Midnight Play by Lisa Marie Perry

Author:Lisa Marie Perry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-04-07T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

NFL inquiries. Grueling interviews with a parade of investigators facing him down like a firing squad. Living caught in the grip of being viewed as a criminal. None of it was as brutal as silence. The silence had all but wrecked Dex since his big interview over a week ago. At Danica’s urging, he’d taken his Corvette on a solo road trip to Burbank, California, to tape an exclusive talk-show interview. Danica had put him in direct contact with the host, advising that he get himself in front of a sympathetic audience. What he would say, what facets of himself he would share with the audience, was solely up to him.

“This is your game changer,” Danica had insisted. “It’s your play. Run it.”

Dex had walked onto the set with every intention of being conversational and engaging—but even he knew that he’d come off as reticent and self-justifying. Over and over again, he’d deflected the host’s attempts to unlock his past. She hadn’t been malicious—in fact, she was witty and brash and funny as hell—but her questions had scratched the surface of his childhood and the person he most wanted to shield from his current life. The damage to his career and reputation had already managed to touch his younger sister, even though he never associated himself with Gunner, Oregon.

People in that town remembered him, and Erin talked too much for her own good. Still, she was better off there than with him.

After discussing the ongoing investigation, the host had set aside her note cards, leaned back in her chair and said, “Dex, last season the league fined you a hundred and fifty grand for punching your own teammate on the sidelines. What the fuck happened?” A gasp had rippled over the audience, and she’d promised cookies to her producers who would scramble to bleep the expletive.

“I sent a pass down the field with precision,” Dex had explained. “I didn’t overthrow the ball, but it looked that way because the receiver intentionally hesitated at a critical moment. I wasn’t happy about it, he bumped me with his shoulder and I hit him. Gut reaction. I could’ve—probably should’ve—walked away, but I felt something was off. And I was right. Watch the clip again, listen closely to the audio and you’ll hear something new. After I threw the punch and we were both being hauled to the tunnel, the receiver pointed to his jaw and said to Alessandro Franco, ‘This is going to be extra.’”

After that, the dynamic of the interview had shifted, and he’d known that the truth had finally begun to hit home.

In the eight days that followed, he’d been met with nothing but silence. No word from his attorney, because nothing had changed. No update from his agent, either. Not even a text from Danica, who was likely waiting for the episode to air, waiting to see for herself whether he’d pissed on the opportunity she’d offered.

The stretch of quiet smothered him with a profound sense of aloneness.

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