CHAPTER 5
My Husband, My Enemy
Derek’s cabin stood at the end of a road that looked forgotten by the rest of Massachusetts.
The pavement disappeared first.
Then the streetlights.
By the time Lars turned onto the final stretch, the trees had crowded so tightly around the SUV that their bare branches scraped the windows like fingernails.
Snow from an earlier storm remained in dirty banks along the shoulder. Beyond the headlights, there was nothing but black forest and the occasional silver flash of railroad tracks running parallel to the road.
The bells I had heard during Derek’s call began ringing in the distance.
A crossing.
Lars had been right.
Naomi sat behind us, sending our location to her husband, the police, and three attorneys she trusted more than the local department.
“If either of you touches anything,” she said, “I will personally testify against you.”
Lars kept his eyes on the road.
“We need evidence.”
“You need gloves.”
“There are gloves in the back.”
Naomi paused.
Then, “Mhm.”
I glanced at Lars.
“Why did that earn an mhm?”
“I no longer ask.”
The cabin appeared between the trees.
Small.
One story.
A narrow porch sagging beneath the weight of snow.
There were no lights inside.
A dark pickup truck sat near the side of the building with its driver’s door open.
Lars stopped the SUV thirty yards away.
“Stay here.”
Naomi and I both unbuckled our seat belts.
He looked at me.
“Aaliyah.”
“You brought two Black women into the woods and now expect us to sit inside the running vehicle while the white man investigates the dark cabin?”
Naomi leaned forward between the seats.
“I would like the record to show that this is exactly how documentaries begin.”
Lars stared at us.
Then opened the center console and removed a flashlight.
“Do not separate.”
“Wasn’t planning to,” Naomi said.
The air outside was sharp enough to hurt my lungs.
Snow cracked beneath our boots as we approached the cabin. The crossing bells stopped. Silence rushed in behind them.
Lars reached the truck first.
There was blood on the steering wheel.
Not much.
A dark smear across the leather.
He lifted one gloved hand before either of us could come closer.
“Stay back.”
The keys were still in the ignition.
A cell phone lay cracked on the floorboard.
No Derek.
The cabin door stood open by less than an inch.
Lars moved toward it.
I caught the sleeve of his coat.
“We should wait for the police.”
“If Derek is inside, he may not have time.”
“If someone else is inside, neither do you.”
His eyes met mine.
“I need you behind me.”
“You need to stop giving orders.”
“For five minutes, wife.”
The fear in his voice made me release him.
He pushed the door open.
“Derek?”
No answer.
The beam of his flashlight crossed a small living room.
Furniture overturned.
A lamp shattered.
Cabinet doors hanging open.
The place had been searched.
We entered slowly.
Cold air moved through a broken window in the kitchen. Blood marked the edge of the counter. Beside it lay an uncapped syringe.
Naomi swore beneath her breath.
“Don’t touch that.”
“I know,” I said.
Lars crossed into the hallway.
“Derek!”
A sound came from the back of the cabin.
A scrape.
Then a weak moan.
Lars ran.
We found Derek in the bathroom, wedged between the tub and the wall.
His wrists were bound with plastic ties.
Blood covered one side of his face.
His left eye was swollen shut, and his lips had turned a frightening shade of blue.
A syringe protruded from the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
“Jesus,” Naomi whispered.
Lars dropped to his knees.
“Derek.”
Derek’s head rolled toward him.
“Wolf?”
“I’m here.”
“They found me.”
“I know.”
Lars pulled a pocketknife from his coat and cut the ties.
Naomi was already calling emergency services.
“What did they give him?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
Derek’s body began convulsing.
Lars caught him before his skull struck the floor.
“Derek. Stay with me.”
Foam appeared at the corner of Derek’s mouth.
His limbs jerked violently.
I stepped forward.
Lars looked up.
“Do not touch him.”
“I can help.”
“Move the rug. Keep his head clear.”
I did as he instructed.
Naomi relayed information to the dispatcher while Lars lowered Derek carefully onto his side. His movements were steady despite the tremor I had seen in his hand.
This was not the hockey star who punched first.
This was a man who had learned too much about bodies breaking.
Derek’s seizure ended after less than a minute.
It felt like ten.
He lay gasping against the bathroom floor.
Lars kept one hand near his shoulder without restraining him.
“Ambulance is twelve minutes out,” Naomi said.
Derek’s good eye opened.
“Aaliyah.”
I crouched where he could see me.
“I’m here.”
“The server.”
“We saw your video.”
“No.” His breathing hitched. “Not enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“Copies are marked. West knows which files leave.”
Lars’s expression changed.
“Digital watermarking?”
Derek nodded faintly.
“If she publishes those files, they’ll know who gave them to her.”
“Was it you?” I asked.
His gaze drifted toward Lars.
“No.”
“Then who?”
Derek tried to speak.
A vehicle approached outside.
Headlights swept across the bathroom wall.
Lars stood immediately.
Naomi moved closer to me.
“Emergency services couldn’t be here yet.”
“No,” Lars said.
The vehicle stopped.
A door slammed.
Then another.
Lars reached for the metal towel bar mounted beside the sink and tore it from the wall with one violent pull.
I stared at him.
Naomi stared too.
He handed it to her.
“Lock this door.”
“What are you going to use?”
His expression went cold.
“My hands.”
“Absolutely not,” I said.
Footsteps crossed the porch.
A man shouted from outside.
“State police!”
Naomi exhaled.
“Still could be murderers.”
A badge appeared through the cracked bedroom door before the officer entered. Two more followed him.
Real uniforms.
Real radios.
The paramedics arrived minutes later.
They administered naloxone, then another medication I did not recognize. Derek’s breathing stabilized enough for them to move him.
As they carried him toward the ambulance, his fingers closed weakly around Lars’s wrist.
“Training facility,” Derek whispered.
“I know.”
“Locker seven.”
His eye moved toward me.
“Don’t let him protect you.”
Then they took him away.
The Norsemen training facility was the last place we should have gone.
That was why Lars drove there directly.
Naomi followed the ambulance to the hospital after making us promise not to commit any felonies without calling her first.
The facility sat outside the city behind iron fencing and bare trees. At midnight, the long glass building was mostly dark.
Lars entered through an underground garage using a code that had not yet been disabled.
“You are suspended,” I said as the gate lifted.
“Not terminated.”
“They will have security.”
“Two guards overnight. One at the main desk. One doing rounds.”
“How do you know the schedule?”
“I have played here for eight years.”
“That does not explain why you sound like you have planned a robbery.”
“I plan for many things.”
He parked near a service entrance.
We entered through a maintenance corridor and followed signs toward the lower training level.
The walls were covered with photographs of championship teams.
Lars appeared in nearly every recent one.
Bloodied.
Smiling once.
Holding trophies over his head while thousands of fans screamed his name.
The organization had built its identity around him.
Now it was preparing to erase him.
Locker seven was not in the team dressing room.
It stood inside an old equipment-storage area beneath the rehabilitation wing.
Rows of discarded skates, helmets, pads, and sticks crowded the room. The air smelled of rubber and stale sweat.
The lockers along the rear wall were rusted and narrow.
Number seven had a new digital lock.
Lars crouched.
“Derek said West keeps the code in his office.”
“You don’t have it.”
“No.”
“Then what are we doing here?”
He reached behind the locker and pulled hard.
Metal screamed.
The bolts shifted but held.
“You cannot rip it out of the wall.”
He looked over his shoulder.
“Why not?”
“Because you are not a comic-book villain.”
He pulled again.
One bolt tore free.
I stepped back.
“Fine. Apparently you are.”
The second bolt snapped.
Lars dragged the locker forward and reached behind it.
A small black drive had been taped to the back panel.
My breath caught.
“That’s it?”
“Maybe.”
He removed it carefully.
A red light blinked on the side.
Tracking device.
Lars’s face hardened.
He crushed it beneath his boot.
An alarm began screaming.
“Subtle,” I said.
“We have three minutes.”
We ran.
By the time we reached the parking garage, security doors were beginning to close.
Lars shoved me through one before it locked, then squeezed through behind me.
A guard appeared at the end of the corridor.
“Halvorsen!”
Lars grabbed my hand.
We sprinted toward the SUV.
The guard shouted for us to stop.
Lars did not.
He shoved the drive into my coat pocket, lifted me around the waist when I slipped on the painted concrete, and practically threw me into the passenger seat.
He started the engine as security reached the garage.
The gate was lowering.
“There is no way we fit beneath that,” I said.
“Yes, there is.”
“Lars.”
He accelerated.
I gripped the door handle.
The SUV shot beneath the gate with inches to spare.
Metal scraped across the roof.
Then we were outside.
I stared at him.
“You could have killed us.”
“I knew the clearance.”
“You did not know the clearance.”
“I estimated.”
“You estimated with my life?”
His hands tightened around the wheel.
“We have the drive.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No. It is what matters.”
There it was again.
The decision made.
The risk calculated.
My safety included as one more factor under his control.
“Pull over.”
“Aaliyah.”
“Pull over.”
“We are being followed.”
I looked behind us.
A black sedan had exited the garage.
Its headlights closed the distance quickly.
Lars turned onto an industrial access road.
The sedan followed.
“Call Naomi,” he said.
I did.
She answered on the first ring.
“Tell me you are not in jail.”