Page 1 of Full Contact

Chapter one

Trier

Varga had sent me the wedding video again.

He’d already posted it in the team chat, where I’d watched it after dinner. Now he’d sent it to me privately, in case I’d somehow missed forty seconds of myself and my cat.

I settled back on the couch. The living room windows faced the courtyard, where somebody was watering the planters, and a faint smell of wet soil drifted through the open screen. Late sunlight reached across the oak floor to the edge of the rug. I’d bought the couch deep enough to stretch out on, with a low arm that supported my head when a game went into overtime.

My dinner plate was still on the kitchen counter, visible beyond the dining table. It could wait forty seconds.

I pressed play.

Heath and Kieran had gotten married in a backyard earlier in July. It had been a good wedding: delicious food, people I liked, and a shady place to sit once Peaches decided she’d met enough guests. In the video, she was asleep on my lap, her orange fur bright against my dark pants. Her harness matched my tie exactly. Finding the right shade had taken two orders, but it had been worth it.

Mark Corley, the Ironhawks’ head of PR, sat beside me. My jacket was off, his was still on, and whatever he’d just said had both of us laughing.

I couldn’t remember the joke. The recording didn’t help. Between the music and a child shouting about cake, I could barely hear either of us.

I remembered enjoying myself, though. Mark had stopped to ask how Peaches was handling the crowd, then pulled up a chair. We’d talked until someone came to find him, and I’d been sorry to see him go.

On the screen, he tipped his head back and laughed again.

His laugh was low and warm, with a little rasp that made me want to hear it in person. I didn’t hear it often enough at the arena.

The video ended, and I watched it once more.

“Is that the clip again?”

Anna stood behind the couch with a laundry basket on her hip. She’d been looking after Peaches for four years, staying in the guest room whenever I traveled. She’d come over to go through the fall schedule and stayed for dinner.

“Varga sent it.”

“Again?”

“He likes to be thorough.”

She leaned over my shoulder. “Your brother sent it to me this afternoon.”

“He sent it to me, too. Apparently my cat is more famous than I am.”

“She is.”

The clip had been circulating for six days. Several million people had watched Peaches sleep through a wedding reception. Heath and Kieran barely made it into discussions of the event.

“Someone’s made Peaches a fan account,” Anna said. “Forty thousand followers.”

“I saw. Half the pictures are ones I only send to family and friends.”

“Apparently they’re sharing.”

“There are nine people on that list. I can narrow it down.”

Anna laughed. “Let me know how the investigation goes.”

She carried the laundry down the hall. I scrolled through the account’s photos and stopped at one of Peaches in her window bed. I’d taken it in May. My brother had been particularly pleased with that one.

I sent him the link to the fan account’s post.