Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Rollo had learned early, though, that when I had something in my teeth, he didn’t pull it out and cut it up into bite-size pieces for me, discarding any grizzle.
He learned to get a kick out of watching me gnaw.
Tom wasn’t who Rollo was to me.
Still, if we were going to be friends, he’d have to learn.
“I can’t do that, Tom.”
Without hesitation, he nodded.
Then he asked, “Will you leave it with me for now? I want to read through it thoroughly. I’ve no idea how to set about seeing if it’s authentic, but I’ll give that some thought and talk to you before I call anyone in.”
That I could do.
“Sure.”
He sat back and took up his wine.
“I know one of the women named,” he stated, and took a deep sip.
“Oh no,” I replied.
He swallowed, looked at me. “Miranda Trainor. A friend. British. She was on the circuit. She was good. Not great. But she had a lot of talent. She had a career. However, she quit abruptly.” He took another sip of his wine, tipped his head to the coffee table, and concluded, “Now I know why.”
Goddamn.
“Dates coincide?”
“To my recollection, yes.”
I studied him.
Then asked, “Are you going to throw a chair through your fabulous floor-to-ceiling window?”
“Maybe.”
“Please don’t. I like your window.”
“I’ll try to refrain.”
“Are you still friends with her?”
“We lost touch around the time she retired. And, mind you, she retired when, I think, she was twenty-four. Whatever age, she was very young. In fact, it was shortly after the first time I met you. We were all in New York for a charity thing. She was at the show with Winston, Patsy, Rod and me.”
“Shit,” I hissed.
“Mm…” he hummed and took another sip.
I studied him again.
Then said soothingly, “Tom.”
“It’s unconscionable.”
“Yes,” I agreed softly.
“All of it. Core Point, maybe what they did was even worse. They sanctioned it. They sponsored him as an athlete, and they sponsored him as a rapist.”
“That would make a catchy headline,” I didn’t quite joke, because it would, and such a headline would be devastating to their bottom line.
He took another sip from his wine before he said, “You’re a woman. You understand in a visceral sense what a predator like that means. What a betrayal it is that any entity would move to protect someone who perpetrated such violations. Even attorneys who defend those monsters. Everyone is entitled to a defense, this is true. But unless it’s a public defender who has no choice, any scum who’d stand beside a rapist and try to get him off is only slightly better than the man who committed the crime. I, thankfully, will never understand it in the way you do. But as a man, powerless against this continued plague, I can’t even describe how helpless it feels that it just keeps happening with the apparatus in place to protect it. As a father of daughters, well, I think you get that part.”
“I do.”
He said no more, and I sensed he needed to sit with this for a while, so I didn’t either.
We both drank more wine.
Eventually, Tom sighed.
Then he said, “If this is true, Andrew will never live it down. It could be he’s still doing it, and someone will come forward where the deed was done within the statute, and he’ll go where he belongs. But I’ll not rest until Core Point Athletics is dismantled and ceases to be anything but a curdling headline buried in a newspaper’s Internet archive.”
“As much as it upsets me to see how much it upsets you, I think I took this to the right guy.”
He was deep in thought, but with that comment, he looked right into my eyes.
“You absolutely did.”
I smiled at him.
He returned it.
Neither of us really felt it, but the camaraderie was there all the same.
“Dinner at mine next time?” I offered.
“I’d love that,” he said quietly.
“This weekend. It’ll include Cadence and Nora.”
“It’s a date.”
“You’ll have to find cat sitters.”
“Chloe and Judge will come down. She’ll need bonding time. And so will Judge.”
“Saturday? Six?”
“I’ll be there.”
“This has been a great night, Tom.”
“Are we done, or do you want to watch a movie?”
I, one thousand percent, wanted to watch a movie.
“About half an hour in, I’ll need a snickerdoodle,” I warned as my way of accepting.
“Thanks to your girl, that can be arranged.”
I smiled at him again.
And again, Tom returned it.
But this time, we both felt it.
CHAPTER 9
THE ENDINGS
Tom
Tom was walking to his office after leaving his final consult for the week.
They had a running back with a painful bone spur caused by early onset osteoarthritis. The patient wasn’t feeling any of their treatment options, he wanted quick-fix surgery.
Tom wasn’t a fan of cutting when physical therapy could alleviate the problem.
Mostly, he worried about an athlete who wasn’t processing the underlying cause behind a concerning symptom that could lead to a variety of future complications, especially if he kept playing. Osteoarthritis was far from unusual for any athlete, and there were a variety of treatment options that didn’t include opening up a body.