The Prophet

22

AND SO THEY WERE UNDER WAY. A dominant win over a quality opponent, the perfect season continuing without so much as a hiccup.

Unless you’d watched the game.

There’d been a hiccup, and his name was Colin Mears, and Kent wasn’t certain what he wanted to do about this. The kid ran the same routes he always ran, Lorell McCoy delivered the ball to him in stride just as he always had. The only thing that had changed was Colin’s ability to catch the ball. Kent wasn’t surprised. Some kids were able to use the game as therapy, to cleanse their minds on the field, but others brought emotional burdens between the lines with them. Colin, the product of a secure, untroubled childhood, likely fit into the latter category. The issue was finding a way to get him to understand that it was fine, which was no easy task, because the boy had already determined that his performance on the field meant something, was some form of atonement.

“He’s caught too many balls for too long,” Kent said when he met with the coaches that night. “He’s not going to keep dropping them. He’ll be back.”

“Maybe you try a gimmick,” Matt Byers said.

“Such as?”

“Take his gloves off, maybe.”

“He’s going to have an easier time holding onto the ball without gloves?”

“Technically speaking, no. Mentally? Maybe.”

Kent thought about it and nodded. “We’ll try it. Change is good for him. Distraction is good. We’ll give it a try.” He looked at Haskins. “You got a final in the Saint Anthony’s game?”

“They won by twenty-four.”

“No surprise there,” Byers said. “But this year we’ve got them. This year we’re going to run their asses into the ground. Provided Mears can start catching the damn ball.”

“He’ll be ready to go,” Kent said. “And we need to be. This one won’t be easy.”

It wouldn’t be. This year, Chambers had the better team. But still Kent felt dry-mouthed thinking about Saint Anthony’s. He knew that Scott Bless was already looking at video, already considering moves he could make that he hadn’t made all season, ways to leave Chambers flat-footed and unprepared. The coaches were watching Kent, everyone well aware of what he was thinking. Bless was his nemesis. Kent had one of the best career records of any active coach in the state, but he had a goose egg against Scott Bless.

“Meet at nine,” he said. “Have your film watched, have your reports ready. This one won’t be easy.”

It wouldn’t be, but he was excited, excited because he believed he had the better team, excited that they’d gotten through this week and put another win on the board and things were, finally, starting to feel right again.

Matt Byers returned to his office with a note just as Kent was preparing to turn off the lights. A sealed envelope addressed For Coach Austin.

“This was on the floor,” Matt said. “Someone slipped it under the door.”

Kent tossed it into his bag among the play scripts and the notes. It might be fan mail or it might be a complaint from disgruntled parents who wanted more reps for their son, but it would not be imperative.

He should have gotten to the letter earlier, but he was distracted the next morning by a phone call from Colin’s mother, Robin Mears, asking him what his thoughts on Colin were.

“Robin, you can’t expect him to play like normal. He’s not normal right now. He can’t just drop all of those burdens off on the sideline and check in to the game. I’d love it if he could, and I know that he’s trying to, but the reality is the game used to feel natural to him, and right now, nothing in the world feels natural to him. Everything’s out of balance.”

“He was so upset, Coach Austin. I don’t think he slept at all last night. I found him in the yard at three in the morning, just sitting on the picnic table, crying. I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t talk. Couldn’t.”

“That’s how it’ll go, for a time,” Kent said gently. “He’ll need space for some of it. Other times, he’s going to need you. You’re doing all the right things. Be ready when he needs you, and step back a little when he needs the space. There’s no quick fix for loss, for grief. You’re doing all the right things.”

And so it went, for forty-five minutes of conversation, and he hung up feeling wrung out, because he could explain it to her, but he couldn’t make her know it, feel it, couldn’t do anything for her except offer words, and the words felt hollow. So he offered a prayer next, because prayers were never hollow, and then he tried to get to work.

We’ll try getting him to play without gloves, he thought as he drove to the school. Maybe Matt is right, maybe that will help.

Then, as he pulled into the parking lot, he found himself feeling self-loathing over that, because his thoughts had ebbed, quickly but totally, from concern over the boy’s mental and emotional health to concern about what the Saint Anthony’s defense might do if they realized he was no longer the threat he had been. Their coaches would be watching the game video; they’d be watching those stunning drops. And remembering them. Come next Friday night, if he dropped a few more? If they saw early in the game that Colin Mears was not worthy of double coverage and began to jam the box? Then the Cardinals would be in real trouble.

Can’t think about that, Kent told himself. It’s pathetic, Austin, it’s shameful.

But still it was happening. Because he wanted to win this game, and all those on the other side of it. Wanted it more than he could dare show, wanted it so bad it was hard to sleep and hard to breathe and hard to remember the things he should remember, because while the only thing that really mattered about Colin Mears right now was in his mind and soul and not in his hands, the first things Kent wanted fixed, in the darkest corner of his heart, were the hands. Catch the ball, son, and then we’ll put the rest of you back together. But first start catching the damned ball.

He’d stop that. He’d find a way to get it in check.

Saturday practices weren’t practices so much as prep sessions. They’d watch some video, then put the boys through a light workout, running and stretching, designed to speed recovery, loosen the aching and bruised muscles after the previous night’s combat, and then return to the locker room to watch more video. He was running late, delayed by Robin’s phone call, but still half an hour ahead of the team, enough time to gather his thoughts. Went into his office, turned on the lights, and shut the door. Ninety-five percent of the time, the door to Kent’s office stayed open. When it was shut, though, everyone understood, players and coaches alike—he wanted privacy for a reason, and if you interrupted, there’d better be good cause and you’d better knock.

He was organizing his notes when he discovered the letter, tucked in with the preliminary scouting reports. His mind was still on Saint Anthony’s when he slit it open.

Later, he would be surprised by how immediately he thought about fingerprints. How carefully he set the envelope down, handling it now by the edges, even though it was probably too late to help. There was no moment of stunned pause, just sick understanding.

There were three items inside. The first was a standard sheet of printer paper, cut in half, a short message typed across it.

Wonderful win, Coach. Wonderful. A beautiful autumn night, too. Though I have to be honest and tell you that I preferred last week’s autumn. That was special. I’ll tell you more about it soon, I promise.

You told me once that I was welcome to contact you at any point. I have taken you at your word on that. Is your word good, Coach? Do you welcome this contact? I have not forgotten your visits or your message. There’s no fear that can break true faith, isn’t that right? I always admired your conviction. Your foolishness. Will you forgive me, too, Coach? Will you pray for me? Will you remain unbroken?

I wonder if you regret telling me about the girl who had forgiven her father. I wonder if you’re still so convicted as you were this summer. I wonder if you possibly believed it when you looked into my eyes and told me that you had already passed your greatest test, that forgiving the man who raped and murdered your sister was that test. I disagreed with you then. I still do, Coach. There are greater tests coming.

Kent read it three times, a chill spreading through his chest and out to the rest of him, until his temples and fingertips felt tight and tingling. The other two items were cards: a business card for AA Bail Bonds and a weathered sports card with perforated edges, Adam Austin kneeling in full pads, helmet resting beside him, staring into the camera with a loose, easy grin.

Gideon Pearce’s wallet. The random traffic stop, the first clue. This was the football card that started him on his way to prison, the football card that brought Kent to him all those years later, saying he forgave him, telling him he’d like to say a prayer together, Pearce laughing—a wild, mocking laugh—as Kent got through it, head bowed and eyes shut, his voice shaking and his hands folded together so tightly the nails left half-moons of blood.

He shifted his eyes back to the business card. It was nondescript—cheap stock, gray, the name and address and two phone numbers. He used the letter opener to turn the business card over. Blank. He turned the football card over next and then, for a long time, a very long time, sat in frozen silence at his desk. When the door banged open, he rose to his feet and rushed into the locker room. Steve Haskins, playbook in one hand and cup of coffee in the other, nodded at him.

“If you’re ready, I was hoping we could go over—”

“I’m going to need you out of here for a while,” Kent said. “Kids, too. Everyone. Make sure nobody comes in here. Practice is yours.”

“Coach?”

“Practice is yours,” Kent repeated. “And keep people away from that door until the police are here.”

He went back to his office then and called Stan Salter to tell him that he knew who had killed Rachel Bond.