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 lay 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.”
She looked around the messy apartment and pointed to the sofa. “Oh uh, okay. Here, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She pointed at Quinn. “This is my brother. Do you want him, too?”
“No ma’am, we like to hear each account separately. Sir, if you could just wait right there, my partner will take your statement when he gets here.”
“Whatever.”
Detective Kahn took a notepad out of his jacket pocket and pulled an ink pen off the side. “Now this is your apartment, correct?”
“Mine and my fiancé’s.” She pointed across the room at Benji, seated at the dining table. He’d put his E. Coli Happens hoodie over his flannel pajama pants, but his hair was still poking out in all directions. He was leaning back in the chair with his arms crossed over the graphic of a blob that she could only guess was an E. coli bacterium. He looked a lot more relaxed than she felt.
“Right, the teacher. And you’re the team reporter for the Soldiers?”
She nodded.
“Were you on the balcony when the incident occurred?”
“No, sir, I was not. I was sleeping in my room with my boyfriend—uh, fiancé—when we both woke up to a shout.”
“So you weren’t even part of the party?”
Cat frowned at the word. “Party” conjured up images of blaring music, dancing and keg stands. At least, Quinn’s parties.
“It wasn’t a party, just some guys playing cards.”
Detective Kahn glanced around the apartment as though visually documenting each beer bottle, cigar butt and crumb into evidence.
“So you say you heard a shout. What happened after that?”
“We ran out here and saw the guys on the balcony.”
“Which guys was that?”
“Uh, my half-brother and some Soldiers players.”
“Which players?”
He was firing the questions so fast Cat began to feel like her statement had become an interrogation.
“A-Adam Alvarez, Joel Faulk and Damien Staats.”
“I see.” He paused, methodically tapping his pen. “Do you socialize with these players on a regular basis?”
Cat didn’t socialize with any Soldiers on any sort of basis. The celebration at Roger’s steakhouse had been the first time she’d been in the room with them when she hadn’t been on the clock.
She scoffed. “No. They came over to play poker with Quinn. We’d all been at Roger Aiken’s steakhouse for a celebration party earlier this evening and they must’ve made plans then. Benji and I were already asleep when their game started.”
The detective surveyed the apartment again. “You slept through all of this?”
“We’re deep sleepers.”
“If you were asleep, you probably don’t know if they were inebriated?”
“Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir, I don’t know.” He was even lankier ten years ago and back then, Quinn had the constitution of an African Bush Elephant. Even if he’d drunk all these bottles himself, she doubted he’d been tipsy.
“Did you or your fiancé play cards with them at all?”
“No, sir.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Yes.” Cat narrowed her eyes at his insinuation. “I would remember if I got out of bed in the middle of the night and played a game of cards.”
“Mm-hmm.” He made a note in his notepad.
She peeked at his notepad. “Is Ryan going to be okay?”
“Well I can tell you he won’t be starting tomorrow’s game.” The officer chuckled and then looked up with a sheepish smile. “Sorry.”
She pressed her lips together and raised her eyebrows in response.
“Now, Ms. McDaniel, something’s bothering me.”
“Okay ….”
“This table over here ….” he pointed behind him to the dining room where Benji and the officer sat. Benji met her eyes and smiled softly. “That’s where they were playing cards?”
Cat nodded.
“It looks like there’s six places there, but I only count five guys. You’re sure there wasn’t anybody else here tonight?”
Cat considered the table. She didn’t know how he could distinguish individual places with all the beer bottles scattered about. Poker chips were gathered together in a few neat little piles and the cards were strewn everywhere. She swallowed. “No, sir. But like I said, I was asleep. When I woke up, there was only Quinn, Joel, Damien and Adam.”
“And Ryan, of course.”
“Y-yeah. Obviously.”
He nodded and stuck his pen and pad back in his front pocket. “Well, that’s all the questions I have for now.”
Relief flowed through her and as she exhaled. She was bone tired. She could smell the fresh pot of coffee wafting through the air and saw a mug in front of Benji and a couple in the hands of officers. She wondered if there was any left.
“I know where to find you should anything else arise. I heard over the radio that they’re going to be contacting Roger Aiken but we’re going to instruct him not to come here. I don’t need a brassed-off general manager disrupting my crime scene. This investigation is already going to take us well into lunch.”
Relief and fatigue were instantly dispatched, replaced by anxiety and jitters. She jerked her head up. “Crime scene? He fell off the balcony. It was an accident, not a crime.”
“Well, why don’t you just let us determine that?”
Cat glared over at Quinn, but he was too busy with his own statement to notice. His eyes were glazed over, but she could tell from his clenched jaw that this was due to his aversion to law enforcement rather than a need for sleep. She almost pitied the officer, who probably had yet to get Quinn to state his full name.
Detective Kahn brought her attention back to him by picking up her latest SABR Journal and thumbing through the pages. “I’m sure you’re about to have a busy day of your own explaining to the City of Buffalo why their All-Star starter won’t be available for game one.”
Her hands were clasped in her lap and she unconsciously began to wring them. Breaking the news to the fans would be bad enough but when the rest of the media leaked that it happened in her apartment—and they would—Lord knows she would ride a juicy scandal like this into the sunset. It would bury her.
She saw Detective Kahn observing her handwringing and stopped, shaking her hands out and rising to her feet.
“Let’s just hope Ryan’s okay.”
Cat meant it with every cell in her body. Both the young pitcher’s career and her own lay in the hands of the emergency room doctor.