Chapter 12: The Feed

On Friday at noon I put the flash drive back on Prescott's desk, exactly where he had left it.

"No," I said.

He looked at it. Then at me.

"Miss Hedlund, you haven't thought."

"I've thought for three days. The skaters aren't going to sit in the audience."

"Then the hearing is at four," Prescott said, and his voice went flat. "Both teams. The coach. Two donors. I'm sorry you chose this."

I didn't tell Henrik what I had refused.

At three fifty, in the hallway outside the arena conference room, I said it low.

"Whatever he shows, I did it. I said so. Don't say anything."

He looked at me strangely.

"Hanna."

"Promise me."

"I'll promise to stand next to you," Henrik said.

We went in together.

The room was long and bright, with a projector screen at one end and rows of folding chairs filled with people I knew.

Forty hockey players sat on the left.

On the right sat the skating club, thirty girls and six boys, with Britt in the front row, white-faced, holding my coat.

Two donors in good suits sat in the back.

Trent Maddox stood beside the projector with a remote in his hand.

He nodded to me, polite as a waiter.

"Thank you all for coming," Prescott said from the head table.

"Mr. Maddox has filed a complaint. He has video. I want everyone to see it together."

"Is this necessary?" said the coach.

"Yes."

The lights went down.

The screen lit with a gray, grainy picture from a camera mounted high on the wall of the tunnel.

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