It was maddening to think that M was staying three steps ahead of me. Or was he three behind, following me?
A wave of paranoia pulsed through me, and I couldn’t help but look around to see if I was being tailed. There were people on the sidewalk behind me and on the other side of the street. But none were obviously watching me or acting suspiciously.
I took a few short detours to make sure no one was following me, and by the time I reached the National Mall, I was sure I was alone. As I cut southeast toward Fifth, I decided I’d better call Rawlins and have him come to my house. I just wouldn’t say anything that would indicate our suspicions.
I turned my phone on, called him, and left a message asking him to call me on my landline at home. My regular messaging app showed two texts, one from Jannie reminding me to be home early to meet the coach and one from Nana Mama asking me to pick up a quart of milk.
I wondered if M could be monitoring my texts and was about to turn the phone off again when it dinged. A Wickr message appeared on the screen.
Stewing in a nasty kettle of fish these days, aren’t you? Or should I say, a kettle of fish heads? Get it? Fish heads. Fish heads. Eat ’em up, yum!
Enough fun. Now things get interesting, Cross. This will all make perfect sense soon.
M is for...
Before the message could disappear, I did what Mahoney had told me to do: pressed the sleep button and the home button at the same time.
The screen flashed just before the message vanished.
Chapter 52
The screenshot was still there in my photo album when Keith Karl Rawlins came to my house to get my phone. I met him on the porch and handed it to him when he knocked on our front door around six thirty that evening.
“Think you can find out how he’s tracking me?” I said.
“No doubt,” Rawlins said after looking at the screenshot. He powered the phone down and put it in a lead-lined bag. “The trick is to do it in a way he won’t notice.”
“Can you do that?”
He shot me a condescending look and said, “Blindfolded.”
“Rivers said I should put it in DFU mode, but I have no idea what that means.”
“Stands for ‘device firmware update,’ ” he said, nodding. “It will get the bug out, but I want to take a look at the little nasty before I do that.”
Rawlins left. Ali rode up on his mountain bike, soaked with sweat and grinning.
“Good ride?” I asked.
“You can’t believe what some of these kids can do.”
“Not Captain Abrahamsen?”
“He wasn’t there. He had a long ride with his team.”
“Go take a shower. The coach is coming to see Jannie after dinner.”
“Do they have mountain-bike scholarships at Texas?”
“I have no idea. Shower.”
We were just finishing the dinner dishes and Jannie had gone upstairs to send in her homework when the doorbell rang. I answered to find a tall, lean woman in her late thirties wearing a blue pantsuit and carrying a briefcase.
She smiled, stuck out her hand, and said, “I hope I’m not too early.”
“Not at all, Coach Wilson. We’re honored. Please come in.”
Coach Rebecca Wilson ran the prestigious women’s track team at the University of Texas at Austin.
“I appreciate you making time for me, Dr. Cross,” Coach Wilson said.
“Anyone interested in Jannie gets our time,” I said as I showed her inside.
Wilson had competed in the heptathlon in college. She’d twice been the NCAA Division I heptathlon champion, which was what had brought her to our attention.
To date, Jannie’s biggest accomplishments had all been on the track, but a private coach who’d taken an early interest in my daughter had long argued that her broader athletic abilities suggested she could go farthest in the heptathlon, the most demanding of women’s track-and-field events. Coach Wilson, we hoped, might be able to give Jannie an alternative to pure running in college.
“Smells good in here,” the coach said while I hung up her jacket.
“My grandmother made apple pie for you.”
“One of my favorites,” Coach Wilson said. “And one of the reasons I get up every morning and go for a long run no matter where I am.”
“I imagine these recruiting trips are demanding.”
“When you’re interested in the best, you have to put in the time. Is Jannie here?”
“She’s just upstairs e-mailing in some homework,” I said, leading her into the kitchen, where Nana Mama, Bree, and Ali were waiting.
After hearing that Texas did not offer cycling scholarships, Ali left to watch a video of mountain bikers in a race out west. Jannie came down as we made introductions and small talk. She looked better than she had in a long time, though she’d definitely lost weight and her eyes were still a bit sunken.
Coach Wilson studied my daughter as she smiled and shook her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you finally, Jannie.”
“You too, Coach Wilson,” she said. “We appreciate you coming all this way.”
“I imagine you’ve had quite a few coaches travel a long way to see you.”
Jannie smiled softly. “Yes, ma’am. A few.”
“Oregon?”
“Yes.”
“Who else, if I may ask?”
I said, “Arizona, University of Southern California, and Duke.”
“Very impressive for a junior. Offers from all of them?”
I said, “Verbal offers.”
“But nothing on paper? No letters signed?”
“We’re still listening to all that the world has to offer her,” Nana Mama said. “Like you said, she’s still a junior.”
Wilson seemed to like that. She turned all business and pulled out a legal pad.
“I’ve seen your race times when you were a freshman and the two sophomore races, and I’ve reviewed the impressive videos,” she said. “That ESPN highlight where you broke your foot in the four-hundred. How is the foot, by the way?”
Jannie glanced at me before saying, “Better than new. Doesn’t hurt at all.”
“Good. Glad to hear it. Dr. Cross, do you have a physician who will attest to the strength of her foot?”
I frowned. No one had ever asked that before. “I’m sure we could get the orthopedic surgeon to write something to that effect, but isn’t it really how she feels?”
“To a great extent, of course,” Coach Wilson said. “But we’re considering a substantial investment of time and scholarship money in your daughter. We just want to make sure we’re making a sound decision. I’m sure you understand.”
Before I could answer, she turned back to Jannie. “I’ve heard you’ve been sick.”
“Mono,” Jannie said. “But I’m feeling a lot better.”
The coach scribbled something on her notepad, looked up. “Do you get sick a lot, Jannie?”
Chapter 53
Jannie looked at me. So did Nana Mama and Bree. The conversation wasn’t headed where any of us expected.
I shrugged, said, “She doesn’t get sick any more often than my other children, right, Nana?”
“Correct,” my grandmother said. “Why are you asking that, Coach Wilson?”
Wilson smiled and set down her legal pad and pen. “The heptathlon is tough, physically and mentally. Two days, eight events. And training for the heptathlon is tougher still because it is an absolute grind-fest.”
“Explain that,” Bree said.
Wilson reached into her briefcase and pulled out a thick spiral notebook. “This represents a year of heptathlon programming for my current athletes. Every day, they’ve got a job to do, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.”
She went on to describe the training blocks — weights, plyometrics, and agility in the off-season, endless sessions of training and technical work leading up to competition, and hours of maintenance and recovery while performing.