Cam
“Who the hell is behind this?” Ryder demanded when everyone was back in the room. “Show yourself, traitor.”
No one leapt up to confess their sins.
“We busted our asses all season,” Baloo despaired. “I can’t believe one of you did this.”
“How do we know it wasn’t you?” Ryder shot back.
“Why would I do it?”
“Why would any of us do it?” Ryder asked.
“Guys,” Teagan cut in. “Calm down. We can’t let this break us apart. We’re a team now, and we’re still going to be a team when we figure this out.” She looked over at Noah, who was standing by the whiteboard. He’d pinned every team member’s photo on it. “Ready?”
Noah nodded. “We need to narrow our time frame. We were all in the boathouse between seven-thirty and eight-thirty, so the sabotage must have happened between eight-thirty and nine-thirty, after Coach’s speech and before we all met up again for the race.”
Teagan held a dry marker up. “So where was everyone this morning?”
“I was stretching with Noah outside,” Quaid said.
“Crabby and I were taking selfies in the erg room,” said Perry, nodding at Crabcatcher for confirmation. He got it.
“I was doing my prerace meditation,” Ryder said.
Crabcatcher held up his hand, like he was in class. “Why are we checking alibis? None of us wanted to lose this race—there’s no motive!”
Noah nodded, back in detective mode. “On the surface there isn’t. We need to look at the motive… underneath… the motive.”
Perry made a strangled noise. “What are you even talking about?”
“All of us have our prerace superstitions, right?” Noah explained. “Our ‘free speed’ if you will.”
Cam was curious where this was going. Free speed was kind of like the first few steps you took off a moving walkway when you had hit a good enough stride to keep it going without any effort.
“Crabby eats pasta,” Noah said, tapping Crabcatcher’s picture with a pointer he’d found somewhere. “Baloo does karaoke while he thinks no one’s watching—”
“Irrelevant,” Baloo whispered under his breath.
“And Josh always chooses the oar with the pink tape.”
The snapped oar had pink tape on it.
“Maybe the question we should be asking ourselves isn’t who would target the team,” said Noah pensively, “but who would target Josh?”
“The hell?” Josh exploded. “Why would someone target me?”
Well, if he really wanted to know…
“Which one of you did this?” Josh demanded.
Cam knew he was innocent but prepared himself for eight sets of eyes to train themselves on him. To his surprise, everyone was looking at Ryder.
“Oh, come on!” Ryder protested. “It could have been Baloo. He’s pissed at Josh for breaking up with his sister.”
“True,” Perry agreed semi-reluctantly. “You should’ve heard the rant he went on about Josh and Britney last night.”
“You dumped her during the dance,” Baloo bellowed at Josh, triggered by the reminder. “What is wrong with you, you psycho?”
Josh looked shocked. But didn’t say anything.
“Look.” Baloo turned to the rest of them. “I may be pissed, but it doesn’t mean I did it.” He turned to face Teagan. “What about you? You and Josh have been at each other’s throats from the beginning.”
“True.” Teagan hadn’t flinched. “We have a history.”
She didn’t deny it either.
Noah gave his hand a couple of taps with his pointer. “And then there’s Perry’s gripe…”
“What gripe?” Josh looked as bewildered as the rest of them.
“I told you that in confidence, Noah!” Perry protested.
“Time to go public, Perry.” Josh’s lip twitched, like he was only just managing to hold back his rage.
Cam probably would’ve been the same if their roles were reversed.
Finding out that one of your best friends hated you to the point they’d destroy the one thing you’d worked your ass off to achieve?
Maybe this is what Cam had seen earlier in the changing room.
Josh’s flicker of fear. Maybe he worried that the only reason people were nice to him was because he was a Regis, not because they actually liked him.
A problem Cam had never had to worry about, but from the way Josh was looking now? It wasn’t one he envied.
Perry’s eyes darted around the room. He sighed. Defeated. Pointed at his hair. “This is a one thousand one Ash Blonde.” He pointed at Josh’s hair. “That is also a one thousand one Ash Blonde.” He threw Josh a despairing look. “You stole my hair color! But I didn’t break the oar.”
“What about Cam?” Quaid asked. “You must be pissed about the whole stroke thing, too. Not just Ryder.”
“Thanks, man,” Cam said, shifting in his seat as a cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
If Josh had told anyone about their fight this morning?
He’d be the number one suspect. Even though he hadn’t been the one to cut the oar, he was burning up under the glare of suspicion.
He held up his hands, protesting his innocence, then asked Quaid, “How do we know you don’t have a grudge?
I’ve never seen you give Josh a piggyback. ”
Quaid looked wounded. “Not for a lack of trying.” He threw a despairing look at Josh. “Why do you hate piggybacks, man?”
Crabcatcher raised his hand again. “I also have a reason to hate Josh!”
“Right,” Noah said, though you could tell there wasn’t a single person in this room who believed Crabcatcher was guilty.
Crabby wilted. “I was just feeling left out. Sorry. I mean, who could hate that jawline?”
“Apparently, all of you,” Josh muttered. He gave it a stroke, as if checking that it was still perfectly chiseled.
Noah cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, guys.
Having assessed this flurry of accusations and denials, I’m calling it.
Ryder’s been gunning for Josh all season.
He swung first at the clambake. Got booted from stroke seat today.
His mom and grandad were both at the race today. He wanted to embarrass Josh.”
Ryder looked pissed, but he stayed put, like someone who knew they were innocent. “Screw you, man. You seriously believe I’d tank the race because of a petty cousin drama?”
“But it isn’t petty, is it?” Perry said. “One of you is going to be crowned king of Regis Airlines, and your grandfather is obsessed with crew.”
Crabcatcher looked crushed. “I can’t believe you’d stoop so low, Ryder.”
“I didn’t do it!”
Quaid snatched Ryder’s bag from the floor. “Let’s have a look, shall we?”
Ryder tried to grab it back. They tussled.
Ryder won the tussle. Held his bag to his chest, panting.
“If you’re so innocent, Ryder, why be so secretive?” Quaid demanded.
“Fine,” Ryder said, and threw his bag in the middle of the circle. “Go ahead. Search it.”
Cam hadn’t expected that.
Quaid dropped to his knees, dumped out the contents of Ryder’s bag. Clothes. Sunglasses case. Deodorant.
“Happy now?” Ryder asked. “And for the record, I don’t want Josh to lose. I want to beat him. In broad daylight, with everybody watching.”
Ryder’s mission statement registered as a muscle twitch on Josh’s annoyingly perfect jawline.
“There’s only one way we’re going to find out the truth,” Teagan said. “There’s a security camera pointed at the front of the sheds. The footage goes to Coach’s laptop. It’ll show us who got in, who cut the oar. One of you computer whizzes needs to hack into it. Perry?”
“Me?” Perry squeaked. “I don’t know how to hack a computer!”
“So YouTube it!”
“But there are so many ads!”
Teagan hard-stared him. It wasn’t an option.
“Fine,” he huffed.
“And the rest of you?” Teagan instructed. “Go look for the saw. Noah and I are going to process the evidence.”
The team followed their cox’s orders. Cam headed outside, hoping like hell the guys didn’t extend their search beyond the boathouse.
To his truck, specifically. They knew he kept tools in there.
Knew they had reason to believe he was the guilty party.
Which is why keeping his head down as usual was the only way he might survive this.