28. A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing #2
Just for good measure, I peer over the top of my computer, confirming that Sutton is, in fact, still dead asleep.
He’s on his back, hogging the majority of the mattress with a body that wasn’t made to fit in a queen-sized bed, completely oblivious to the Buford-related turmoil sending me into a tailspin.
It goes without saying that Ellaria has done her fair share of stalking since arriving at college, and a code purple is almost a weekly occurrence for us.
Her tone darkens immediately. “Name?”
“Steve Miller.”
I send her the picture I took to help her narrow her search.
Silence greets me for the longest three minutes of my life, and although my curiosity is a force of nature, I wonder if my ego has been packaged in this holier-than-thou complex that secretly wants to rub my moral superiority in my ex’s face.
Maybe it’s less about doing the right thing and more about rejoicing in the fact that I’ll always be better than him. I shouldn’t care anymore.
So why, pray tell, am I so adamant about uncovering this unsanctioned extracurricular of his?
“It says here that Steve Miller was investigated for being a sports bookie who match-fixed a game by bribing an athlete to lose, but there wasn’t enough evidence to make the case, so they let him go,” Ellaria relays, and a blinding-white speck of panic makes itself known in the bottom of my belly.
My fear can no longer be slept off or medicated by the right amount of Dramamine. It has a mind of its own, and it’s insistent on boiling me from the inside out. I try to tap the poisoned well inside of me and drain it of every leeching doubt.
No. Fucking. Way.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
If Steve was paying Buford, then that must mean Buford is in on the wager. Oh my God, what if he was purposefully point-shaving previous games to influence the margin of victory? All for a cut of Steve’s winnings?
I mean, I was there in person to witness some of Buford’s more questionable actions on the ice. He’s not the worst player on the team, but letting the opposition steal the puck right out from under him? Buford is too conceited to let something like that happen unless he’s gaining from it.
This is right up his alley. Not that he needs the money. He’s a nepo baby who’s had everything handed to him, regardless of whether he deserved it or not.
The truth trickles from my lips. “I saw Buford accepting money from Steve earlier tonight.”
“Holy shit. Do you think he’s in on it?” Ellaria exclaims.
Slamming my laptop closed with a groan, I stare up at the bland ceiling popcorned with dark stains of water damage, and no matter how hard I try to slow my heart, I’m still one second away from imploding from bystander remorse.
I glance longingly at my boyfriend, who is now curled up on his side. He’s worked so hard to get to the semifinals, and it’s my job to protect him from anything that could go wrong this weekend.
Buford feels like my responsibility. If I try to confront him, he won’t tell me anything, and I don’t want him to know that I’m onto him. I have to stop this before he ruins their chance at the championship game.
“I don’t know, but I have a bad feeling about this.”
Going to Coach Lawson right now seems like the most extreme course of action.
If I report on what I found in my newest article, I’ll have to ask him for a comment, but I want to get my ducks in a row first—which means consulting my editor in chief. She’ll have solid advice on how I should handle things. It’s a good thing she was recruited for this trip.
I need to include Buford’s illegal gambling from a moral standpoint, but if he finds out that I know what he’s been up to, who knows what kind of shit he’ll pull during the championship game.
Not to mention that all the press surrounding it will be focused on the Mustangs’ reputation rather than the actual match.
The sky is tarnished in gunmetal gray by the time I plop myself down in Tamara’s hotel room. I sit in some interrogation-style configuration that she’s formed out of a desk chair and a lamp. Tamara is the kind of person who craves authority, even when she knows she doesn’t have it.
Ellaria said I should go to the police, but I…I don’t know, I feel like that’s a step too far. Would it be nice to see Buford behind bars for his actions? Yeah, it would. Do the Mustangs deserve all the backlash that would follow the arrest of one of their players? No, they don’t.
I wring my hands in my lap, and there’s a twinge in my belly that wasn’t there before. I haven’t been able to focus on anything else since last night. I spent hours gathering all the facts I could. Thankfully, Sutton has been too distracted today to pay much notice.
“What do we do?” I ask Tamara after I lay it all out, dread blooming in the hollow spaces between my bones, hot and unrelenting and so fucking impossible to extirpate.