Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
PARKER
She didn’t tell me everything.
I know I told her she didn’t have to. I meant it when I said she could tell me what happened in pieces and parts, in whatever order made it possible for her to keep breathing while she did it.
After my standard appointment with the team physical therapist, I’m sitting in my car outside the Armadillo facility, engine off, staring through the windshield at nothing even though there’s a sea of concrete and metal in front of me.
All I can think about is the look on her face when she said, “That’s when Annika died. ”
People don’t bury themselves for no reason and she had her past erased—buried like she had died.
I rub my hand over my jaw and lean my head back against the seat. I bang it a couple of times hoping it will give me more answers than I have. Getting myself involved with a woman without a past has red flags waving in front of my eyes.
It should be enough that she trusted me enough to admit what happened. Enough that she let me hold her and make love to her. Enough that she fell asleep in my arms. The softness of her hips against mine. Enough that her face glowed when she woke up this morning like I was exactly what she needed.
Instead, I’m restless. Because no matter how I look at it, there seem to be more questions than answers.
My phone buzzes in my cupholder.
Witt.
I answer immediately, desperate for any more information. “What did you find?”
There’s a long pause and I swear he does this to annoy me.
“You sound needy,” Witt says in his usual dry tone.
“You called me.”
“True.”
“Did you find out anything about her?” I ask.
“Her original name.”
I close my eyes for a second. “She already told me.” I can’t believe I know more than Witt.
This gets a reaction from him.
“She what?”
“She told me,” I repeat. “Annika Pencheski.”
“Huh.”
“What are you huffing about?”
“I’m surprised she gave it up that easily.” I hear him clacking on his keyboard.
My grip tightens on the steering wheel. “She didn’t give up anything … easily.”
Another pause. More typing on his end. “Do you want to know what I found or are you just going to defend her all day?”
Ignoring his comment, I say, “Tell me.”
“Nothing recent, which is weird. Aggressively weird. But I did find an old article from where she was born, Novadia.”
“How old?”
“Ten.”
I frown. “The article is ten years old?”
“No genius. From when she was ten years old.”
I sit up straighter. “What?”
“Your girl played hockey. What are the odds?”
She told me that. Maybe Witt isn’t as good at hacking as he claims.
“I translated the article and she was already playing on the twelve-year-old team at ten. It’s a local sports piece. She was a total prodigy. Did you know she played hockey?”
“Yeah, only because I ran into her at the rink.”
“The article quotes coaches and the head of the women’s hockey federation talking about her speed and vision. How she could see the ice two moves ahead.”
She’s always two steps ahead of me. How could she just quit hockey when she was a star?
“So she was good?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“According to this, freakishly good.” He pauses. “Apparently her dad used to say she played like she was reading everyone’s mind.”
A cold shiver snakes down my spine.
I don’t like hearing her dad attached to anything about her.
“What else?”
“It’s all very clean. Too clean.” Another click. “Pictures of her in braids, missing a tooth. Tiny little rink assassin energy.”
My mouth twitches imagining what she looked like. Ten-year-old Annika skating circles around bigger kids and hating every second of them underestimating her. Now I know why she hated me. I underestimated her, thinking she didn’t understand an athlete’s life.
“I’m sending it now,” Witt says.
My phone buzzes with a link and when I open it, there she is. Younger, obviously, rounder face, missing a front tooth and a hockey stick nearly as tall as she is but the eyes—same eyes as I looked into last night.
She’s focused and sharp, like cameras annoy her and she’d rather be skating than having her picture taken.
Next to her is a man in a track suit, one hand on her shoulder.
Her father.
I stare at the picture way too long, wondering who, what, when, where, and why.
Did he molest other girls? Where did he do it? Why did he do it?
“Parker?” Witt says.
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
No.
“I’m fine.” And I know as soon as I say it he knows I’m lying.
His chuckle rings false. “Sure, you are.”
I zoom in on the article, reading the caption, the quotes and the praise. Coach’s daughter. National team. Elite prospect.
The whole thing feels wrong, not because it’s false but because I believe it. I saw her skate and she gave it all up. This little girl I’m looking at is far from the woman who I held in my arms and told me she erased herself.
“What’s weird is that she drops off.”
“She changed her name,” I offer.
“P, this isn’t just a name change. It’s like someone vacuum sealed her past and forgot a few little fragments.”
That lands. Because that’s exactly how it seems.
“She didn’t lie to me,” I say mostly to myself.
Witt scoffs, “I didn’t say she did.”
But the thought of not knowing everything digs in. I need to know the missing parts. Parts that I’m confident make her who she is.
“You into her?” Witt asks.
I shake my head like he can see me through the phone. “Shut up.”
“That’s not a no.”
“She’s my performance consultant. My ex-tutor.”
“Mm.”
“And I just need to know who is playing around with my head.”
And my heart.
“Still not a no.” I hear him laugh like he has something to hold over my head so I end the call before he can get any more smug.
Then I sit there with the article open and the ugly, familiar feeling in my chest.
Not betrayal. More like standing on a frozen lake and realizing the cracks were there before you stepped in it.