Stopping Short: A Hot Baseball Romance (12 page)

“Jessica! I’m glad I caught you.”

With three days left in spring training, Jessica had hoped she’d never need to talk to Ross Parker again. The numbers were in. The battle was over. Jessica’s firebreak strategy had worked, and Drew’s Charisma Index was off the charts. Rockets’ management were still issuing the official line: They weren’t making a decision about who would play shortstop until the first game of the season.

But rumor said Drew had the job.

Not that Ross Parker gave a damn about rumor. He dealt in fact. “What is it?” Jessica snapped. “I’m late getting to the park.”

“I’ll make it worth your while,” the reporter said. And like a villain in a fairy tale, he extended his hand, offering his own peculiar brand of poison.

“What’s that?” Jessica asked, exasperated but too intrigued by the sheaf of papers to walk away.

“A printout of the article I just filed. It’ll be online this afternoon, and in tomorrow’s print edition.” Parker’s smile was smug. “I considered sending you a courtesy copy earlier, but I didn’t want to give you a chance to spread more defensive lies.”

“Nothing we distributed was a lie,” Jessica said automatically, but she was already skimming Parker’s words.

The reporter knew better than to undermine his own prose. “Happy reading,” he said, and he offered up that familiar half-bow, that cocky salute that made him look like he was a gentleman in some historical drama.

But Ross Parker was no gentleman. At least he didn’t pull his punches like a chivalrous man might.

Jessica looked up as she finished reading the first paragraph, blinking hard, as if she could make the words on the page shift, disappear, somehow cease to exist. Heart pounding, she looked around the lobby to see who was watching her, who could measure the disaster that she held.

Miracle of miracles, she didn’t know any of the people loitering in the lobby. She suspected Parker was lurking somewhere, watching for her reaction, but she didn’t waste time putting on an act for him.

Feeling like she’d just been hit by a city bus, Jessica staggered to the nearest chair and sank down to read Parker’s column in its entirety.

There’s one crime no baseball player can ever get past: betting on the game. Gambling ruined Pete Rose, gambling brought down the 1919 Black Sox, and gambling is going to destroy Drew Marshall. The struggling would-be shortstop for the Raleigh Rockets has a history of breaking the law. From public intoxication to joyriding, from public indecency to statutory rape, Marshall has stood in a court of law more often than most lawyers. Every time, he’s walked away because he was too young to be held responsible or because a witness changed her testimony.

Drew Marshall won’t be walking this time. Not even with the help of Jessica Barnes, a woman who might be the world’s most forgiving fiancée—or so New York spin doctor powerhouse Image Masters LLC would have us believe. We wait to see if Barnes can forgive this.

Jessica shoved down a wave of nausea. Ordinarily, it would have been a disaster for
her
to become part of the story. Given Parker’s other allegations, though, dragging in Image Masters was the least of her concerns.

She turned the page and was confronted by a neat graphic—a copy of a bank account owned by one Robert Trueblood. Beneath it was a chart printed in five colors, a careful analysis of money received, money spent, dates, times, scores. Jessica wasn’t a baseball expert, but she understood what she was reading—this Trueblood person had received large chunks of cash, and he’d bet them on baseball games, winning more often than he lost.

She turned another page, and suddenly the entire article made sense. There were photographs of half a dozen envelopes. Each was addressed to Robert Trueblood. Each had come from Drew. There was a lot more—no public record of Trueblood’s existence until six years ago, one day after Drew signed his first major league contract. Trueblood’s address receiving other mail for Robert Marshall. Utility accounts for Trueblood’s address paid with checks from Marshall.

Ross Parker had cut his journalistic teeth as an investigative reporter. He’d dug out the details here, made sure every i was dotted and every t was crossed. And he’d delivered his dynamite at the worst possible time, when Jessica wouldn’t have a chance to respond before the Rockets finalized their roster.

Drew should have told her. He’d told her about Susan, given her a chance to follow up with the bitter old woman. He’d even told her about Bobby, about the years of abuse. But he hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her the full story. He hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her about Trueblood.

Even as her stomach felt hollowed out, she began to get angry. Image Masters should have found the data. They should have tracked down whatever Parker had gleaned. Even if Drew had felt too ashamed to share the truth, Image Masters should have protected him, should have gotten the information to her so she could do her job.

Feeling like she was swimming through mud, Jessica made her way back to the elevator. There was no way she was going to the ballpark now. The conversation she was about to have should never take place in public.

Only after she was safe and secure in the room that had been her home for the past month and a half did she pull out her phone. But as she tapped Drew’s number, she wasn’t certain if she wanted him to pick up, or if she wanted the call to roll to voicemail. In the end, what
she
wanted didn’t matter, she got his efficient outgoing message, and she said, “Drew, call me
now
.”

She hesitated before making her next call. She needed to bring Chip into the loop. He had to know that their star client was going to be outed as a gambler and a cheat in a few short hours. But first Jessica needed to figure out what had happened, where things had gone wrong, why she’d never even
heard
of Robert Trueblood before reading Parker’s prose.

Instead of calling Chip, Jessica pressed the number for the library.

“Image Masters Resource Center, Margaret speaking. How may I exceed your expectations today?”

Jessica’s heart rate began to slow as soon as she heard the familiar greeting. “Margaret, thank God you’re there. I’m calling about the Drew Marshall matter, about some research you sent me a month or so ago. I’ve just learned from an outside source about a PRIS we might have overlooked.” There. It was soothing just to use a professional acronym—to ask about a Potentially Relevant Information Source. Everything had a structure. Everything had a reason. Everything could be sorted neatly into its proper place.

“What information do you have on the PRIS?” Margaret’s voice was carefully neutral. She was no fool. She knew her research skills were being called into question.

“Last name Trueblood, first name Robert.”

Jessica listened to Margaret type something into her computer. She heard the sequence of keys repeated a second time, and then a third before the librarian intoned, “Client matter M14-1603, Drew Marshall, PRIS Robert Trueblood. Bank account printout from First Farmers and Mechanics was included as document PRIS147892, transmitted to you on March 18.”

Frantically, Jessica reached for her computer. She should have had it open before she called Margaret. She should have run a search on her own files, tried to track down the document on her own.

But she knew
she
hadn’t read about any Robert Trueblood. She knew every document she’d ever read that concerned Drew.

She ran a search for the entry and came up empty. “I’m sorry, Margaret. Can you give me that number again?”

As always, Margaret’s voice was perfectly neutral as she repeated the code.

Nothing.

“Are you sure you sent that one to me? I’m searching all my documents in the Drew Marshall matter, and I’m not finding it.”

“Maybe it was deleted accidentally? Try searching your trash.”

Frustrated, Jessica followed the instruction. She couldn’t have deleted the file by accident. Her computer was set to warn her about any deletion, and she never would have trashed a PRIS file in an open matter.

PRIS147892.

There it was, sitting in her electronic trash.

“Thanks, Margaret,” Jessica managed to say. “There it is. I—I don’t know how I missed it before.”

After she hung up, she stared at the timestamp numbly. 2:17 p.m. on March 19.

That was the day she and Drew had first made love. She’d been working on their reply to Parker’s first article. She’d finally taken a shower after spending too many hours hunched over the writing desk. She’d come out of the bathroom to find Drew back in the room because his game had been canceled for rain. To find Drew standing by her computer. To find Drew furious, throwing papers,
insane
.

And she’d calmed him. Gentled him. Distracted him. Let herself
be
distracted by him.

He’d lied to her in the middle of that thunderstorm. And he’d lied to her every day since. He’d manipulated her files despite her telling him, from the very first day they’d worked together, how important it was for her to have all relevant information at her fingertips. He’d let her build a case for him, let her expose herself—to Ross Parker, to the rest of the media hordes, to Chip and Image Masters—all the while knowing that he’d deleted data.

Data that had turned out to be vitally important. Data that had just changed the entire shape of their campaign. That had
devastated
their campaign.

Part of her wanted to walk out of the Vista Linda, then and there. She wanted to drive to the airport, to take the next plane north, whether it went to New York or not. She wanted out. She wanted to be done.

But if she walked away now, there’d be nothing waiting for her in New York. She’d walk into the Image Masters conference room and she’d be fired, because she’d failed the firm’s client. She’d let down Mark Williamson, the man who paid for their services—all because she’d trusted Drew.

She had to finish the job. She had to turn around the press, to light another fire that might distract the ravening public, even from Parker’s devastating blaze.

There was one story left to tell. One story that
should
generate sympathy, that
could
spike Drew’s Charisma Index back to where it needed to be if he was going to survive the storm Parker was unleashing.

Drew would hate her for it.

But there wasn’t anything else she could do. Not now. Not when he’d burned all their other bridges. Not when he’d left her without a professional leg to stand on. Not when he’d lied.

She didn’t waste time hunting for a phone number on the Internet. Instead, she picked up the hotel phone and said to the woman at the front desk, “Could you please connect me with one of your guests? Ross Parker. Yes, I’ll wait.”

Jimmy Buffet hollered in her ear with drunken good cheer as the operator transferred the call. Then: “Hello?”

“This is Jessica Barnes.”

“You know I won’t withdraw the story.”

“I don’t want you to withdraw it. I have some additional information you should know.”

“Go ahead.” She could picture him whipping out his notebook; she could imagine him readying his pen.

She took a deep breath. “Susan Marshall is alive and well and living in Spartanburg, South Carolina under the name of Sarah Weston.”

She hung up before he could ask her any follow-up questions.

~~~

Drew sank onto the bench, grateful that batting practice had gone well. Three days left in this dog and pony show. Three days left of always being on display—to Skip, to the press, to Jessica.

Okay, he didn’t mind being on display to Jessica. She had a hell of an imagination for what to do with
his
kind of displays.

A swirl of uncertainty twisted through his gut. The Rockets would be clearing out of Florida on Sunday. Assuming he made the team—and he was pretty sure Jessica and her Image Masters had done exactly what Williamson had hired them to do—he’d be back in Raleigh for a ten-game home stand to kick off the season. After that, he’d be back to the usual rhythm of the season—a couple of weeks home, a couple of weeks on the road, game after game after game.

He’d adapted to the travel years before. Shit, that was one good thing his old man had taught him—how to pack up and get out of town, how to move on to the next place without a backward glance.

But Drew was itching to look back now. For the first time in his adult life, he wanted to put down roots. He wanted to know where he’d be eating dinner in a week, where he’d be sleeping a month from now, which clothes he’d be wearing from all the clothes he owned, instead of the ones he could cram into a carry-on suitcase.

Or maybe he just wanted to know Jessica’s choices for all those things.

Because Jessica Barnes wasn’t used to life on the road. Sure, she took business trips all the time. And she’d adapted readily enough to living in the Vista Linda.

But a different city every three nights? That wasn’t Jessica’s way of doing things. She belonged in New York City. She belonged in her high-powered job with her Indexes and regressions and all that other crap.

They needed to talk. They needed to figure out what was going to happen at the end of the week. But they’d both been happy enough to pretend it would be spring forever, to act like they’d dine on shrimp cocktail and grilled lobster every night for the rest of their lives, like they’d always be able to see palm trees from their bedroom window.

“Hey man,” Adam Sartain broke into his thoughts, thumping down on the bench beside him. “What did you ever do to Ross Parker? Sleep with his sister or something?”

Parker. Again. “What’s that asswipe up to now?”

Sartain shook his head. “You’re the star of his latest column. And by star, I mean ‘he’s dragging you through shit all over again.’”

Drew swore, not bothering to keep it under his breath. His phone was back in the locker room. He glanced at the clock on the outfield scoreboard. He had time to get it before the game started, if he hustled.

Five minutes later, he was puking up lunch.