Chapter 2 #2
“I also had a chat with the Tennis Federation and they were really pleased you had hired someone privately to look into your attack. They’re pretty frustrated with law enforcement and the direction of the case so far.
I also don’t think they’re too crazy about the guy who handles your affairs, Geoffrey something-or-other. ”
“Martin,” she prompted. “And why do you say that?”
“Bumbling Buffoon is a phrase most people don’t throw around lightly.”
“Oh.” She sat down on the chair across from him and exhaled. “Look, do you have a point?”
“I do.” Motioning for her to stay seated, he stood up in front of her.
“I don’t mean to scare you even more than you already are, but the fact remains there is someone out there who wants to hurt you.
Hell, maybe something worse. You need help, and fortunately for you, I am prepared to give it to you. ”
She studied his face for a moment, desperate for any sign of insincerity. But if there was one she missed it, too caught up in her gut feeling to believe him. A sudden ache spread through her bandaged arm. She grimaced as she ran her other hand over it.
“You okay?”
She adjusted the sling, then leaned back against the pillows. “I’m fine,” she said. “It happens from time to time.”
He nodded then stood, following his gaze toward the wall of pictures she’d just dusted. “This is cool, Brielle.”
“Yeah, I think so, too.”
He pointed to a large snapshot of her holding the Wimbledon Platter. “You think you’ll ever be one hundred percent?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re a tennis star, right?” He motioned like he was swinging a racquet. “Don’t you need your arm?”
“Of course I can play.” She looked down at her chest. Her fingers peeked out from the bandage. “I just need time to heal.”
“Okay, then you have some time to kill. What do you say in the meantime you play detective with me and help find the guy who did this to you?”
There was an energy surrounding him that swept her up like a wave. It had nothing to do with his designer clothes and drop-dead smile, but more like a vibe he radiated. Something wild and spontaneous. And scary.
“Daddy says I should give you a chance,” she finally said. “So I guess I’ll have to give you one. I’ll go see if I can find some of Geoffrey’s files on the investigation. Maybe that’s a place you can start.” She got up from the couch and walked past him toward the bedrooms.
“You need help?” he called after her.
“It’s not like I’m paralyzed. I can do it myself.”
Brielle flipped on the light in Geoffrey’s office and pulled open his closet door.
She was shocked by all the stuff he’d stashed in there.
Papers and boxes and crates. He didn’t like technology and didn’t trust computers so the shelves were lined with small plastic bins neatly labeled with colored markers.
Her eyes moved from high to low, thankful things were in chronological order.
He had business documents dating from the early 2000’s all the way through to his most recent labeled “Vitalie Acquisition.” She rolled her eyes.
She wished he would give that whole thing up.
Anston Vitalie would never give up his lucrative tennis empire no matter how much money Geoffrey threw at him.
Why he wasted his time was inexplicable to her.
Finally, she spotted the boxes labeled “investigation.” She stood up on her toes and looked inside the ones on top of the stacks.
Nothing. One by one she pulled them off the shelves, all as empty as the last. “Why would he get rid of everything?” she asked herself as more boxes crashed to the carpet.
She lunged over a pile of papers and pressed the “ON” button on the computer. An old desktop she found hard to believe was still usable. Her foot beat on the deep-pile Berber while she waited for the hard drive to boot up. Finally, it did.
Factory reset.
“How ya doing back here?”
Frantically she maneuvered the mouse on the computer screen. “It’s gone.” she stammered. “All of it. Everything. Gone.”
“What do you mean gone?”
“I mean gone. The investigation stuff. All of Geoffrey’s files.”
Callum came toward the computer. He reached around her for the mouse and stared at the screen. “Maybe he put it somewhere else.”
“Why would he get rid of all the paperwork?”
“Search me,” Callum replied. “Why don’t you call him and see what he knows?”
“He turns his phone off after eight p.m. when he’s on location.”
Callum gave up on the computer and regarded the mess of empty boxes on the floor. “You’re sure this is where everything is stored. There are no other filing cabinets or office spaces where it could be?”
“If there were, would I be sitting here talking to you?”
He folded his arms across his chest, his well-defined muscles stretching the sleeves of his shirt. “Okay, so I can’t read about it, but I can hear a first-hand account.”
“You mean you want me to tell you what happened?”
Callum spun the desk chair around and straddled it. “I think you could tell me more than any piece of paper could anyway.”
Brielle gulped. Was this a test? Was there a “right” story she was supposed to tell?
One that would be relayed back to her father?
Either way, talking about it was the worst. Words somehow made things more real.
In the days after it happened, it was Geoffrey who gave the story to the press and after her initial interview, he didn’t allow her to speak with the police.
He told her he knew how painful it was and the less she talked about it the easier it would be to forget.
“I don’t remember much about it really,” she said with her back to him.
“I think you remember more than you want to.”
“Can’t you just go down to the police and get my initial statement? Isn’t that just as helpful?”
“I want to hear it from you,” he answered, softly. “As best as you can. With as many details as you can remember.”
His voice was gentle like a whisper, but strong enough to penetrate the room. “It’s okay,” he assured her. “I promise, I won’t ask twice.”
She sat down where she stood, with her legs tucked underneath her.
Reaching out to the pile of papers in front of her, she pulled out a small scrap then balled it up in her hand.
“I was in the locker room at a tournament final up in Tampa,” she heard herself say.
“I had just gotten dressed. We were told we had ten minutes until we were to take the court.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Nila Norcova. This was the third time in a row we were meeting in a title match. There was a lot of press about it, and I was just about to head out to the court when I saw this masked man going through my racquet bag. He had a knife. One thing led to another. I tried to fight him off…”
She forced a jagged breath and shook her head.
“The next thing I can remember is waking up at Riverside Hospital after emergency surgery with a nurse standing over me. She kept telling me how lucky I was that my arm wasn’t completely severed.
” She laughed, trying to hold back the tears.
“Lucky. I’ll be lucky if this guy doesn’t come back and finish the job. ”
“That’s not going to happen.” He pulled a pen and a pad of paper from his pocket. “So, what about the investigation? Any leads?”
“A few in the beginning. I received some scary fan mail. Like, handwritten snail mail that comes from the post office. The police have been looking into those but so far, nothing.”
He nodded as his pen flew across the paper. “Tell me about this Geoffrey guy.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” Callum replied. “You talk about him like he a big deal.”
“I would hope so. He’s my fiancé.”
His pen came to a sudden stop. “Your fiancé?” he mumbled. “You didn’t tell me you were engaged.”
“We haven’t been for long,” she explained. “We haven’t set a date yet or anything. But I’m sure we will as soon as he gets back from Bermuda with Nila.”
“Wait a minute. Nila, the girl who you play against?”
“Yeah, Geoffrey is her manager, too.”
He bit his lip before he spoke. “You mean to tell me this Geoffrey guy is lost in paradise with some other girl while his fiancée is sitting here scared to death.” Callum chuckled and nodded to her naked left hand. “Nice ring by the way.”
“Look, I don’t need a ring and he’s on a necessary business trip. End of story.”
“Whatever you say. All I know is if you were my fiancée I wouldn’t let you go to the bathroom alone.”
She liked him. If for no other reason than he made her laugh when she really felt like crying. But so what? Just because he had a sense of humor didn’t mean she should buy his compassion.
“What about this fan mail?” he asked. “You have no idea where these weird letters are coming from?”
She pushed a hair behind her ear and blew out a breath. “Callum, I am one of the world’s most highly paid athletes. Just last year alone, I won twelve of the sixteen events I entered, launched my own athletic shoe line, and was on twenty-seven magazine covers worldwide. It could be anybody.”
In a sick way she wished it was “just anybody.”
She should have thrown that match when her father had asked her to.
“It’s going to be okay,” Callum whispered. “You don’t have to be afraid.”
Her voice failed, her mind still trying to grasp the idea of her own father trying to kill her, and her instinctive need to defend the man anyway. It couldn’t be true, could it? Why would Frank be so adamant about hiring protection and following through with the investigation?
“What are you thinking about, Brielle?” Callum asked.
His proximity and the musky scent of his cologne was killing her concentration. It would be so easy to give in to this guy’s charm, get lost in those deep blue eyes. She couldn’t look at him. She wasn’t ready to trust.
“Hey, Blondie. You okay?”
“Yeah," she finally said. “Sorry, I guess I’m kind of tired.”