Chapter 10: The Write-Up

Jocelyn's POV

The truck's headlights swung across the bedroom ceiling a little after midnight.

I was awake in his bed with the lantern turned low, listening to the lake.

The front door opened. Boots came across the floor and stopped outside the bedroom.

"Are you awake?" Nolan asked.

"Yes."

He came in with snow on his shoulders.

His face was gray and set. He had one hand inside his jacket, holding something against his ribs.

He didn't sit. He stood at the foot of the bed.

"I said a week," he said. "I don't have one. Lars came to see me tonight."

"What did he want?"

"To buy me." He said it flatly. "A better job to keep a file shut. I said no."

"What file?"

"I'll give it to you in the morning. There's something else I owe you first."

He took out a single folded sheet. It was not the surgery envelope. That one stayed inside his jacket.

"I had a copy of this in my truck," he said. "I kept it there for three years."

He set it on the blanket by my knee.

"Read it."

I unfolded it.

A team letterhead. At the top, in bold capitals, WRITTEN REPRIMAND.

Under it: Brumley, N. Conduct toward a player's spouse.

At the bottom were two signatures.

One was the doctor's. The other was mine.

I looked at it for a long time.

"I don't remember this," I said.

"It was three years ago. The team Christmas party. You were by the coats with a plate of cake."

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