still another part of her—the quivering chicken
part—reminded her that she'd never received threats via her phone before,
either, and was urging her to get out of the apartment. The sooner the better.

Jess gave in with uncommon haste. She yanked the tape from the
answering machine, stuffed it into her jacket pocket, and was fishing for her
keys on her way out the door. When her fumbling fingers failed to find them in
her pocket, or amid the hodgepodge in her purse, she all but panicked. She
turned to retrace her steps through the apartment, soon spotting her keys,
still dangling from the outside of the lock. Heaving a sigh of relief, she
pulled the door shut and the keys free, and made a mad dash for the car. For
the first time in years, she checked the backseat before getting in, launched
herself inside, and promptly flipped the locks before fitting the key into the
ignition switch.

She was halfway down the block before the thought occurred to her
that she had no idea where she was going. To Ty's place? She had the keys. Back
to the hospital? Or to Corey's to spend the night? To Dayton, and her mother's
house perhaps? It would only take an hour or so to get there.

But her mother would take one look at her, her clothes caked with
Ty's dried blood, and go into hysterics, so that was out. She had extra clothes
at Ty's. She could go there and clean up, but she really didn't want to stay
the night by herself, no matter how good security was at the complex. Not
tonight. Not without Ty. Corey would put her up, she was sure; but Corey had
enough to deal with, and Jess didn't want to add to her friend's burden, or
possibly endanger her even more.

Nervously, she checked in the rearview mirror yet again. Was that
car following her, or just heading in the same direction by chance? At the next
corner, she ran a yellow light, sped forward and changed lanes three times in
the next two blocks, then quickly made a left turn, followed by a right at the
corner, and another left. Satisfied at last that if anyone had been tailing her
she'd lost them, she drove swiftly to Ty's condo.

Safe within the security gates, she parked the Trans Am in the
garage and scurried into the house before the garage light went out. Within
three minutes, armed with Ty's old baseball bat, she'd turned on every light in
the house, checked each door and window to make certain they were locked,
pulled all the curtains and blinds, and looked under the bed and in the closets
for possible intruders. Had she encountered one, she'd likely have been too
busy wetting her pants to swing the bat at him.

Fortunately, the house was empty, and Jess collapsed on the couch,
a human heap of jangled nerves. "Okay, calm down, and stop acting like a
fidgety female," she instructed herself as she hugged her knees to her
chest. "You're perfectly safe." So, why did her stomach feel as if it
had turned into a supercharged popcorn popper?