Double Play (6 page)

Her feet hit the
cold hardwood and stormed out of the bedroom, down the hallway and
into the living room. She was engulfed by a miasma of cigar
smoke.

“
Cat!”

“
McDaniel!”

“
Hey,
reporter girl. You live here, too?”

She attempted to
wave the smoke out of the air. The faces that greeted her weren’t
strangers after all, but the same faces she saw in the clubhouse
one hundred and sixty two times a year.

“
This
is my place. That is, it belongs to my boyfr—, um, fiancé and me.”
She looked around her apartment. They’d scooted the loveseat over
to the small dining table and had the four chairs wedged around it.
Bottles of Leinenkugel’s Oktoberfest surrounded an open pizza box.
They were using tea saucers as ashtrays. “I think.”

Adam Alvarez
looked her up and down
with his
leering gray eyes
. “Nice outfit.”

“
Jeez,
Sis, put some clothes on.” Quinn smacked Adam’s arm. “I’ve got
company over.”

Cat looked down
at her revealing nightie and crossed her arms over her chest. She’d
forgotten she was wearing the Valentine’s Day gift. “That phone
call was our downstairs neighbor. You’re making too much noise.”
She spotted Quinn’s leather jacket on the arm of the couch and
slipped it over the satin negligee.

Quinn’s green
eyes popped out innocently over a pair of sunglasses hanging on his
nose. “Nah, it’s probably just this tile floor; it amplifies every
little sound.”

Cat narrowed her
eyes. “
Nah
, it’s the fact that it’s one in the
morning.”

“
Let
me deal ya in. We could use another hand.” Quinn patted the empty
chair on the other side of him.

Cat began to
corral the empty bottles. “I know that no one here has to work
tomorrow, but I do.”

“
It’s
an off day.” Adam Alvarez leaned back in her dining chair, his two
hundred pounds testing the strength of its wooden legs.

“
For
you. I still have to go in, Adam.”

Quinn raised his
hand. “Okay, okay. We’ll keep it down. The guys here just get so
excited when they’re giving me their money.”

The guys began to
chortle at that and the trash talk started up again, each man
louder than the next.

“
That’s what your mom said to me last night!”

“
You
wish.”

“
She
said that, too!”

“
Shh!”
She started to lean over the table and then remembered the low-cut
nightie peeking out from under the jacket. She cleared her throat
and stood back up. “Do I have to remind you guys that the tabloids
love to hear about players at non-sanctioned poker
games?”

They rolled their
eyes and begrudgingly nodded.

“
So
let’s keep it down so the cops don’t come, okay?”

Quinn began to
shuffle the deck. “You heard the lady. Name of the game is Chicago
Low by Night.”

On her way back
down the hallway, the bathroom door swung open.

“
Cat!”

“
Spencer?” There was no disputing the sight of her best friend.
He was still wearing his dress pants and sport coat from earlier.
The addition of a green eyeshade over his
shaved head
made it clear that he was in
the game. “You’re playing poker with these guys?”

He whipped the
visor off and combed through his
nonexistent
hair. “They invited me and you asked me
to keep an eye on Quinn so I thought—”

“
Spencer, jeez. I didn’t mean all this.”

“
I
know you didn’t, but I thought maybe I could help with crowd
control.”

Loud laughter
emanated from the dining room.

Spencer frowned.
“I failed, by the way.”

“
No
kidding.” Cat saw his eyes fall to the open jacket and she cinched
it tight. “It’s not your fault.”

“
Do
you want me to go? I feel weird being in your house and not hanging
out with you.”

“
Stay
or go, just don’t let Quinn take too much of your
money.”

“
Too
late for that.”

She bit her lip.
“Sorry. Hot dogs on me for game one?”

“
Deal.”

She patted him on
the shoulder as she wiggled past him to go back to the
bedroom.

She didn’t know
how long she’d been asleep when the scream tore through the dark
bedroom and smacked her awake. Benji’s eyes snapped open, too.
Simultaneously, they threw the comforter off and shot out to the
hallway, hurrying into the living room. The remnants of the poker
night were still visible, cards and beer bottles scattered over the
table. The chairs were empty and her eyes darted to the balcony.
The sliding glass door was wide open and a cold breeze blew through
the room. The players all gathered near the edge.

“
Quinn?”

Cat sprinted to
the balcony. She breathed a momentary sigh of relief when she saw
her brother in the corner, disguised by Benji’s spiraled boxwood
topiary.

The telephone
rang.

“
That’s got to be Finley again,” Benji said, turning around to
answer it.

Cat hopped out to
the balcony, planting her feet on the coarse entry rug. It was
still cold, but beat the bitter chill of the concrete. “What’s
going on?”

Joel turned
around and shoved past her, running into the kitchen. She heard him
wretch and hoped he had made it to the sink.

Quinn, Damien
Staats and Adam Alvarez were all peering over the balcony. Cat was
filled with dread as she approached the ledge. “Guys?”

Where’s everybody else at?

Slowly, she began
to recall the guests from earlier.

Quinn’s here.

So’s
Damien Staats.

So’s
Adam Alvarez.

Joel Faulk’s
in the kitchen
.

Her stomach
dropped.

“
Oh my
God, where’s Spencer?”

No one answered
her. She cringed as she finally made it to the edge and followed
their gazes to the ground.

Damien bounced on
his heels and repeatedly shook his head. “Shit man,
shit.”

A twisted body
la
y
on the grass two
stories down. It wasn’t Spencer. Her friend was short and this
figure spanned two sidewalk lengths.
She recognized his shaggy, dirty blond hair
immediately.

Ryan
Brokaw.

Now she
remembered him from earlier. The pitcher had sat on the loveseat,
next to Adam. He’d made the “your mama” joke.

“
Oh my
God! Ryan? Ryan!”

He didn
’t move.

Benji rushed to
the balcony and looked over her shoulder. He gasped.

She pulled her
hands away from her mouth. “We have to call
nine-one-one.”

Benji nodded and
ran to the phone.

She whirled
around to the guys. “What the hell happened?”

Damien’s hands
flew in the air defensively. “He … he ….”

Adam placed his
hand on Damien’s shoulder. “He fell.”

“
Fell?
Quinn?”

Quinn nodded. “We
were just having a smoke out here, shooting the shit and goofing
around. Ryan leaned back and just … fell.”

Cat surveyed the
railing. It was a concrete ledge but she pushed against it just to
make sure it was sturdy. It was solid. “I don’t
understand.”

Quinn shook his
head. “Me, either. It happened so fast. He was leaning like this.”
Quinn demonstrated by resting his hips on the edge. “He lost his
footing and just tumbled back.”

Cat leaned over
the side. “Ryan, can you hear me?”

His body
still
didn’t move. She
pushed past Adam and ran out of the apartment. Her hand glided down
the railing as she shot down the three flights of stairs. She
sprinted across the grass. The blades felt like porcupine quills
under her bare feet and the ground was cold and wet with frost. She
reached his body and looked up at her lighted balcony. Quinn and
the players were no longer there but she could see Benji pacing
back and forth in the living room, the cordless phone pressed
against his ear. She tore her eyes back to Ryan’s contorted
body.

“
Ryan?”

His arm was
twisted behind his body like a cruller and his shoulder popped out
like an extra glob of icing. “Ryan, it’s Cat McDaniel.”

She got on her
hands and knees to inspect his face. He was still breathing. She
waved her hand in front of his face, squinting to see any reaction
under the street lamps.
She
wished his blue-green eyes would pop open, even if only for a
second.

“
Just
hang on, Ace. The ambulance is on its way.” She draped Quinn’s
jacket over his body for warmth.

She sat up and
rocked back and forth, wrapping her bare arms around her knees,
trying to warm herself in the chilly night.

Behind her, the
building door blasted open, and Quinn, Damien and Adam ran to her
side.

“
Don’t
move him.” Adam knelt beside her and examined Ryan the same way she
had. “If he’s got a spinal cord injury, you could paralyze
him.”

“
I
know that. I haven’t touched him. All I did was cover him with the
jacket.”

Quinn squatted
down next to her.

She looked
around. “Where’s Benji? He didn’t come out with you?”

“
Joel’s totally freaking out. He’s making a pot of coffee for
him.”

She nodded and
looked up to the apartment, but she couldn’t see anyone. Thoughts
of how much this fiasco was going to screw her crept into her mind
and selfishly trumped her concern for Ryan. He was the Soldiers’
best pitcher and here he was, on her lawn, unconscious. The media
was going to have so many questions …. She knew this because in any
other situation, so would she. So would Spencer.

Spencer.

“
Where’s Spencer?”

“
Who?”

“
Spencer Kekuia. My friend? I know he was here, Quinn, I spoke
to him before.”

“
Oh,
the Hawaiian-looking dude? He left awhile ago.”

Cat still didn’t
know how long she’d been asleep since the first disruption. Before
she could ask, police sirens sounded and down the street she saw
the red and blue flashes. Adam and Damien waved frantically at the
police car.

Quinn rose and
helped her to her feet. “For your friend’s sake, if the cops ask,
it was just us here all night.”

“
What?
Why?”

“
Trust
me, Cat. If there’s one thing I know, it’s police harassment. You
don’t want to bring that down on your pal.”

The ambulance was
right behind the first squad car. The paramedics rushed up to the
scene and Cat stepped back, watching them load Ryan on the gurney.
Quinn grabbed his leather jacket from off Ryan’s body and helped
her put it on.

“
We
should get you upstairs. It’s forty degrees out here and you’re
wearing lingerie. You’ll give the EMTs a heart attack and they
won’t be able to help your pitcher.”

She tore her eyes
from the scene as they secured Ryan inside the ambulance. He was
still unconscious as they slammed the back doors shut.

A light-skinned
black man—slender and sharp in a tan sports coat and well-fitted
jeans—intercepted them before they got to the door and flashed a
police badge at her. “I’m Detective Kahn, BPD. Ma’am, it was your
apartment Mr. Brokaw fell from, correct?”

Quinn scowled
down at the man as if he’d been expecting this. Detective Kahn was
still a respectable six feet tall, with excellent posture. He
didn’t look like a police officer. More like an up-and-coming young
executive on casual day. “Uh, yes.”

Uniformed
officers passed them and hurried up the stairs. Before the exterior
door could close, the detective grabbed the handle and gestured for
them to enter. He stopped inside the foyer.

“
Do
you have any issues with my officers checking out the
scene?”

“
You
got a warrant?” Quinn was seasoned when it came to dealing with the
police.

Cat placed her
hand on his arm. “Quinn, stop.” She smiled at the detective. “This
is my brother. He’s a little overprotective. It’s fine if you need
to look at the balcony or whatever.”

“
Good.” The detective took off up the stairs. Her apartment
door was wide open. She and Quinn stepped in to see police officers
crawling all over the living room and out onto the balcony. Benji
was sitting with one at the dining room table. Another officer came
out of their bedroom.

“
Hey,
what are you doing in our bedroom?”

Before he could
respond, Detective Kahn intercepted her.

“
Ms. McDaniel, I’m going to need a statement from
you.”