Jeff Shelby - Thread of Hope

“It’s stupid,” Matt muttered, turning around, like he couldn’t bear to watch.

Meg took a deep breath, then let it out, her words tumbling out in a rush. “That Meredith was a hooker.”

“Excuse me?” I said, wondering if she was using some sort of teenager lingo I wasn’t familiar with.

Matt turned back around. “Told you it was stupid.”

Meg was the one to frown now. “I know it’s stupid, Matt. But I just thought I should tell him.”

“People say she’s a hooker?” I asked. “A prostitute?”

“Not people,” Matt said, a disgusted smirk on his face. “Dumbass chicks at school. Fucking useless.”

“I’m not saying I believe it,” Meg said, defensive now. “I’m just saying people have been saying it about her for a long time now.”

“She ever say anything to you about it?” I asked.

“No. Not once. I’ve never believed it,” she said, her cheeks flushing slightly with embarrassment. “I just…I’m worried about her. She’s my best friend. I thought you should know.”

The thought of an eighteen-year-old hooker wasn’t that far out of the realm. But one that was a star athlete and came from a wealthy family pushed pretty close to the limits of believability. I remembered high school. If rumors weren’t flying, it meant the day hadn’t started yet.

“It’s okay,” I said, not wanting Meg to feel stupid for having told me. “You were right to say something.”

She sat up a little straighter and tried to smile. Her concern for Meredith seemed genuine.

“Come on,” Matt said, tapping Meg on the shoulder. “We need to get back.”

Meg stood and slid her hand into Matt’s before looking at me. “You coming to practice today?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Is Meredith?”

“I saw her this morning,” she said. “Told me she’d be there, that she was ready to go.”

I nodded. I’d be ready to go, as well.

My first inclination was to find Jon Jordan, throw him out in the street and drive over him a couple of times.

But aside from making me feel better, I wasn’t sure what that would accomplish. It would ultimately take Meredith to straighten everything out. I was better off going to her. My main goal was to get Chuck off the hook and I didn’t want to lose sight of that.

I found the hotel’s business center and went to work on the Internet, checking out Jordan.

What I found left me frustrated.

Jordan, by all accounts, was a model citizen. Not only was he richer than rich, but the man gave a lot of money away to multiple charitable organizations. He also gave his time, serving as a board member for several of those groups. The irony that both he and his wife served as board chairs for a local battered women’s shelter did not escape me. But there wasn’t anything that made me think less of Jordan. If anything, it muddled even further who he was.

After two hours of finding nothing incriminating, I gave up and, after changing into gym shorts, headed to Coronado for basketball practice.

The team was already in the gym when I got there. I spotted Meredith shooting with Megan at the far end of the gym as I walked in. Meredith glanced in my direction, said something to Megan, then went back to dribbling the ball.

“You made it,” Kelly Rundles said, coming up the sideline to meet me.

“We had a deal.”

She nodded. “Yes, we did.”

“To be fair, though, you should know you may take some heat for having me here.”

She didn’t appear surprised by that. “I’ll be fine, but thanks for the warning. I've got some paperwork I'll need you to fill out after practice. Just background check stuff. You ready?”

I eyed Meredith at the opposite end as she spun to the basket. “Sure.”

Kelly followed my eyes to Meredith. “You wanna talk to her afterward, that’s fine. But not during practice. Clear?”

“Crystal.”

She blew the whistle and the girls hustled to the middle of the floor. She gave them some preliminary instructions and then the girls broke into lines at the far end of the floor.

“Can you run this?” she asked, referring to the drill they were about to start.

“Yeah.”

“Good. Get in line and run with them.”

I thought she meant run as in supervise, not run as in run, but I jogged down to the end of the floor, aware of the girls giggling and whispering as I took my place at the end of the middle line. Meredith avoided my eyes, bending down and messing with her shoelaces.

The drill required a player in each of the three lines to sprint to the other end where two other players waited as defenders. The shooter from the original three then backpedaled on defense, facing the two defenders as they came back down and attempted to score. It simulated the fast break and having to get back on defense. A fantastic drill.

If you’re in shape to run it.

After five minutes, I was gassed and covered in sweat. I’d clanked a ten-footer and been beaten badly back on defense twice.

As I panted, trying to get my breathing under control, I marveled again at how well the girls on the team played together. They communicated constantly, yelling at one another at every opportunity. They moved the ball with ease and always seemed to know where their teammates were supposed to be.

I was up again, a girl named Theresa on my left and Kristin, the girl whose footwork I’d corrected the day before, on my right. Meredith and Megan waited for us on the other end on defense.

Theresa broke hard for the basket and I bounced the ball to her beneath Meredith’s hands. Theresa whipped the ball over Megan’s head to Kristin. Meredith rotated down quickly to guard Kristin, so she fired the ball back to me at the top. I buried the jumper and sprinted back to the other end.

Meredith had the ball on the right and Megan flared out to my left as they pushed forward. Smart. Spread the floor, attack from both sides and make me choose. It was a subtle thing, but that kind of movement usually separated the better players from the rest.

Meredith’s eyes were impassive as she approached, the ball bouncing rhythmically beneath her left hand as she came down. She quickened her pace and came right at me. I stepped up to meet her. She flicked her eyes to her left, looking for Megan. I took another step up and shaded that way to see if I could deflect the pass I thought was coming.

But there was no pass.

Meredith switched the ball to her right hand and accelerated past me before I could recover. She laid the ball up off the backboard and it dropped softly through the net.

Kelly blew the whistle and yelled “Stations!” and the girls sprinted in groups of three to the side baskets.

I stayed on the baseline, my hands clasped behind my head, waiting for my breath to come back.

“You alright?” Kelly asked, coming up by my side, her eyes scanning the floor.

“No,” I said. “I’m about to die.”

“You’ll be fine.” Then she laughed. “Meredith destroyed you on that last play.”

I nodded. “She’s good.”

“You just wait,” she said. “That was nothing.”

And Kelly was right. Over the next two hours, Meredith dominated the practice. If a shot needed to be made, she made it. If the defense needed to make a stop, she found a way to the ball. She out-shined all of her teammates in every drill, in every way, and when they scrimmaged for the last ten minutes, she demonstrated how superior she was to every other girl in the gym by scoring at will, and anticipating everything the opposing five wanted to do.

And she did it all with ease and with an expression that gave away nothing.

Kelly adjourned the practice and cornered me as the girls trickled off the floor. She handed me a piece of paper. It was the background check she'd told me about.