Page 29 of The Game Is Afoot

“So…” I try.

“Are you okay?”

The question takes me off guard, but then I soften a little. He just cares about me as a co-parent—as a friend. I need to stop looking for a fight and be nicer to him. If only for Pearl.

I open my mouth to reassure him, to thank him, but he’s faster than me. “With money, I mean. Are you gonna be okay with money?”

And…all the softness is gone. I’m spiked and steely and sharp.

“Do you think I’m so irresponsible? Do you think I would do this if I had no money?” Which, yes, I didn’t put much thought into this decision. I just rage-quit when Rose was about to start listing all the words she can’t say anymore like the harbinger of the HR apocalypse. But he doesn’t know that!

“I’m fine. I’vebeenfine! You already pay your share, so youdon’tneed to worry about mine. You don’t need to worry about me at all.”

“I was just trying—”

I shoot him a look that makes the rest of that sentence die in his throat. And I also maybe growl a little.

“Okay. Okay, okay. I got you. I’m sorry.” He looks like he wants to say more, make another excuse, but then thinks better of it. “I’m gonna go help Ms. Joyce now. And I can do the chain on the door after…”

I’m already shaking my head. “Just leave it here, and I’ll do it myself.”

He sighs but takes the chain and a pack of screws out of his Home Depot bag.

“All right. See you later, Mavis.”

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So, I have every intentionof immediately logging onto LinkedIn and searching for job postings.

Honestly.

I do.

But then I try every one of my passwords, and none of them work, even the real obscure one I only use for my IRS login. And then I can’t get the password reset email to go through, no matter how many times I try, andthenI’m somehow locked out of my account. So, I switch over to ZipRecruiter, because I heard an ad for it on a podcast (don’t worry which one), but my vision starts to blur in boredom with every “Program Manager” and “Project Director” position I scroll past, and before I know it I’m over on Google, typing “Coach Cole” and “murder” in the search bar.

It’s really just to look out for Corey. The father of my child. Because I’m a good person.

My curiosity is second to that—a very distant second.

Nothing relevant comes up with that first search, so I change “Coach Cole” to “Cole Robinson” and “murder” to “death,” and that brings up an article from theBeachwood Breeze, a local online news site, from yesterday afternoon. Skimming the article, I see that it doesn’t seem to have many more details than I had at the same time. It says he “collapsed on the field” and the “cause is unknown.” But I guess that makes sense. We would have heard sooner, before the police arrived, if it were described as a murder in theBeachwood Breeze. Ms. Joyce would’ve been banging on ourdoor with a printout, courtesy of Mackenzie Skinner’s Wi-Fi connection. At the end, though, a familiar name does catch my eye.

Aquamarine Alligators team mom and online parenting expert Florence Michaelson describes the immediate aftermath of the beloved coach’s medical emergency. “Marigold, my 22-month-old, was inconsolable, and Axel clutched his own chest, almost like Coach Cole’s pain was his own. He tried to run to him…to be a helper like we’ve raised him to be. It was a moment that will leave a mark on my littles’ hearts, and mine as their mama. We have a lot of healing to do as a family—and as a community.”

God, leave it up to Florence to find a way to make this man’s death about her and her precious, sensitive child.

I don’t remember Axel, or her, doing anything after Coach Cole fell to the ground. It was Jasmine and Leon who rushed to his side—not thatIshould be talking. That reminds me, though—I should text Jasmine and see if they’ve been visited by the detectives yet. I have to believe, for my own peace of mind, that Corey wasn’t their only stop.

But first let me see if I can find out anything more about Coach Cole. Because the question that keeps lingering in my head isWhy?Why would someone want to do this to him? Something so obviously premeditated and conniving? Who was this guy, anyway?

So I take away “death” from the search bar, leaving just “Cole Robinson,” and…there’s not much there at all. I scroll past a lot ofotherCole Robinsons—a Realtor in Oklahoma and aBachelorettecontestant sent home at the first rose ceremony. There’s another article in theBeachwood Breezeabout this Cole Robinson’s expanded soccer program, and a personal websitewith links to registration for this season, plus some workout boot camps he apparently runs on weekday mornings. But no mentions of him in sports articles, no Wikipedia page…which doesn’t make sense if he was such a big soccer player. Maybe it was overseas?

Hmm…okay. That’s something I need to follow up with Leon about.

I say a little prayer that the FBI guy assigned to me is on his lunch break, and then type “sodium nitrite” into Google. Pictures of a yellowish-white substance in a tiny glass jar pop up, along with formulas that give me panicky flashbacks to tenth-grade chemistry. I barely passed that class with a 70 percent, and even then I’m pretty sure Ms. Collier was just taking pity on me.

I scan and see that it’s tasteless and odorless—so my dad was right there, even if heshouldhave kept that to himself. Combing through a few more pages of results, I learn that it’s used for preserving meat and fish and as an antidote for cyanide poisoning. And there are even some articles about a disturbing new wave of it being used in suicides, and how it reduces a person’s ability to breathe. I feel sick, remembering how he clutched his chest, the disturbing sound of his quick, wheezing gasps for air. But could Coach Cole have done this to himself? No…the detectives must have ruled that out, right? God, I wish I had asked more questions, gotten more information, but the shock of it all was just too overwhelming.

The one thing Idon’tsee, though, is anything about gardening. Could Dad have gottenthatwrong? I really hope so, because I don’t think I was just being paranoid. Detective Berry was looking at that lime from Corey’s garden weirdly…

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