Part 7 (1/2)
”Trying to.”
”Bless your heart! That eye looks horrible.” She placed her finger on his chin and raised his face to get a better look at his black eye. ”What happened to your eye? There's a teacher's pool on trying to guess what happened,” she giggled.
”Well, I wouldn't want to give you an unfair advantage. All will be revealed when enough time for speculation to run rampant has pa.s.sed and when everyone has placed their bets,” he laughed.
”Oh! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. I'll come back later.” Cade snapped his head from Stephanie's grasp and right into the clearly p.i.s.sed off face of the woman he couldn't stop thinking of.
”You're not interrupting. I'll let you all talk. Cade, we'll talk more later. Have a good practice.” Annie watched as Stephanie straightened up from leaning over the desk and thrusting her cleavage into Cade's dazed face. ”Bye now!”
Cade watched as Stephanie strutted out of the room. When he turned to look at Annie, he knew he was in trouble. She stood with her arms crossed, which resulted in her b.r.e.a.s.t.s being presented to him. He heard her clear her throat. Uh-oh. She'd caught him staring at her chest. He just couldn't stop digging himself deeper into the hole he was in.
”It's not what it looks like.” Dig. ”I mean, nothing was happening.” Dig. ”I mean, she doesn't mean anything to me. She was just looking at the nice s.h.i.+ner you gave me.”
”Yeah, sure. Look, I just wanted you to give me a list of the players who were the closest to the three players who were using S2. I want to call them in first for a counseling thing I'm going to do with the players on peer pressure and drug use.”
Cade glanced at the clock and saw he was already late for practice. ”Can you walk with me to practice and we can talk more about it? Please.” Annie gave a quick nod of her head and headed out the door without him.
Annie was so p.i.s.sed off she would swear her red hair had turned into flames. She was all ready to come forgive him when she spotted his face in the chemistry teacher's b.r.e.a.s.t.s and her hands all over him. If only he had not spoken a word to her last night and kissed her, then she'd finally get laid. She didn't even want to think about how long it had been. But she couldn't fool herself. She wouldn't have gone through with it. It just wasn't her style.
They walked down the empty hallways winding toward the football field. Blue lockers lined the walls heading toward the double doors at the end of the hall. They pushed through the doors and into the hot summer heat. Humidity engulfed her and held her tight as they made their way across the parking lot to the practice field.
”What the h.e.l.l?” Annie didn't quite know what to think of the picture in front of her. The players were in a circle, and inside the circle were two people dressed in large padded sumo wrestler outfits.
”The guys were really down after our last loss so we thought it would be a good idea to have a fun practice. We're still teaching tackling and blocking, just as sumo wrestlers.” Cade grinned and watched his a.s.sistant coach belly bounce Ryan Hall across the circle.
”Who is that?” Annie asked, pointing to the giant bouncing kids around with his sumo belly.
”That's Coach Parks. He's the offensive coordinator.” They stood and watched as Trey Everett tried to block the belly but got flattened. Coach Parks held up his hands in victory. Austin Colby nodded to the group, and on a yell the whole team leapt onto Coach Parks. Parks fell dramatically to the ground with the kids as he tried to throw them off of him.
”Okay then. You might need to rescue him. I'll write down the names of the kids you recommended I start with and call my boss. I will let him know about the deadline you have tonight with Gaylen and see what he wants you to do and also run my plan by him. I'll give you a call later to let you know what to do,”
”Okay. Look, Annie, we need to talk. About last night.”
”You got practice, Coach. We can talk later.” She cut him off and turned back to the building. She didn't want to hear that last night was a mistake, and she'd bet her job that what he was going to say.
Annie closed the door to her office and took a few minutes to stand in front of the desk fan she had bought to cool off. Her office was small and windowless. Her gray metal desk was covered with papers and student files. She had no pictures on the walls, only generic college and university posters that were sent to her in the mail. She had no plants, not even fake ones, and no personal items except for a pair of sneakers in case she needed to run after a kid someday.
She sat down on her cheap desk chair and picked up the phone to call Special Agent Romero. As she was patched through, she picked up the files of the students Cade had told her about. First up was the quarterback, Austin Colby. He was best friends with Bonner and the most likely to give her information.
”Romero,” she heard her boss snap as he picked up.
”It's Blake.”
”What do you have for me?”
”Last night the head football coach was s.n.a.t.c.hed from the parking lot by a team of idiots.” A little laugh escaped as she remembered Cade retelling the story.
”You're laughing? Is he hurt?”
”No, far from it. He went along with it to get us information.”
”He knows about the investigation? How in the h.e.l.l does he know about an undercover investigation?”
”Ah. About that. You have your database up?”
”Yes. But I don't see how that has anything to do with how a high school football coach could discover our investigation. Are you sure he isn't the boss?”
”Yes. I have searched his desk at school and his whole house. Type in the name Cade Davies. You have a higher clearance level than I do. Maybe you can learn more than I could.” She heard Romero type in the name and waited while he was silent.
”Jesus Christ. A Distinguished Service Cross? Is he for real?”
”Sure is. He also hacked the DEA database and discovered my ident.i.ty and more within the first week I was here.”
”Then I guess I don't need to be worried about him being involved. He'll make one h.e.l.l of a witness if it ever goes to trial. So, what did he find out?”
”He was taken to see Trevor Gaylen at the Lexington Iron Club and Spa. He thinks Trevor is hired upper management from Scotland. Trevor gave him a choice. No more S2 testing, turn a blind eye to any locker room dealing, and get his top players into the Keeneston Iron Club and Spa for personal training with Devon Ross. If he chooses to do this, he gets a champions.h.i.+p team. If not, then his dog and the women in his life, including his mother and sister, are killed.”
”Okay. What else is there?” Romero asked.
”I have a plan. Cade gave me a list of kids who were close to the guys that tested positive for S2. I want to call them in for counseling on handling the pressure of sports and cla.s.ses and bring in drugs and peer pressure.”
”Tell Coach to accept the deal this Gaylen guy is offering. Tell him to pretend to turn a blind eye but doc.u.ment everything. I want intel that will lead us to the boss. Also, have him keep an eye out, and if anything gets too serious, and it looks like the kids are in danger, we'll put a stop to it. We don't want anything to happen to these kids. I want you all to watch, listen, learn. Talk to the kids, but don't talk to them about S2 specifically. Get to be their friend or at least not the teacher everyone hates. I want to learn the major players in the drug trade. I want to know the dealers, the supplier, middle management, upper management, and the boss. I want all that information and all that evidence before we take down the ring. Because when we take it down, I want everyone in jail. I don't want anyone left to try to take over the business and continue to endanger these kids.”
”Yes, sir.”
”How is the boy doing with the heart problem?”
”Better. He still isn't back at school yet and may not be able to for a while.”
”Okay. I will send someone from the office to the rehabilitation center to talk to him. I will let you know what we get from him. You're doing well Blake. Call in next week at the scheduled time.”
”Yes, sir. Good-bye.”
Annie hung up the phone and put her feet up on the desk. c.r.a.p. She had really wanted to act more aggressively, and she had a feeling Cade would not be happy with doing nothing to protect his kids. She picked up the files on her desk and started reading them. She wanted to know all about these boys before she began calling them in to talk to them.
Annie put the file she was reading down and looked at her silver watch. It was past six o'clock. She had probably missed football practice, and there was a good chance Cade was already gone for the day. She stuffed some more files into her bag and ran out the door. She raced across the parking lot and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that Cade's SUV was still parked by the field house. She pushed open the door to the locker room and wrinkled her nose. It smelled like sweat, dirt and gra.s.s. The smell was overpowering.
”Cade?” She peeked around one of the lockers but didn't see anyone. She went off in search for him, pa.s.sing rows of lockers and benches. There was a large meeting room with plastic chairs and a chalkboard covered with X's and O's that took up most of the wall.
It looked like she turned the wrong way so she headed back for the door and then kept going past it. She looked down more rows of lockers until she saw a light coming out of a door at the end of one of the rows. She headed toward the light and noise reached her ears. As she neared the light, she heard singing, very bad singing. Was that Taylor Swift? No, couldn't be.
Annie paused to smile to herself as he continued to sing. She walked through the door and froze in her tracks. Cade was singing alright, singing b.u.t.t naked in the middle of a huge room with shower heads lining the three walls.
”Oh my G.o.d!” She felt her cheeks go bright red at the sight of him. He was even better without his clothes on. His muscled arms, his chest sprinkled with dark blonde hair that came together in a tiny trail that led past his well-defined abs straight to his...