“I know!” he said with boyish glee. “But did you hear it? It was echoing so loud, it was turning me on.”
“You better hope no one else did,” she reminded him.
“We’re safe,” he assured her. “There isn’t anyone around for miles. But as soon as I get you home, I’m going to spank you properly.”
“Then why are we standing here?”
Chase grabbed her hand and hurriedly began his race for the exit, practically dragging her behind him. But he instantly stopped when she planted her feet and gave his arm a slight tug. He turned to her and she wrapped her arms around his neck, rising up on the tips of her toes.
“Just to be clear, I’d follow you anywhere,” she told him right before kissing him.
“I never doubted you, angel. Thanks for knowing just how to break a guy out of a funk.”
And together they ran for the door, right past the tiny blinking red light hidden inside the innocuous small black sphere mounted on the ceiling above them.
CHAPTER 13
FOUR DAYS LATER, Chase was lacing up his cleats at Kauffman Stadium, getting ready to warm up for playing the Royals. Another city, another road trip, and another three days of wishing he were home. He tried to look on the bright side. His bride had stayed behind, touring venues for their wedding, something that didn’t interest him. He looked up from the bench he was sitting on inside the visitors’ locker room as soon as he heard his name called.
“Walker! Coach needs to see you,” the assistant coach called out from the doorway of the visiting team’s management office. Chase finished what he was doing and hustled over to answer.
“You were looking for me, Coach?” Chase stuck his head in the open doorway.
Leo Bennett sat behind the desk, leaning back in his chair. He waved his hand, beckoning his star player full entry. “Come in, Chase. Shut the door and have a seat.”
Chase immediately did as he was told, alert to the level of intensity that showed on the faces of Leo and the already seated assistant and batting coaches. He sat down.
The four men sat in awkward silence for several long moments.
“Am I getting benched?” Chase finally asked jokingly after looking from one unreadable face to the other.
The three remaining men exchanged knowing looks and what Chase could’ve sworn were sly smiles that were being held back. Leo cleared his throat and leaned both his elbows on the desk. He steepled his fingers over his mouth to hide the grin and tried to decide how best to tell the man he thought of as a son what he needed to tell him without laughing. He took a deep breath, getting ready to tackle the topic at hand.
“I just hung up with the front office. There’s a situation back in New York.”
AMANDA WAS IN HER BEDROOM, finishing getting dressed for work, when the phone rang.
“If you don’t get out of town, you’ll ruin him,” threatened the voice on the other end by way of a greeting. Amanda didn’t need the caller to identify himself; the familiar skin-crawling, bile-buildup reaction was completely indicative of every conversation she had ever had with him.
“Who is this?” she asked anyway, just to antagonize him.
“It’s Alan Shaw, the agent of the next disgraced athlete. Way to go.” He spoke with such reproach, it instantly made her defensive.
“Alan, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, and how did you get this number?”
Another one of his slimy snorts echoed through the receiver. “Are you kidding, sweetheart? I know everything there is to know about you. While you were busy wrapping him around your finger, you forgot that he’s one of those people who is constantly drawing attention. Now I’m left to do what you didn’t, and that’s try to protect him.”
During the few times she was forced to endure him since meeting Chase, Shaw was always sanctimonious, always trying to leave her with the impression that there was some sort of inner circle that she would never know about. He had made it clear early on that he thought of her as a dalliance, and his view hadn’t changed, but he was careful to conceal his opinion when forced into their company, which to Chase’s credit wasn’t very often. But now he had entered into her personal space, adding hostile, and Amanda was already tired of being bullied by him. She cradled the phone against her ear with her shoulder and finished putting on her pumps. “Stop speaking to me in riddles and get to the point.”
“Get to the point?” Shaw shouted loud enough to make her eardrum vibrate. “I’ll get to the point! At five P.M. my client and your fine ass are going to be the lead story on all the major networks. CNN and Fox may even beat them to it! You and your perverted little escapades are about to take down one of this country’s most loved role models, how’s that for getting to the point?”
Amanda could feel the hair on the back of her neck begin to stand on end as his venom flowed through the phone.
“What do you mean?” she rasped, all blood draining from her face, confrontational pretext gone. She closed her eyes and held her breath, praying he would say anything other than what she knew by his cryptic opening he was about to confirm.
“You know exactly what I mean.” He brought his tone back down and it was now more of a hiss. “Does the tunnel under Kings Stadium ring a bell?”
The thought of Alan Shaw bearing witness to something so private was as repugnant as if he had been peeping through their window when they made love. As soon as she heard him say it, the bile in her throat became real.
“Yeah,” he mocked her silence. “I thought it might. You can probably catch it on YouTube right now if you need a reminder.”
She didn’t need to be reminded. Her knees buckled, the bed breaking her fall. YouTube. She glanced over to her laptop on the nightstand and unsuccessfully willed it to blow up. Sweat began to bead on her upper lip and terror gripped her. “Does Chase know?” Amanda asked quietly, trying to keep her voice from shaking as badly as her hands.
She heard Alan take a deep breath, although it was far from settling. “I don’t think so. Thank God he’s on the field in Kansas City, and I can get a few hours head start. He still has a job to do, whether you know it or not.”
“I’m going to call him—” Amanda began.
“No you’re not,” he cut her off abruptly. “I just told you, he’s on the field. He can’t answer. You’re going to shut up, stop wasting time, and do exactly what I tell you.”
“I’m not doing anything till I speak to him. He’ll know what to do,” she said aloud, mostly to calm herself.
“Know what to do?” Alan’s voice started rising again. “He hasn’t done anything right since he got mixed up with you. Making a damn fool of himself, following you around like some lost puppy. I don’t know what kind of spell you’ve put on him, but don’t you think you’ve fucked him up enough?”
The tears were in her eyes in a blink. No matter how much she despised Alan Shaw, there was truth to his words, and he was using them to his full advantage, throwing them in her face.
“How did you find out about this?’ Amanda tried to sound focused and rational and not like she was about to start bawling.
“It’s my job to stay one step ahead, something you obviously didn’t think of,” he scoffed, refusing to divulge his sources and opting instead to continue the verbal beat-down. “You would think with a family on the political fringe, you would be better at it.”
Her careless actions would now also cost her parents. Amanda laid her head in her shaky hand to try to steady them both.
“It’s not that bad.” But her words didn’t even convince herself.
“Oh yeah? How do you think Nike is going to feel when ‘Just do it’ becomes the catchphrase of wife beaters worldwide?”