Chapter 11: Deadline

"Don't get on any plane," I said. "I'm coming."

"Lainey, there's nothing..."

"Is the scan still in your coat?"

A pause.

"Yeah."

"And the blood work's on your phone."

"Yeah."

"Then there's something. Twenty minutes."

Gemma drove because my hands had started to shake.

"Think it through out loud," she said, running a yellow on Wisconsin Avenue.

"Arizona gets a defenseman with a mild strain on paper. Their doctors read Dunne's file. Tate plays hurt in a new city with nobody who knows him."

"And the tear?"

"Gets injected by somebody new. Or rips the rest of the way in a game. And then it's Arizona's injury. Not Dunne's. Not Doug's."

Gemma's knuckles went white on the wheel.

"He's mailing the evidence to the desert," she said.

"With Tate attached."

She dropped me at the loading dock.

The night guard from the other night was on the day shift. He saw me running and held the door.

The elevator took forever.

Doug's corner office had its blinds half down.

Through the glass I could see Doug at his desk, the head coach at the round table, and Tate standing by the window with his arm across his chest.

A phone sat in the middle of the table on speaker.

I knocked once and walked in.

Doug looked up.

"Out," he said. "This is a team call."

"She stays," Tate said.

"Son."

"She stays, or I'm not on the plane."

The voice on the speaker said, "Doug? Everything okay?"

It was a rough, friendly voice. The Arizona GM.

Doug smiled at the phone like it could see him.

"Everything's great. Tate's family is just saying goodbye."

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