Page 65 of Blind Spot
“Two more what?”
“Names today.” He pulled back to look at me. “Heath and Kieran. I want them in before the post-Thanksgiving break.”
I called Heath, and he was on the doorstep with Kieran within the hour. Kieran was wearing his Shedd fleece. We sat in the living room. I made coffee.
“We’ll get ahead of him,” Heath said. “That’s the plan. You two decide on the story you want to tell—your words with your timing. Kovac doesn’t get to run the show.”
“And you think he’ll hold off?” I asked.
“He will,” Kieran said. “A reporter like Kovac would rather have your cooperation than scoop you. If you give him the real piece, with your boundaries, he’ll be happy to have the access.”
“I’ll handle the room,” Heath said. “I’ll talk Mark off the ledge, and I’ll keep the beat guys looking the wrong way. That part I can do in my sleep.”
I believed him. I’d watched him settle in during his second year, and now he handled logistics like a pro.
“One thing,” I said. “And it’s dumb. It has nothing to do with anything.”
“My favorite kind of question.”
“The travel stuff. The hotels. How do you—“ I stopped and started over. “How do you even check the blocks? Do you call the coordinator, or—”
He took the question seriously. “Coordinator sends me a draft,” Heath said. “I flag the geometry and swap a couple of rooms before it goes out. Takes ten minutes. Nobody’s ever once asked me why.”
“Ten minutes.”
“I’ve got a system.” He sounded a little proud, daring me to make fun of it. “It’s color-coded. Kieran thinks I need help.”
“You do need help.”
“Probably.” He grinned. So did I, and it had nothing to do with hotels. It was just that I’d wanted this for three years—Heath hanging out, telling me about his color-coded room charts—and the only thing that stood in the way was gone.
“You’re a freak,” I said.
“You’re welcome.”
They left through the front door, and I was getting used to it.
***
We didn’t treat actual Thanksgiving like Thanksgiving. Games bracketed it the day before and the day after. Our hockey Thanksgiving was a three-day break beginning with the Saturday after. Markel scheduled a morning skate on Saturday and then gave us the following two days off completely.
The night before, my teammates shared their plans in the group chat. Trier was flying out to family, and he’d rehired his cat sitter. Rafe asked what time the building opened the morning after the break, and he got three different wrong answers. He answered each with “Okay, thanks.”
The office door was open a few inches when I went looking for Rook. I couldn’t remember the last time it was open when he was working. It was an invitation for me to join him. I pushed it open the rest of the way with one knuckle.
He was at the desk with the lamp on and the laptop open, and on the screen was a website for a community rink somewhere with pine trees framing the header photo. A banner read “Learn-to-skate Saturdays. Beer league Tuesday and Thursday nights.” It displayed a phone number with an area code I didn’t know. A blank message box was open on top of it, with the cursor blinking in an empty white field.
I knew without being told. It was Alan Easton. He’d found the man who told the room that a terrified kid from Maine belonged.
The old me would have pulled the other chair around and saidokay, what do we know? what’s his email? is there a contact form? give me the laptop.I would’ve noisily turned it into aproject. I would have taken the hard thing Rook did privately and turned it into a joint project at full volume.
Instead, I stood in the doorway. “Him?” I asked.
Rook didn’t look up. “Him.”
“Where is he?”
“British Columbia. He runs this rink.”
