Saving Us by Wendy Million

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Tuesday, Clay heard from Troy. I’d texted Sebastian to see where he was staying, but he hadn’t responded. His fistfight with Johnny wouldn’t have gone over well with his coach this close to their championship game.

Clay’s living room was sparsely furnished and surprisingly tidy. Normally there were dishes in the sink, clothes strewn about, and an odd scent had made me wonder if he had rotting food under the couch. I couldn’t imagine he tidied up for Troy. That meant the cleaning was for me.

I checked my watch again. “What time did Troy say he’d be here?”

Clay popped his head out of his room off the kitchen. “Soon.”

I perched on one of the lawn chairs he used as furniture. He had a couch, but I didn’t want to end up sitting next to him. He wandered out and plopped onto the couch.

I twisted my hands in my lap and took out my phone to check for messages. Tomorrow, Johnny was being questioned. Thursday, the football team left for the National Championship.

“Looks as though no matter what Troy comes up with today, Johnny will get to play in the game.” Clay scrolled through notifications.

“Yep.” I settled deeper into the chair. “I don’t understand how the coach can protect him.”

“I’m not sure what to tell you, Natalie.” He placed his phone on the couch beside him and turned tired eyes to me. “The coach and the players have been working years to get to this spot. The college hasn’t been in this championship game in decades. You realize the hours they put in for practices, games, external workouts, and so forth. If Johnny doesn’t play, those people suffer.”

“Not nearly as badly as Annika.”

“Yeah, you’re right. You’re completely right. Johnny is a disgusting piece of shit. If I could put him in jail, I would. Some of those guys have enabled him. If I can go to a party and hear Johnny is abusive, then they heard it too.”

My mind drifted to Sebastian. He’d never given any indication he believed Johnny was violent. Had he heard things? Did he ignore incidents at the frat house? The idea made me ill. Maybe he hadn’t seen anything. He’d been in the house and on the team for the shortest amount of time, and over the last few months, he’d spent any free time with me.

The doorbell rang, and I jumped, startled. Clay stood and walked to the apartment door, swinging it open.

Troy was on the other side, shoulders hunched. He moved past Clay and into the apartment. He was so tall, broad, and muscular he made the room feel small.

“Well?” Clay said, and I stood to face Troy.

I squeezed my hands together, giving him a hopeful expression. If our plan didn’t work, I wasn’t sure what to do next.

Taking a deep breath, he examined both of us. “The coach isn’t keeping the team under lockdown because of what Johnny did to Annika. He’s trying to hide something else.”

I frowned and reared back. “Something else? Worse than Johnny abusing Annika?”

“Just listen to the recording. Then we can figure out what it means. I don’t have a clue what to do with what he said. It’s not what I expected.”

I closed my eyes, and my tension rushed out. Frustration swept in to take its place. Another complication wasn’t what I anticipated.

Clay held out his hand for the small device he’d given Troy earlier. At his laptop on the kitchen island, he plugged the unit into the side. He cranked up the volume.

Troy sat on the couch and put his head in his hands, listening without looking. I took a stool at the island, and Clay slid onto another beside me.

The three of us listened in silence, and I started to wonder if Troy was exaggerating about the importance of the conversation. He took forever to get to the point of the meeting.

“I saw photos of what happened to Annika. Johnny’s girlfriend. I don’t feel right about staying quiet anymore.”Troy was more confident than I expected.

There was a heavy pause and what sounded like the creak of a desk chair. “Photos?”

“Yes.”

The chair creaked again as though the coach was rocking it. “Do you remember freshman year when Johnny got that shoulder injury?”

I pictured Troy frowning. “Yes.” His voice when he responded was laced with confusion.

“It was important to me and to him that he got better. We were sure he was going to go places. Hell of a talent, that kid. So, I gave him supplements, vitamins, and such, to aid his recovery.”

“Okay,” Troy said slowly.

“One of the side effects of those supplements can be aggression. Not always, but sometimes.”

“Are you telling me you gave him a drug that caused him to beat his girlfriend?”

“No, no. Not at all.”The coach’s voice became louder, as though he was leaning into Troy. “What I’m telling you is that sometimes a situation isn’t what it appears. Sometimes, more people are at risk than you might realize.”

I’d seen the coach many times. I could picture his steely gaze in my mind.

“Have I brought the best out in you, Troy? Have you fulfilled your potential?”

“Yes sir, you’ve been a great coach.”

“That’s what I do. I bring out the potential in my players. Sometimes that’s through drills, watching game tape, a conversation…and sometimes that’s through other means.”

“What happened to Annika, sir—”

“Was unfortunate. It was. And if Johnny had anything to do with it, the police are capable of figuring it out without any help from the team.” The chair squeaked again, and when the coach spoke, his voice was louder. “Loyalty and gratitude are such important qualities for a person to possess, don’t you think?”

There was a heavy silence. “So are honesty and integrity, sir.”

The coach laughed, a deep guttural sound. “Yes, that’s true. That’s true. Of course, my two will get you more in your last year at this school. Only a few credits shy of graduation, aren’t you?”

“Jesus.” I drew out the word.

Troy glanced at me as the recording cut out. “Coach and the dean are tight. Hell, Coach and everyone at this school are tight. Especially since we’ve done so well this year.” He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “I can’t afford to retake courses, to not graduate.”

“He threatened you and admitted to giving Johnny an unknown drug. Side effect—violence. I mean, that’s a jackpot.” I started to pace.

Clay transferred the file onto his laptop and unplugged the device. “If the coach was giving Johnny a drug or multiple drugs and they made him act violently, could Johnny get off for what happened to Annika?”

I stopped pacing and whirled. “I don’t know.” The last thing I wanted was for Johnny to have a glimmer of hope.

“He was a dick freshman year, even before he hurt his shoulder,” Troy said. “Looking back, I’m pretty sure he beat his girlfriend, Dawnesha Taylor. She ended up filing a restraining order or something. Hush-hush then, but it makes sense now.”

I stared at Troy before I focused on Clay. “Why are you just telling me this now? Why didn’t anyone say a word when I was worried about Johnny hurting Annika?”

“Seb wouldn’t have known—if that’s what you mean. I didn’t remember either. Gabby reminded me the other night after you guys left. Gabby and I started hanging out around the time Dawnesha disappeared.”

“Not really disappeared, though, right?” Clay said from his stool, alarm in his voice.

“No. Stopped coming around. After her, there wasn’t a regular girl until Annika. An endless parade of women.”

The parade didn’t stop with Annika, either. “Is Dawnesha at our school?”

“No idea. I haven’t seen her. She probably avoids football.”

“So, those IT skills.” I turned to Clay. “Any chance you can dig for a Dawnesha Taylor on campus?”

“Yeah, I can poke around. Why, though?”

“Establish a pattern of violence.”

“Are you going after Coach?” Troy asked.

I shifted from foot to foot and rubbed my hands together. “Don’t know.” I took a deep breath. Did I want an answer to my next question? Everything would become even more complicated. “Did Johnny understand the side effects of whatever the coach gave him?”

Troy stood up to face me and Clay. “He’s militant about what he puts in his body. The only thing he’s relaxed about is alcohol, and even then I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him drunk.”

“So he’d have asked?” I pressed.

Troy’s headshake was almost imperceptible. “He was a freshman. Coach is God. If he was told to take it, he might not have asked questions. Now, yeah, probably. But when he started? I don’t know. That’s the truth, Natalie. I don’t know.”

I sighed and backed up to sit on the high stool again.

“You want me to tell you Coach told him, but I can’t. Makes the situation and fallout cleaner if he realized he’d get violent, and he took them anyway.”

“Yeah.”

Troy checked his phone. “I gotta go. I have shit to do. Look, if you’re going to use the recording and drag me into it, give me a warning, okay?”

Clay nodded beside me. “Of course, man. We appreciate this.”

I stood up and followed Troy to the door. There was just one last thing I needed. “Troy?”

He sighed and turned. Raising his eyebrows, he looked at me.

“Where has Sebastian gone if he’s not at the frat house anymore?”

“He’s sleeping in his SUV. I talked to him at practice this morning.”

“What?” I asked. “No one on the team offered to take him in?”

“And risk pissing off Johnny? No. A lot of us might think Johnny is an asshole. We might even wonder if he hurt Annika. But he’s our team captain. He’s still the best damn player on the field. The coach’s golden boy.” He gave me a long look. “And honestly, Nat. If your dad or the cops or whoever can’t nail him down for this, he’s going to the NFL. He’ll have money, power, influence… No one wants to mess with that.” He shrugged. “Sebastian wouldn’t either if it wasn’t for you.”

I flushed. “I shouldn’t have told him.”

Troy gave me a sideways glance. “You should have told your dad. Whether you want to believe this about yourself, Nat, you told Sebastian because he’d do what no one else had been willing or able to do. And he did. He went after him.”

I pressed my hands to my cheeks to block the heat. “That’s what you think?”

“Yeah.” He scrunched up his face. “I don’t blame you. Those pictures of Annika. When I was sitting across from Coach today, all I could think about was how terribly she’s been treated. When you love someone, you do whatever you can to protect them. To keep them safe.”

“Or to get them justice,” I said quietly.

“Yeah,” Troy said. “That too.”

“Thank you. I mean that, Troy. I’m not sure where we go from here, but I’m grateful to you for getting the information today.”

“Annika didn’t deserve what happened to her. She was a lot of fun around the frat house. I don’t understand how—that night doesn’t make sense.”

“You weren’t there?”

“No, I stayed at the bar late because Gabby was closing, and then I went to her place. We never go to hers, but her roommate was out of town. I wonder sometimes—would it have happened if we’d been there?”

I patted his arm. “We all have things we question. Ultimately, though, none of us did it. Johnny, maybe Johnny and others, made those choices.”

Troy nodded and examined me for a beat. “I get what Sebastian sees in you. I hope, when the dust settles, you two figure things out.”

The urge to hug him surged in me, but he didn’t seem like much of a hugger. Instead, I smiled and said, “Me too.”

Troy disappeared out the door, and I turned to Clay.

“Well,” Clay said. “What now, Sherlock?”

“I go to my dad with this. You find out if Dawnesha Taylor goes to college here.” I grabbed my purse from the door handle.

“Will we ever have the full picture of what happened that night?” Clay asked as I dug through my purse for my bus pass.

“Does it matter? Nothing can justify what Johnny did. If he’s taking these supplements or rage pills or whatever you want to call them, those might explain a little of it. But there’s no justification. Nothing will ever justify what happened to Annika.” My fingertips brushed against my pass, and I took it out. “Call me if you find Dawnesha Taylor. I’ll text you what my dad says about the rest of this.”

I grabbed my coat from the couch and slid it on.

Before I closed the door, Clay called after me, “You’re going to be a great lawyer someday.”

Was law school what I wanted? I’d started to enjoy being on the front lines.