Chapter 48 The Worst Week

Chapter 48 The Worst Week
Declan

Marcus didn't threaten me. That was the part I couldn't stop thinking about.

He just said a name. A floor number. And then he walked away like he'd done nothing at all, because he knew he didn't have to do anything else.

The week had already been bad before that. Three hospital days for Lily... Monday, Wednesday, Thursday morning. Gerald covered two of my Rosie's shifts without me asking, just texted that he had it handled and to check in when I could. I don't know what I would do without Gerald. I've thought about that more than once this week and I don't have an answer that doesn't make me feel like the floor is close.

Practice was the only place the math went quiet. I ran every drill twice. Hargrove didn't say anything about it. Nate ran beside me without asking why.

After Thursday's practice, in the locker room, Nate sat down next to me.

"Dec."

"Yeah."

"How's Lily?"

"Three hospital days."

He nodded. He didn't do the thing most people do, where they say they're sorry and then run out of things to say and you end up managing their discomfort on top of your own. He just asked the next question.

"How are you?"

"Running," I said.

"Tell Juni all of it," he said.

"Nate."

"I'm serious. All of it." He looked at me. "You know I'm right."

I picked up my bag. I didn't answer him. Which was its own kind of answer.

The parking lot was almost empty by the time I got out there. Most of the team was gone. I had my keys in my hand and I was running the payment plan numbers again in my head... the accelerated version, the one the hospital sent Monday... when I saw Marcus.

He wasn't at my truck. That was deliberate. He was near the fence at the far end of the lot, leaning against someone else's car, close enough that I'd have to walk past him to get to mine. He'd thought about the geometry of it. I noticed that.

"Moss," he said.

I didn't stop walking. "Marcus."

"Good practice today." He said it like we were acquaintances. Like this was nothing.

"What do you want."

"Just thought you should know something." He kept his voice easy. "I know people at St. Mercy's. Third floor."

I stopped.

He didn't add anything. He didn't need to. St. Mercy's is Lily's clinic. Third floor is her treatment ward. He said it and then he stood there with his hands in his pockets.

"Marcus," I said. My voice came out flat. That took work.

"Just saying," he said. He pushed off the car and walked away. Not fast. Casual. Like a person who has already won and knows it.

I stood in that parking lot for three full minutes. I know it was three minutes because I was watching the clock on my phone without meaning to, counting down from something I couldn't name.

I got in the truck. I put the keys in but I didn't start it.

Here's what I wanted to do: I wanted to go find Marcus and make very clear that St. Mercy's and everyone in it was outside the boundary of anything he got to touch. That was the first instinct. It was also the one that would get me exactly what he wanted... an incident, six days before the district investigation was scheduled to close, that would void the scholarship and give him leverage I couldn't come back from.

Second instinct: Hargrove. Except Marcus hadn't made a specific threat. He'd said five words and walked away. There was nothing to document.

Third: Osei. The investigation was running. But it wasn't done. And it didn't move fast enough to do anything about tonight.

I thought about what Nate said. Tell Juni all of it.

I picked up my phone.

She answered on the second ring.

"Marcus was in the parking lot after practice," I said.

"What did he do?"

"He mentioned St. Mercy's. By name. The floor."

She was quiet for exactly long enough to understand what that meant. "He didn't threaten anything specific."

"No," I said. "He didn't have to."

"Okay." Her voice was steady. Not the managed kind , actually steady. "What's your first instinct?"

"Wrong one."

"Second?"

"Also wrong."

"Then you've already done the math," she said. "What do you need?"

"I'm not going to do anything stupid," I said. Which wasn't what she asked.

"I know that."

"But it's getting harder to calculate." I said it before I thought about saying it. That was new. "Usually I can run the options and one of them is clear. Right now none of them are clear."

"Then let me help you calculate."

"How?"

"Come to my house," she said. "Right now. We figure it out together."

"It's late."

"I know what time it is. Come here, Declan."

I sat with that for a second. A month ago I would have said no. Would have said I had it, would have stayed in the truck until I found the answer myself the way I always find everything... alone, in the dark, running the numbers until one of them worked.

"Okay," I said.

Her porch light was on when I pulled up at 9:30. She opened the door before I reached it, which meant she'd been watching for my headlights. I noticed that.

Through the kitchen window I could see her mother at the counter. Penny Cole looked up when I came up the path. She looked at me for a moment, then she nodded, not hello, something more specific than that and picked up her tea and went upstairs without a word.

"She knew you were coming," I said.

"I called her from the car."

"You told your mother."

"I tell my mother things now." Juni stepped back from the door. "Come in."

I came in. The door closed behind me.