Page 14 of Blind Spot
“Phone is fine.”
“Got it. I’ll set it up.”
“Thanks, Mark.”
He made a small check on the clipboard and went back into the video room. I left through the players’ tunnel to the garage.
The garage was empty when I pulled in. Varga was still at the rink. He had said something at breakfast about a voluntary skate with Rafe at one—the kid had asked.
I went in through the garage and dropped my bag in the laundry room. I made coffee and took it with me down the hall to the office, closing the door behind me.
The desk had a stack of mail and a printout of a defensive-zone report Markel had emailed me at six the previous morning. I hadn’t finished reading it. I moved both to the side. The small dish on the desk had a single key in it.
I unlocked the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet.
It held the cleaner’s NDA and the lawn-service NDA. Beside them was an insurance folder with Varga’s name on three documents.
Tucked in the back was a box. It was covered in navy-blue velvet with a hinged lid. I set it on the desk in front of me.
I’d bought it on a Wednesday afternoon in May. I’d stopped in a store in Lincoln Park on my way home from a dentist appointment. The man at the counter was older than me by at least twenty years. He didn’t ask any of the questions I’d been bracing for.
Plain gold, I told him. I didn’t want a stone. It was for a man’s hand. I gave him the measurement I’d taken one morning with a piece of butcher’s twine, while Varga slept on his side with his hand open on the pillow.
The jeweler brought out three. I pointed at the middle one. He wrapped it in tissue, put it in a small bag, and I paid in cash. I put it in the drawer that afternoon and hadn’t opened the box since.
I put my hand flat on the lid. I wanted Luki to have it.
The maple in the back corner of the yard was visible through the window above my desk. It cast a shadow across the box.
Varga’s mother had sent the sapling in a pot from Minnesota, with a card in Hungarian that I could not read. I asked Varga to translate, and he had said it saidfor your house, but it was a lot more words than that.
The tree was eight feet tall now.
I put the box back in the drawer, closed it, and turned the key. I put the key back in the dish.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a text.
Kovac:Mr. Rook, this is Daniel Kovac withThe Athletic. Mark Bellinger passed your number along. I appreciate you considering the piece. If you have a few minutes today, I’d love to talk through logistics. Whenever suits you. No rush.
I read it twice.
Rook:Whenever works. Now is fine.
The phone rang within a minute.
“Daniel Kovac.”
“Daniel. This is Mattias Rook.”
A pause. Just enough.
“Mattias, thanks for taking the call. I appreciate it.”
“Mark said you were pitching a piece for late October on the Markel system.”
“That’s right. Veteran defenseman piece, third year in the system, you specifically. I’m pitching it to my editor next week. I wanted to see if we could find a time that works.”
“I’m open and by phone is fine,” I said. “Mark mentioned that, I think.”
