by Lexi Blake
“You know Henry and I were talking about this last night.”
“Before you invaded my hospital room and declared me a coward?”
She winced. “Yes, before I invaded.”
His face softened, mouth curling up gently. “Proceed.”
She would take what she could get. “I found something in the material the police shipped back. It’s what Henry and I were talking about. I know you’ve been texting back and forth, but did he mention that I found his name and number in Portia’s day planner?”
“See, that doesn’t sound like something having to do with a divorce. Henry only handles criminal cases,” David pointed out. “If this was about the affair, Henry couldn’t do anything at all about it. I know Portia wasn’t a client. We checked when we looked for conflicts of interest. The only reason to call Henry would be because she needed an attorney for something she or Trey had done.”
“Sometimes she would find experts to answer her questions,” Isla mused. “If she had a question about something criminal, she might have called the expert.”
“But you’re her lawyer. Why not ask you?”
She reached down into the box, pulling out the day planner in question. She turned the pages until she found the one marking the day before Portia’s death. “She’s got my name written in here, too.”
Passing it to him, his hand brushed hers and he held it there for a moment, their skin against each other’s. He finally pulled back and she felt the loss of his warmth.
“Any idea what the question mark is about?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. I talked to her at least every other day. If she had a question, she could always call me, so I have to believe that she was wondering if she wanted to bring me into this at all. I think she meant to contact Henry for some reason and leave me out of it until she’d spoken to him.”
David handed it back to her. The car was moving again, turning toward uptown, where he would likely leave her. “And I can’t help but think about what Trey told us in Central Park the morning after he escaped. He said Portia held him and promised to get back at someone. Why would she get back at Amber for an affair that wasn’t with Trey?”
“She wouldn’t. I mean she wouldn’t have approved, but I also don’t know how involved she would have gotten.” Isla thought about it as the car picked up speed. Just a few more blocks. “Trey would have told him, but I don’t know about Portia. Miranda knew, but she didn’t tell.”
They were quiet for a moment, the silence between them anything but comfortable.
“I was trying to protect you,” he said quietly.
“I don’t want to be protected.” She wanted him. She wanted a life.
“No, you want a family.”
“I do. But not with just anyone. Don’t think I’m using you for your sperm. I love you, David. I think you complete me somehow. I know you don’t think you have a future, but I’m going to prove you wrong.”
He moved over, getting in her space. “Family sticks together.”
Tears filled her eyes and she leaned into him. “Through everything.”
His arms wound around her. “I watched part of the video Portia was making and it was beautiful. I think Trey was wrong. He said he wishes he’d died before it set in, but Portia still loved him. My mom still loves my dad. They get through it.”
She nodded, her heart speeding up. “That’s what people in love do.”
Could that video Portia had been making save her and David? Could it be that simple? One cobbled-together video of football plays and babies and wedding videos. Who would have guessed he would be so sentimental?
Football plays. She’d caught that on the news. Portia would have gone through clips in the vault, the AV library the Guardians kept.
“What is it?” David asked. “You figured something out.”
She opened the day planner, her hands shaking a little. What could this mean? Why would it mean anything at all? “It’s the code.”
“The numbers?” David slid across the seat.
“Yes. I think I know what they mean.” She found the page again and there they were.
09–19-AVI1–5
“I interned with the Guardians’ front office,” she said. “One of the places I worked in the beginning was the vault.”
“The vault is the media library,” David murmured. “‘AV’ stands for ‘audiovisual’?”
“Yes. Zero nine refers to the year and nineteen is the game.”
“That would be the championship game,” David said, thinking out loud. “That year the Guardians were the number one seed, so they didn’t play the wild card game. Two playoff games and the overall championship. This is the game.”
It was the game that cemented Trey Adams’s status as one of the greatest players of all time. He’d been injured in the first half and no one thought he would be able to play in the second. He’d been heroic.
“This is a specific reel of film we have in the archives. The number tells me this was from the documentary, likely one of the cameras they had throughout the facilities. Most of that stuff has never even been looked through. It was footage from the locker rooms and the offices. Why would she want that?”
David reached for the button that let him communicate with the driver. “I don’t know but we’re going to find out. Sir, we need to change our destination. We need to leave the city. We’re going to the Guardians’ stadium. And hurry if you can.”
“You want to see the film?” She couldn’t imagine what was on it. “This could be a wild-goose chase.”
“I want to see it. I want to make sure no one’s gotten rid of it.” David pulled out his phone. “I’m going to call the office and let them know where we’re going.”
She sat back, her mind worried.
* * *
• • •
David followed her up the stairs that led to the offices of the New York Guardians. The stadium below was quiet, so quiet it felt a bit like a tomb. Through the bank of glass windows, he could see the stands that held a hundred thousand fans and the field where glory had been found. Where Trey Adams had lost his future.
He stopped for a moment. He hadn’t played here. The stadium had been opened the year after he retired, but it brought him right back to the places he had played.
God, he could still hear that sound. Sometimes he wondered if it was always with him, like a low buzzing in the back of his head. A remembrance of a life he’d left behind, a life that still might catch up with him.
Isla stepped up beside him, staring out over that field. “Was there anything good about it?”
“A lot. I loved it most of the time,” he admitted. “I loved the game, but I hate it, too, because I think it might cost me something I wanted more than I ever wanted to play.”
She leaned against him briefly. “Only if you let it.”
He wanted to move his arm, to wrap it around her and bring her close. He couldn’t help but remember what his mother had said to him before she got on the train.
If you let that one go, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. But I think you’ll be doing something worse. I think you’ll make her ache the rest of hers. That woman is in love with you. If you love her, even a little, you can’t let her go. That kind of love makes everything worthwhile.
Even the bad parts. Even the horrible parts.
His father and mother still danced together. Wasn’t that what life was? Moments of pure beauty surrounded with the everyday? No one was happy every moment of the day, but if he had Isla with him, perhaps happiness would be like the sound of the crowd—always in the background, waiting to surge.
That happiness was right beside him. All he had to do was reach out and take it. She was making it easy on him.
“Isla! It’s good to see you. It’s been too long.”
She
turned and he moved along with her, the moment lost. A man roughly her age dressed in khakis and a collared shirt reached out a hand.
“Hi, Mike. This is my friend David Cormack.” She gestured toward David. “Mike runs the media portion of the Guardians’ empire. He was a great boss when I interned here.”
“Yeah, that’s easy to be with interns like Isla.” Mike shook David’s hand.
She reached out to shake Mike’s hand, too. “How are you?”
Mike took her hands between his and David had the oddest urge to growl at the younger man. “It’s a rough day. Are you here to see the big boss? He’s in a bad way. We’re all worried about him.”
“He’s here?” Isla asked.
Mike nodded. “He came in a couple of hours ago. He’s in the main viewing room, but he’s asked to be alone. I think someone should try to talk to him, but no one is willing to disobey him.”
“I would love to see him, but first I need to get into the vault,” she replied. “I need access to a specific reel of film.”
“Of course,” he replied. “Come on and we’ll find it for you. I can get you a screening room, but it’s going to be one of the smaller ones. What exactly are you looking for? Is this for Portia’s memorial?”
“Do you need to hold her hand while you do it?” Yep. That had come out of his mouth. So much for playing it cool and giving himself some time.
Mike flushed but Isla merely smiled and released the man’s hand.
“I’ve got the location of the film.” She followed him, waiting a second until she was walking beside David.
And he freaking gave in to his impulses. The minute their hands brushed, he tangled their fingers together. The minute her hand was in his, his heart rate calmed and the world seemed slightly better than it had been before.
Mike walked down the hall toward a big set of double doors. “Who would have guessed that the boss’s wife had that in her? I mean, I knew she’d been anxious lately, but damn.”
“How had she been anxious?” Now that Mike wasn’t pawing Isla, David could see him as a possible resource. “What was her normal role in the day-to-day running of the team?”
“Next to none,” Mike replied. “Don’t get me wrong. She was up here a lot. She was always bringing the boss his lunch and sitting with him. We all kind of thought it was nice. Like they were a real couple. She amused him and she seemed to genuinely care about him. And don’t let anyone say something bad about the family name. She was hell on the publicity department because anytime someone would make fun of Carey on some show she would try to sue them. I don’t think she ever truly grasped the idea of the First Amendment.”
“She took the family legacy very seriously,” Isla explained as they approached the doors to the vault.
There was a keypad that protected the doors. Mike held up an employee keycard, and the light on the door went from red to green, the lock unlatching audibly.
“Are these doors always locked?” David asked as they moved into the cool, dimly lit vault.
“Yes,” Mike replied as the doors shut behind them. “We keep some very old films in here. They’re delicate and too much light or heat could damage them, so we regulate who comes and goes.”
“Do you have a list of the people who have been in here in the last, say, six weeks?” Isla seemed to catch on to what he was thinking.
“Of course.” Mike put a hand on one of the computers in a bank that stood in front of the neatly stacked shelves. “You can check out films here. If you try to leave without checking out, security is alerted. But there’s also a list of who’s been in here and what they searched for.”
Isla looked up at him, her mouth firming in a suspicious line.
He nodded because they had to know. “Could you please tell us if Amber has been in here recently?”
“You know, she did come in a couple of weeks back. She was looking for some footage from the documentary. She asked for the reel, but we destroyed it last year,” Mike explained. “It was the weirdest thing because I thought she would be disappointed, but she smiled. She didn’t even let me explain what we’d done. Just said since it was gone, she wouldn’t worry about it.”
“You destroyed film?” Isla asked.
“Obviously not the rare footage ones, but we digitalized the majority of the documentary series.” Mike’s fingers tapped along the keys. “It’s been my project for a while. Carey wanted that documentary done first class. That made for a lot of film. I digitalized most of it, and now you can simply go into one of the viewing rooms and pull it up on a laptop that feeds through to the projector.”
He saw Amber’s mistake. “And you didn’t tell Amber that the film she was looking for still existed?”
“She didn’t give me the chance,” Mike replied.
“Can you see if Portia Adams had been in?” Isla asked.
Mike stopped. “What is this about?”
“Nothing I want you to mention outside of the three of us, please.” Isla leaned in. “We’re curious about a few things.”
Mike nodded, turning back to the system. “Portia was in here several times. I helped her find a couple of reels. She was interested in some relaxed shots of Trey and his close friends. I told her some of the best stuff came from the locker room, and there are literally hundreds of hours no one ever went through. There was too much. I let her download a bunch of it onto her laptop so she could go over it at home. She was making a movie for Trey’s fiftieth birthday. Do you think I’m going to get in trouble for letting her do that? I didn’t think anyone would mind.”
“No one will mind,” David assured him. “Honestly, it doesn’t have to go past us. Like Isla said, we’re merely curious. Isla has a code. Could you tell us how to find it?”
Isla had written the locator code on a piece of paper before they’d walked in the stadium. She handed it to Mike and he frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Isla asked.
Damn it. He was going to punch something if that piece of film was missing. It was right there. They’d come so close. If that film was missing, they might never know the truth. It would kill Isla to not know why her friend had truly been murdered.
Mike was staring down at the code. “This is the film Carey requested for the main viewing room. He’s watching this right now.”
“I’m going in.” Isla turned and started toward the viewing rooms.
“He wanted to be alone,” Mike pointed out.
“I am basically that man’s daughter-in-law,” she replied. “If you don’t let me in, I’ll bust the door down. Do you understand me? You’re going to let me in and then you’ll walk away and you won’t let anyone else into the vault until I give you the okay. Am I clear?”
Mike stepped back. “Yes.”
David knew that look well. “Don’t feel bad. She looks sweet, but when she wants to she goes all warrior princess on you and it’s a little scary.”
Mike was already rushing to do her bidding. In the back of the large library there were three different viewing rooms. David had spent a lot of time in spaces like this. It was where the team would gather to go over game films, to discuss what had gone wrong and get their asses handed to them by the coaching staff.
Isla had spent time in spaces like this, too. She’d grown up around football and football players. She walked into this world like she owned it.
What if she was the one woman in the world who could handle his damage? Who was ready for it?
He already knew she was the one woman in the world he wanted more than his next breath. He knew she was smart and sexy and stronger than he’d imagined.
And reckless.
“Hey, let me go in first.” He moved in front of her as Mike got the door opened. Ghostly light filtered out and he could hear the sounds of cheering.
She put her hands on her hips. “You think he’s going to h
urt me.”
“I think we don’t know what we’re going into at all. We have no idea if we’ve completely misread the situation.”
“I know him.” She looked over as though reminding him they weren’t alone yet.
But they were about to be. He wanted to go in alone, wanted to confront the situation first and explain it to her later. She was never going to be that girl. She wouldn’t be the kind of wife who let him go into danger alone. She would be right there beside him. Through everything.
Any family raised by Isla Shayne would stick together. And if the darkness came, she would be the light.
He had no idea what they were walking into, but he knew he wasn’t going to drop her off at the end of the night. He would be there with her no matter what.
He led her down the short hall to the theater. The door closed behind them. It seemed Mike knew when to obey. The theater looked like it could seat roughly seventy-five to eighty people, but there was only one man sitting in the audience. The large screen showed a wild celebration in the Guardians’ locker room. The players were jumping up and down, spraying champagne, and in the middle of it all Carey Kendrick held that championship trophy high.
“Carey?”
He was a shadow in the room, his head swinging slowly Isla’s way. He was quiet for a moment. The audio went silent all of a sudden, though the team continued to celebrate.
“Isla? Is that you, David?”
Isla moved to the row in front of Carey. “Yes, we’re both here. Why this tape? This is what Portia found. This is why Amber killed her. Why?”
Even in the low light, he could see that Carey Kendrick had been crying. His face was lined and he looked even older than normal, as though all the plastic surgery in the world couldn’t hide his pain.
“She was trying to protect me,” he said. “Or rather the family name. She never had one she was proud of, you know. Her daddy went to jail when she was a baby. She never knew him. He got killed in there. Her momma started putting her in pageants as soon as she could walk. All she had was her beauty, but I saw there was something more. I’m not foolish. I knew she had lovers. I can’t . . . I can’t take care of her physically. I looked the other way because she was good to me. People are complicated. I didn’t love her, never loved any woman but my Marilyn.”
