Chapter 4
Chapter Four
The seriousness of her face with the bright pink cheeks and her flaring nostrils, together with her siren voice pitching high and strangled, fascinated him. Until her words sank in.
“You can’t be serious? Someone else—”
“This has to be completely confidential.”
“No shit. Hell, of course it has to be confidential—I can’t have anyone know about this any more than you can—and I mean no one—so how the hell are we supposed to have you on the sidelines doing your monitoring?”
She nodded her head, her eyes wide, and she looked like she didn’t feel too well. But then neither did he. He watched her muscles go slack as if they were drained of blood and nerve. Not even a flare of one nostril left in her.
“I know. This is a problem.” Her eyes aimed off in the distance.
“There’s got to be another way—you don’t need to be there.
We got enough doctors covering me on the sidelines already.
I’ll tell them you’re my private specialist if we need to call you in.
” He stood. She seemed like a smart, reasonable lady under all that burden of her serious life-and-death career.
And underneath the strangely sexy pristine Snow White looks.
“No. Sit. We’re not done here. You know all the reasons why we shouldn’t be doing this—why you shouldn’t be involved. I—”
“What the hell, Doc?” He tossed the papers back onto her desk and pushed a hand through his hair, looking away from her wide eyes and her quivering mouth now turned to him. If she cried, he swore to himself he would not console her.
“Is this a deal killer?” He forced himself to say it.
Every muscle in his back bunched in a spasm of tension at the thought of letting go of the possibility.
If he lost this chance, it might just kill his career, the way things were going.
Fear tightened the noose of tension until he felt a cramping in his gut as if his entire upper body, front and back, were being constricted by a giant boa wrapped around him.
His breaths shortened and became shallow.
She jumped from her chair and came around her desk and went behind him and pounded on his back viciously and repeatedly like she was beating him up.
“Hey!”
“Relax. You clearly need to relax. This is an important deal. For both of us.”
He felt her prying his muscles loose from their grip on his rib cage, definitely bruising, almost tearing. He refrained from groaning by clenching his teeth. Sweat popped out on his brow and just when he thought she would never stop, she did.
“Stand up and stretch your arms over your head and then bend forward.” She came around and stood in front of him.
He took a deep breath and did what she said. His muscles felt less tight, like the boa constrictor was taking a nap—somewhat relaxed, but not gone.
He straightened and rolled his shoulders for good measure. “You’re good—not as good as the team massage therapist, but you’ll do in a pinch.”
“Ha.” She rolled her eyes at his pun.
“How can we work this out, Doc?”
“I have to be there on the sidelines. See you every day. I can’t let anyone else handle you. You’re John Doe and you need to stay John Doe. I have to do all the testing and keep all your records myself.”
“Come on. What’s the worst that can happen? I’ll have Nunley call you if anything comes up. He already knows about it.”
“No. I could show him what to do—as an emergency backup—but I need to watch you closely. This drug trial was never meant for subjects in high physical stress situations. You could do some serious damage. If another doctor was treating you or an EMT or emergency room personnel who didn’t know you were receiving the treatment and they did the wrong thing—”
“I get the picture.”
She looked like she was on a ledge trying not to fall off, all uptight and fearful and anxious.
Her eyes were bright and her color high in her cheeks again.
He preferred her this way over the clinically detached professional.
If it was another time and situation, he might even be turned on. Not that that was unusual for him.
She was gorgeous, but she was not what he would normally consider his type. In spite of that, he felt compelled to placate her, keep her from going over her edge.
“I’ll come up with a story to get you on the sidelines. I’ll think of something.”
She nodded. “Good. When you bring me the signed papers, bring a check. A cashier’s check.”
He froze. Then boom—as if a hole had opened up under him, he fell through so fast that his stomach rose and his heart turned to a beating drum in his throat. Big and expanding and thudding loud and hard.
Money. He’d almost forgot she wanted his money.
She stood there in her white lab coat, almost a foot shorter than him, hands on her hips, delicate chin lifted, rosy cheeks glowing, dark lashes seductively shadowing her eyes. “For ten million dollars.”
Trent barged through the previously closed door into the trainer’s windowless inner office and realized it was built for privacy. There wasn’t much give in the solid door. He slowed down as he watched Ralph come to an understanding about what the commotion was about. The man was not stupid.
“You look like a cross between a thunderclap and lightning,” Ralph said, turning away from the counter littered with bottles, tubes of ointment, and bandages. “You got a call from Doc Morneau about the drug trial?”
“The ten-f-cking-million-dollar drug trial.”
Ralph paled and backed up a step—probably on instinct.
Probably because Trent felt the menace emanating from himself and could do nothing about it.
His hands were fisted and although he’d swear on a Bible he was not a violent man, he could sure use a punching bag right now.
He’d come straight here from Doc’s clinic without stopping—not even at a bank. No calls.
“You didn’t mention to me this drug trial would cost—”
“I know—I knew it would cost something, but I had no idea about the price. Trent, I’m sorry. I know how you feel about money—”
“Feel about money? What the hell are you talking about? I have tons of it. Barrels of it. I’d give a hundred million to that goddam doctor if she could help me get through this season to the playoffs in one piece.”
Ralph looked surprised and Trent didn’t blame him.
What he’d said was true, but it felt like a goddamn lie.
He hated it. Hated feeling like it was extortion money.
“If it was a voluntary donation it would be one thing. But it feels a hell of a lot more like blackmail at this point.” He swiped his hand through his hair.
“She must need the money for research. It’s not like her—”
“No, not her. It’s the principle of the thing. Although I had my doubts at first, I don’t think she’s lining her pockets. It’s for the research.” Trent swiped his hand through his hair again.
The sandy crop was a little longish like it always was at this time of the season.
All the usual chores like haircuts went out the window when they hit the intensity of December, heading into the race for the playoffs.
It would be tight. Again. And everything was riding on his shoulder.
He rolled the shoulder now as if testing it one last time before he gave in to the risky venture he was about to get into.
The shoulder felt the same. Not good. Not entirely intact.
He’d refused the MRIs suggested by the team’s PT and orthopedist and downplayed the pain.
But they were smart. Their fingers could feel things with their pulling and tugging.
They could feel things that he couldn’t hide or fake his way through.
Ralph had given him a shot to numb the pain but the cold weather was making it worse.
If he went through too many more practices this way he’d be doing more damage.
It was Tuesday morning and he hoped to make it to Sunday without shredding his shoulder.
“So what are you going to do?”
“What do you mean—do I have any choice?”
Ralph looked away. They’d had this conversation before. Ralph hadn’t been the only one to quietly and bravely suggest to him that he consider retirement. Trent was glad Nunley didn’t bother with that line again today. His sister Tammy was another matter. No way could he let her find out about this.
“I’m doing it. I’ll give her the goddamn money and trust her to use it for research and not run off to an island with some guy.”
Ralph laughed. “I think your money is safe. She’s too serious for running off to an island—too serious for her own good.”
“What are you saying? She a nun?” Trent smiled. “I thought you two had been an item back in the day?”
“For about ten minutes. She was an item all by herself—at Princeton. Dated the A-team guys and I was lucky to be on the C-team, but we were buddies and she wasn’t serious about anything but changing the face of medicine. She wanted to be the next Madame Curie. She may just do it, too.”
Trent lowered himself into the guest chair in front of Ralph’s desk and Ralph slouched into his own. “Wish I had a bottle in my desk drawer so we could toast to going for broke—the ultimate Hail Mary pass.”
“Don’t worry, Ralph, I was always good with Hail Marys.”
“So what’s the next step?”
“I deliver the money tomorrow. I have to scare up ten million bucks first—without raising suspicion.”
“Who’s gonna know?”
Trent eyed him, offering one guess. Tammy.
“Your sister?”
“My whole family has access to my bank accounts, but Tammy is the only one who ever pays attention to them. She’s a goddamn pain in the butt.” He loved her. He could count on her to always have his back.
“She’d never go for this.”
“She is never going to know.” Trent infused his voice with steel and shined his game-glare on his friend. “No one—and I mean not one single person—is ever going to know about this. Are we clear?”
“Absolutely. You know damn well that was my understanding all along.”
Trent waved a hand. “I know, I know. Don’t mind me.
I know you’re putting your career on the line just as much as I am.
I’ll have to come up with a story about an investment when Tammy finds out about the money—and she will.
Then she’ll question me and pester me until I give her some kind of answer as if I were still a 22-year-old rookie.
” He smiled. She’d always behaved like his older sister—more motherly at times even than his mother, and that was hard to do.
Tammy was the best little sister a man could have—smart as a whip with the books, and she had street smarts and people smarts too.
“You’ll work it out with her. You always do.”
It was still early on Tuesday morning in her research office when Charline’s phone rang. After staring at it as if it had come back to life after being dead for years, she picked it up.
“I have the cashier’s check and the signed paperwork. How about you come to my place to pick it up?” Trent Lockheed made the transaction sound like an intimate invitation.
Goose bumps instantly rose on her skin as if he’d whispered the words into her ear in person, disturbing the tiny hairs there. She paused to get herself back on track. Then he added, “It’s not like we can meet in public—at least not very easily.”
She exhaled. “No?”
“I’m notorious, Doc,” he drawled with that suggestive southern accent he occasionally resurrected and she was sure he meant to charm her—out of habit. She guessed it was who he was. The quintessential confirmed bachelor, a player.
She’d talked to her sister, Suzette, about him last night, and had told her that Trent was an anonymous donor, but not that he was also John Doe.
She’d confided in Suzette because she could trust no one else and her sister had doubled as her best friend all her life.
She’d always been too busy to cultivate more than acquaintances over the years.
Suzette had immediately picked up her tablet as they sat in their comfortable, if slightly shabby, living room, and scrolled through the Internet to find out all about Trent Lockheed.
They’d drunk wine and laughed over all the tabloid pieces and worried over all the pieces about his injuries and oohed and aahed over all the pieces on his accomplishments, including MVP awards and Super Bowl wins.
There’d been no dearth of information about her new subject. Notorious was a good word for him.
Even if his dossier hadn’t included facts about his academic achievement, she’d suspected that he was intelligent. That knowledge quickened her heart into a stutter.
“All right—I mean, you have a point.” She looked at her desk clock. It was only eight a.m. He was clearly a morning person—something not covered in all the media kerfuffle about him. Clicking on her computer screen, she opened her calendar. “How about at 1 p.m.?”
“How about now?”
Licking her lips, she felt like she was on a swaying boat constantly off-balance, but she righted herself and answered him. “I have an hour before I need to be back. Other subjects to attend to.”
“I feel lucky that I get you for an hour. You know where I live? It’s not far from your office.”
“I’ll find it.” She didn’t want to tell him that she knew everything about him at this point, including his underwear preference—thanks to the promotion he was doing for Calvin Klein.
“I bet.”
She heard the smile in his voice and blushed as if he could sense her guilt and knew she’d been looking into him—as if she were a fan girl.
If she was honest, she might not have started out like one, but after spending hours researching him, looking at photos, learning about his past, his family, his closely hidden charitable side, videos of various good-natured exchanges with the press, and with the way he’d handled various injuries, she was close to turning into a fan girl.
A big one. She especially couldn’t help admiring how he’d handled his pain and injuries and how he spoke about them with expert knowledge—not leaving decisions to others, taking responsibility for himself. She sighed.
“I should be there in fifteen minutes,” she said.
He lived in a high-rise in Beacon Hill, not too far from the new stadium at the old Suffolk Downs in East Boston.
For convenience, she supposed. She’d jump onto Storrow Drive.
It would be mad with rush-hour traffic. Luckily it would almost all be heading in the other direction.
“I’ll be waiting with breakfast ready.” He hung up before she could tell him not to bother.