Taking the Fall (9 page)

“Brenna!” the silhouette called.

Oh, fantastic. My stalker was none other than Officer Will Riggins. For a second, I considered pretending I hadn’t heard him and choosing this very moment to alternate my easy jog with a nice sprint. Riggins might be in great shape, but he had quite a bit of muscle to move around. I was probably quicker. But I was currently headed uphill, and I knew my newly repaired knee better than to think it would let me sprint uphill without protest.

I slowed down and turned to face him. After all, he was the law around here. “On your way to arrest my sister, Officer?”

He waved his hand at his shorts and fitted quick-dry shirt, already sporting patches of sweat in all the right places. I refused to let my eyes follow the trail between his magnificent pecs, leading down his abs.

“Just out for a run,” he said. “Care to join me?”

I grunted. Such a ladylike quality, I know. As far as I was concerned, Officer Pretty Pecs was joining
me
; not the other way around. Riggins took my grunt as a yes and fell into step beside me. When he didn’t say anything else, I decided to try my best to pretend he wasn’t there.

We reached the street across from a grassy park that ran alongside the beach, just at the top of the twenty feet or so of jagged boulders that formed the cliff rising from the gravelly patches and tide-pools, then the water. I was curious whether that park was connected in some way to that shadowy staircase and wooden deck Blythe and I had discovered the night before. Besides, the smooth, paved pathway through the grass and the flowering shrubs seemed to be calling my name. There were no cars in sight, but with Riggins watching my every move, I pressed the button on the street light and waited to cross. I stared at the flashing red hand, willing it to turn into the little green man.

“Wow, you’re quite the socialite.” Riggins startled me.

Oh, right. He was there. I supposed a polite person would be making small talk. I turned my gaze from the crosswalk light to him, but no words came to mind.

“Nothing to say?” he prompted.

Fine, if he was so determined to have a conversation with me, he was going to hear what was really on my mind. “Yeah, actually I have something to say. Something to tell you.”

“Really?” he said, without a hint of irony.

I masked my surprise at his genuine interest and said, “About the case.”

Was I mistaken, or did I see Riggins’s face fall, just a little bit?

“I can’t discuss the investigation with you.”

Nah, that was just Professional Will, Police Officer, being plastered on.
 

“I understand that. But you can listen, can’t you? Or aren’t you interested in some useful information?”

He gave me that earnest look. The one that killed me, or threatened to kill my resistance, anyway. “I’m interested. I’m listening.”

“Stacey Goode, one of those ladies you saw with us in the parking lot? You know, when we first met?”

“How could I forget?”

I swear, his smile sparkled, zapping my brain into a fleeting, but enjoyable delusion that he meant meeting me was unforgettable. But of course he was referring to the Crazed Mama Bear versus Olympian street fight he’d narrowly averted.

“Anyway,” I continued, “I’m told she had quite the grudge against Ellison Baxter. And, she was not at all pleased with all the attention he was giving to Blythe at Miss Ruth’s party. That explains how hostile she got in the parking lot, and it could explain—”

“Ellison’s murder? I know all about Stacey Goode. If she was still so obsessed with Ellison, why would she kill him?”

I crossed my arms, cocked my head, and gave Riggins a look that said,
Are you kidding me?
“She’s a woman!”

His thick, dark eyebrows arched. “So, all women are capable of murder?”

On the crosswalk light, the blessed green man finally made his appearance. I stepped off the curb. “No!” I said as I jogged. “All women are capable of loving and hating a man at the same time.”

Now it was his turn to cock his head at me. Oh, how his face dimpled as he said, “Are they?”

My cheeks flamed up and I ran from the sidewalk on the other side of the street, onto the park’s paved jogging path, picking up the pace, wishing I could run from this entire, stupid conversation, from—

I felt his hand on my elbow, gentle but firm. “Brenna.”

I wheeled around on him. “My sister’s freedom is at stake here! Our reputations! Our futures in this town, even if she doesn’t end up taking the fall for a murder she didn’t commit!”

He blinked. “I’m sorry.” He looked sorry. Oh, so enticingly sorry. “I’ve already told you I can’t discuss the details with you, but I promise you, I’m doing everything I can to get at the truth here.”

I gave him a hard look, trying to hang onto my self respect and my sanity. “I certainly hope so,” I said. And then I sprinted away.

13

It was nearly dark by the time I got back home. I’d needed to clear my head, to calm down after my little chat with Riggins. I would’ve stayed out even longer, but I was concerned Blythe would worry about me. I paused in front of the dojo doors to stretch. I checked my cell phone. No texts from Blythe. I peered through the no-longer-pink-curtained front windows. The curtains were folded and piled neatly on the floor inside. Blythe was keeping herself busy.

“Hi, Bren.”

She didn’t even turn around as I shut the door behind me. She was too busy carefully balancing a black belt on a display rack she’d mounted on the wall, above where we’d decided to put the benches for the spectator area. Not just any black belt—my most recent Olympic belt. It was embroidered with my name on one end (optimistically, in gold) and with the rings and that particular Olympiad’s logo on the other. It looked crisp and perfect, which probably had something to do with the fact that I’d never worn it. Like most of the other Olympians, I’d preferred to wear my familiar, broken-in belt for the biggest competition of my life, rather than the stiff one provided for the event.

“Not the belt too,” I told her as I lowered myself onto the floor beside the still-rolled-up mats to stretch some more. “Where’d you find that?”

She shrugged. “You left it at Mom’s when you came back from the Games. I put it away for safe-keeping. What? You never asked about it. Do you want to wear it?” Her eyes lit up with hope.

“No, I don’t want to wear it.”

“Do you want your gis back?”

I’d given Blythe my Olympic gis, the ones embroidered with
USA
, the flame, and the Olympic rings. She’d carefully removed the Olympic back patches from those judo gis, identifying me by country, last name, and weight class, with the rings and the logo of the Olympiad in the background. Those, she’d framed and hung on our dojo wall. And now she was displaying my Olympic and World Team belts below them, on a belt rack.

I waved a sweaty hand at the display. “It’s too much.”

“You’re in business now. It’s not bragging, it’s marketing!”

I groaned. How could I explain that every time I looked at that belt and those patches, I remembered that match—the one that would have enabled me to move on to fight for gold or silver if I’d won, to fight for bronze if I lost. The match where everything the surgeon had sewn back together from my first injury ripped apart. I hadn’t just lost that match. I’d lost the ability to go on and fight for the bronze. I’d lost the ability to even stand. And I’d lost the fire, though I hadn’t known it yet.

Because of what happened to me on the mat, later that night, I’d even lost my friendship with Jake. I’d lost my coach of seven years. It had started innocently enough. A mountain of piercingly cold ice packed around my knee, and Jake’s warm arm around my shoulders. I wasn’t one to cry in front of others, even Jake, who’d been coaching me through so many ups and downs, for so long. But something inside me broke that night. I started to cry, and I couldn’t stop. Jake folded me up in his arms. He said all the right things. When I lifted my puffy eyes to search for a tissue, I found myself searching his eyes instead. They, too, were filled with tears. I’d never felt so close to another person, besides my sister, in all my life. All the feelings I’d fought so hard to suppress came rushing to the surface, just like that flood of tears. I’d lost my dream, but maybe I could finally have Jake. I let myself get lost in the moment. I let myself believe it was right. After all, he was the only one I’d ever wanted. He was the one I’d waited for.

And I found out the next morning just how wrong I was. Jake “respected me too much” to get involved. I was too crushed, too humiliated, even to tell my sister. She’d assumed I was a royal mess because of the disaster on the mat. And that was enough to mess me up all by itself, believe me.

I guess Jake didn’t “respect” Blythe too much—or respect me too much to get involved with my sister. The two of them were an item within a couple of months, and married soon after. Looking back on it, on some level, maybe Jake really did love me. Maybe it wasn’t the right kind of love. Maybe Jake wasn’t capable of the right kind of love. I guess that’s what bothered me the most, still. How did I know what was real? Could I have been so totally taken in by Jake the Fake?

And that was just it. I was
totally
taken in. I’d lamented for years that the only guys who ever expressed an interest in me reeked of less than noble motives. And the only one I ever felt a genuine spark with, the only one who seemed interested in me for me, was Jake. My coach. Neither of us acted on that chemistry because of his position, because of my judo career. My Olympic dreams.

Jake never set off my creep-o-meter. The sixth sense that had saved me from relationship disaster from sea to shining sea, and on six of the seven continents, had failed me with him. Just like it was failing me with Will Riggins. When it came to Jake, I’d just told myself he was that good. That he’d been patient enough, subtle enough, to work his way around my instincts—like that cat-burglar who dances around the alarm’s laser beams in the movie about that group of expert thieves.

But I’d just met Will Riggins yesterday.
Yesterday
, and my gut just kept saying yes, no matter how much my mind knew the right answer was no! Would I ever be able to go with my gut? How would I know I wasn’t asking for epic heartache once again? Was my creep-o-meter broken for good?

“You okay, Bren?” Blythe got down from her step ladder and looked at me much as she’d been looking at the frames she’d put on the wall—the ones that needed straightened out.

“Sure.” I smiled. The last thing Blythe needed to worry about was me and my non-love-life. She had possible criminal charges to worry about.

“You don’t look okay.”

She knew me too well. I decided to go for (partial) honesty. “I ran into Riggins.”

“Oh.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, trying to look casual. “What’d he say?”

“Not much. He already knew about Stacey. I guess it’s old news.”

“He’s probably not even going to look into it, is he?”

“I don’t know … but that doesn’t mean someone else won’t.”

“Who?” Blythe threw up her hands, a touch of desperation heightening the pitch of her voice.

“Us, that’s who!” I don’t know what possessed me to say that. Actually, I do. I’ve never been able to stand seeing my little sister upset for long. I always feel like I have to do something about it, to fix it.

“Us?” she said incredulously.

“Why not us?”

“Because there’s a killer out there!”

“We’ll be careful. We’ll be smart. We’ll think of something.”

Blythe looked at me like she was about to protest again, but then her forehead crinkled and she pointed down at my foot. “What’s that?”

I felt a momentary flutter of panic, recalling how my undies had betrayed me at the police station. But, I was wearing shorts. Had I somehow managed to get a pair of used underwear stuck in my sock this time? “Oh,” I said with relief. “It’s just a piece of paper.” I peeled the folded paper from the bottom of my shoe.

Blythe took it from me and opened it. “It’s not just a piece of paper, Bren. It’s a note.”

“From who?” I hesitated to ask.

She held it out to me, her pretty face gone pale. I read the jagged black-markered letters aloud. “We know everything. You WILL pay! Get out while you can.”

“It’s from the killer!” Blythe whispered, as though the murderer were here, hiding in the shadows behind the heavy wooden teacher’s desk Miss Ruth had left behind, or lurking just outside the door.

“How did this get on my shoe?” My own voice didn’t quite come out full force. To tell the truth, I felt a little weak in the knees. “Maybe it’s not even for us!”

“Bren,” Blythe said softly. She turned over the paper so I could see the other side.
BATTLE
was written there, in all caps, underlined three times.

I stared at that paper, at my last name and Blythe’s. How long had it been there? What if it had been stuck to my shoe during that whole jog? What if they’d gotten into our apartment?

“It can’t have been stuck to you long,” said Blythe. She’d always had an uncanny way of seeing my wheels turning. Especially when hers were turning the same way, only faster. “Besides … ” She walked over to the door and looked around the floor there. She shook her head. “That’s got to be it. When I was hanging our black belt certificates and coaching credentials, I noticed a piece of paper by the door, as if someone had slipped it underneath. I thought it was some kind of ad. I was going to pick it up as soon as I was finished, but I got so busy decorating, I forgot all about it. There’s nothing there now. The note must be it.”

I sucked in my breath. Someone had slipped this despicable threat under the door while Blythe was in here, innocently humming to herself, getting my dream dojo ready to open. My fear turned to outrage.

 
Blythe grabbed her phone from the desk. “I’m calling the police,” she said.

I paced the dojo as Blythe called 9-1-1 and told the operator we’d received a threatening note.

“Oh,” Blythe said into the phone.

Hearing the disappointment and apprehension in her voice, I stopped pacing. “They’re not coming?” I mouthed.