“What?”

She looked up at me, tears in her eyes. “I don’t have a choice.”

“You don’t have a choice?” I asked. “What does that mean?”

She started edging past me for the door. “He hurt me. I’m sorry. I have to go.”

“Is it your dad?” I wanted to grab her and stop her, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. “Is he the one forcing you to blame Chuck?”

She again looked surprised at what I’d said, but it was different this time. There was something in her expression that told me I’d gotten something wrong.

She put her hand on the metal bar that ran across the door. “I’m sorry. I swear to God. I’m sorry.”

Meredith pushed open the door and ran outside, vanishing up the walk.

FOURTEEN

I wanted to sprint after Meredith but good sense told me not to. A grown man chasing a girl across a high school campus wouldn’t look good, especially when the girl had already been assaulted once. I took several deep breaths, told myself I’d get another chance with her and walked into the gym.

A high school gym has distinct smells. Stale popcorn, old sweat and an odor belonging only to a wood playing floor. The new Coronado gym had none of that, as bright and shiny and new as if it had opened that morning. All six baskets were down, the girls working in pairs at each one, doing footwork drills in the area below the basket.

“Rotate!” a voice yelled from the far corner and the girls moved in their pairs to the next basket on their right and went to work again.

I looked to where the voice had come from. She was about six feet tall, dirty blonde hair pulled tightly away from her face, wearing a bright white T-shirt emblazoned with “Islanders” across the front in red. Red mesh basketball shorts and running shoes in the same colors. She was lean and bounced with that flame-turned-to-low energy athletes have. No whistle around her neck, but there was no doubt she was in charge as her eyes swept the gym, watching each pair of girls intently as they worked.

The eyes stopped on me and she jogged across the floor, seemingly gliding because she moved with such little effort.

“Help you?” she asked without a smile.

“Just watching.”

“Practice is closed,” she said.

“I talked to Rob earlier,” I said. Not a complete lie, but not the truth earlier.

“Rob?”

“Stricker. Your A.D.”

“He didn’t tell me,” she said, then glanced over her shoulder. She yelled “Okay. Water and then back in for shells. Hurry up!” The girls jogged out of the gym and she turned back to me. “And he doesn’t go by Rob.”

Dammit. “My name’s Joe Tyler. I understand Chuck Winslow was helping you out?”

She threw her shoulders back, stiffening, a questioning look now in her eyes. “You working for or against him?”

“For. Definitely for him.”

The girls started trickling back in the gym, red faced and sweating, looking in our direction.

“Look, I don’t want to take practice time to do this,” she said, watching the girls return. “But I can talk to you afterward.” She hesitated. “You the friend that used to live here?”

Her words were like small hammers on my spine. “The friend? I don’t know. I used to live here, yes.”

She ran a hand over her mouth, watching me. “His point guard in high school? You look like a point guard.”

Chuck had done a lot of talking about me in my absence. I felt guilty, like I’d forced him into it. But a small sense of relief flooded through me, glad she was talking about basketball and not Elizabeth. “Yeah, that was me.”

“I’m Kelly Rundles, the coach.” She pointed in the direction of the girls. “I’m short an assistant coach today. You rebound for my guards and we’ll talk when we’re through.”

I stared at the girls. There was irritation in their faces now, frustrated that some intruder had interrupted their practice. I didn’t see any welcoming looks coming from their direction. I could still play a little, but I’d never coached.

But it all came back to Chuck.

“Deal,” I said and followed her to the center of the court.

FIFTEEN

“They’re gonna do closeouts from the block to the wing,” Kelly said as we walked quickly. “Shooter on the wing. You rebound and pass hard to the player on the block. They’ll do the rest.”

I tried to process that through my head, reverting back to my high school days, trying to remember the vocabulary and what it all should look like. It didn’t come as fast as I would’ve liked.

“Okay,” Kelly said at mid-court. “This is Coach Tyler. He’s got the guards at the far end. I’ve got the bigs. Five minutes of closeouts to the wing. Shooter catches on the fly, from the ready. Defender chops her steps hard all the way out. Defense to offense, offense rotates down. Go.”

The group of girls split on the run and hustled to opposite ends of the court. Kelly went to one end, so I jogged to the other.

There were six girls with me. They immediately formed two lines, one at the wing on the right and one at the baseline. The first girl on the baseline jumped with the ball to the square block and fired at the first girl on the wing.

The passer shuffled hard out to the wing, her hands up, calling “Ball! Ball!” the whole way, her screams echoing in the gym. The shooter caught the ball, set and released her shot just as the passer reached her, pivoted into her and stuck her butt into the shooter’s thighs.

The ball bounced high off the rim and to the far side of the court.

The shooter looked at me, her mouth twisted into annoyance. “Uh, aren’t you rebounding?”

Shit.

I scrambled to the corner, grabbed the ball and fired it back out to the new shooter. She giggled, shook her head like I’d thrown her an apple instead of a basketball and bounced a pass to the new girl on the block.

Which is where I should’ve thrown the ball to begin with.

I felt my face flush as I jogged back to the basket, wondering why in the hell teenagers had such a powerful ability to make adults feel so foolish.

The next two ran the drill and the shooter nailed the shot. I ripped the ball out of the net and fired it at the next girl popping to the block, a little harder than needed, but I was pissed at myself for screwing up.

If the girl noticed my use of my super-human male strength, she didn’t react, just caught the ball, pivoted and passed to the next shooter.

We went like that for two minutes. The girls worked hard, yelling encouragement to one another, slapping high fives. They were efficient and smooth.

The tallest girl, the one I’d now targeted as the best player on my end, yelled for them to switch sides and they sprinted to the other side of the key, dashing around me, maintaining their lines. I shifted to the other side of the basket.

The first shooter, who I’d identified as the weakest player in the group, caught her pass with her feet in the wrong position, putting her off balance. She hoisted up an ugly looking shot and stumbled backward as her defender boxed her out.

I grabbed the ball as it careened off the rim, started to pass it to the next girl, then stopped.

“Wait,” I said, not sure why I was talking. “Girl that just shot. What’s your name?”

She tugged at her shorts. “Uh, Kristin.”

“Kristin. Your feet are all screwed up.”

Several of the girls in line snickered and Kristin’s cheeks reddened. I couldn’t tell if it was my use of the word “screwed” or because I had embarrassed the girl.

Nice work, Tyler.

“What I mean is this,” I said, walking to where she’d shot. “You’re catching the ball with your feet in the wrong spots. They need to be reversed.” I looked at her. “You’re right-handed, correct?”

Kristin looked at several of her teammates, then back at me and nodded.

“Then your left foot is your drive foot, which means it should be back,” I said, showing her what I meant. “Your left foot was out front and it puts you off balance. Left foot back, right foot just in front of it, catch and shoot.” I spun the ball back into my hands, exaggerated my feet hitting the floor the way I wanted hers to look and arched a jumper. It dropped softly through the net.