Page 25 of Keep

The noise died down and then rose again after the unmistakable crack of a bat.

“Sounds like a homer,” I said.

“Probably. Some of those kids have been hitting the ball pretty good.”

“Thomas gets better every time I see him,” I said, thinking of the kid who was the spitting image of his father.

“You mean Thomas Gentry?” Mick asked.

“Yup.”

Mick shook his head. “He hasn’t been around all week.”

I was surprised. Chase’s son practically lived and breathed baseball. He was here every chance he got. “I thought he was signed up full time for the summer session?”

Mick gave me a funny look. “Yeah, he is.”

I wondered how much the staff knew about the circumstances surrounding Hale’s death. They probably knew at least the basics. Hearing that Thomas hadn’t been around was disquieting. That kid was one of my favorites and I hated the idea that he might be staying away from this place because of the connection between his brother Derek and Hale’s accident.

I sighed. “I’ll give his dad a call and find out what’s going on. Maybe he’s sick or something.”

Mick nodded. “Maybe.” He gave me a friendly tap on the shoulder and started to return to the batting cages before spinning back around. “Oh, did your friend find you?”

“What friend?”

“Big guy, dark clothes.” Mick made an apologetic gesture. “Sorry, I’m not great when it comes to observations. I ran into him by the equipment shed about twenty minutes ago. I asked him what he was doing back there and he said he was an old buddy of yours. Didn’t offer a name. He wanted to come by in person to offer sympathies over your brother. I told him I’d walk him up to the admin offices as soon as I dumped the pile of bats I was carrying but when I came out of the shed he was gone.”

“I haven’t seen him,” I said, wondering who the hell would try to hunt me down here, especially when I hadn’t really spread the word that I was going to be around today.

It didn’t matter though. I shrugged the situation off, guessing if he really was an old friend then he could figure out more than one way to get in touch with me.

I grabbed some lunch in the Dream Fields cafeteria and hung around for a while chatting with the kids and the coaches before reluctantly heading back to my office to deal with the pile of unanswered emails. I was standing behind my desk and answering a text from Cami when a shadow made me look up.

The man who’d darkened my doorway walked right into my office and took a seat in one of the chairs right in front of my desk.

“How are you doing, Dalton?” he asked as he made himself comfortable. Then he grimaced. “I guess that was insensitive of me. You just buried your brother yesterday. You’re probably doing pretty shitty.”

“Do I know you?” I asked.

“I’m John Jones,” he said and grinned like he’d just made a joke. If so, I didn’t know what it was.

“Is that your real name?”

“It is for the purpose of this meeting.”

I checked him out. His hands looked smooth and manicured and he didn’t appear to be the sort who got rough. But I knew how deceiving appearances could be. After I’d gotten out of the majors and exited a bad relationship I’d run an upscale night club for awhile. It was the kind of place that attracted some real douchebags who disguised their true nature with expensive clothes. John Jones reminded me of them. Whoever he was, I didn’t like him much.

“One of my coaches mentioned that someone was looking for me earlier. Was that you?”

“It was.”

“Are you a reporter?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“A cop?”

He chuckled. “Hell no.”

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