Chief Honor by Sigmund Brouwer

Author:Sigmund Brouwer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV000000
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2008-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

chapter thirteen

“Why don’t you take a hike,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Take a long walk off a short pier, play in traffic, jump from an airplane without a ‘chute. Anything. I don’t care. As long as it is away from this room. I’m finished talking with you.”

“Let me guess,” she said, her face turning red at the anger in my voice. “Al Handley’s your hero? You don’t dare think anything bad about him?”

I put a cold smile on my face and left it there. I didn’t say a word.

“Al’s everybody’s hero,” she said. “Nice guy, tells great stories, hangs out and is a buddy when you need him. Right?”

I just gave her the brick wall of my cold smile.

She stood up and put her face within inches of mine. “Al the hero is selling steroids,” she said, her voice a hiss.

My smile didn’t change.

“Think about Eddie Dyer. Big muscles in one season. Huge, greasy pimples. Loses his temper easily at little things and goes totally nuts. Those are all the classic things that happen to people on steroids.”

I folded my arms. I turned my eyes to hers. I kept smiling.

“How do I know, you might ask?” She straightened and backed away from me. She was clenching her fists as if she were trying not to hit me. It felt good, making her mad without saying a word.

“Because I followed Al this week,” she said. “Three times he went to the gym where Eddie works out. He hung around with Eddie for half an hour each time. Later on, I asked other weightlifters about Eddie. Everyone there knows Eddie has been taking steroids. Where’s he getting them from? Al.”

I kept smiling. If she thought I was going to say a single word, she was wrong.

“Al,” she said. “I’ve gone through it in my mind again and again. He’s the only one who ever touches my equipment. He’s the only one I ever left it with. I thought he was being a gentleman, helping me get it on and off the bus back in Lethbridge. But no, he was planting drugs in my duffel bag.”

I nearly slipped up. I nearly opened my mouth and asked why Al would do something like that. I nearly asked why Al, if he were selling drugs, would need to get Lauren in trouble. But I kept smiling. A cold, cold smile.

“You are a pig-headed jerk,” she said. She kicked the chair. “Listen to me! Al hated seeing a girl play hockey. Just like you. Except he went way further. He didn’t put Ex-Lax in my hot chocolate. He tried to get me put in jail.”

Smile. Smile. Smile. That’s all Lauren was going to get from me.

“Fine,” she said.

I knew my smile was working when she said that. The only time women say “fine” is when it isn’t. I knew that from all the times I had smiled and kept my mouth shut in arguments about my father with my mother.

“Fine,” she repeated. “As soon as I leave this room, I’m calling Steve Haliburton at the newspaper.

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