Page 94 of Final Drive

“Get the blood work done,” she says. “This week. If you’re going to be an Omega in that boat at nationals, be one on paper first, where I can defend it.”

Outside, there’s a frisbee game on the quad and somebody’s dog running the length of it.

“She helped you in there,” Eli says.

“She helped the department. It just happened to overlap.” I put my sunglasses on. “For now.”

“Reese.” He stops walking. “Bennett just put his career in front of a bus in a room with a witness. That wasn’t nothing.”

“I know what it was.”

“Then say it out loud sometime where he can hear it.”

My phone buzzes in my hand. An unknown number with a 704 area code.

Reese, this is Jenna Kowalski, Southeastern Sports Network. I’ve been given a document about your registration status by someone who isn’t on your side. I’m going to have to write something. I’d rather write it with you than around you. 20 minutes, your terms, on the record or off. J.K.

I read it three times standing in the middle of the quad.

“What,” Eli says.

I hand him the phone.

He reads it and hands it back, and for once Eli Stone doesn’t have a plan ready.

“That’s Harrison,” he says.

“His two weeks are up. He said he’d put it in the press if Gray didn’t come home.” I look at the date on my phone screen. “That was twelve days ago.”

“You don’t have to answer her today.”

“If I don’t answer her, she writes it from the document.” I’m already typing. “And the document came from Harrison Lockwood, who needs me to be a liability.”

“Reese.”

“He’s going to publish either way, Eli. The only thing left to decide is whose sentences it’s in.”

I stop before I hit send. I stand there in the sun with my thumb over the screen, since the last time I let somebody else tell my story it was Andrea Sloan, and I had to transfer schools to get out from under it.

Nobody in that kitchen this morning knows I’m doing this. Gray is upstairs making a decision about me in a room I’m not in.

I hit send.

Tomorrow, 4pm, on the record. I pick the location. I want the questions in advance and I’m not answering anything about the other eight. R.C.

Her reply takes ninety seconds.

Done. And for what it’s worth, the person who sent me the document didn’t send it under his own name.

I put the phone in my pocket.

“You’re going to do it,” Eli says.

“Tomorrow afternoon.” I start walking again, toward the boathouse, since there’s practice at two and a race next weekend that I intend to win. “And I’m telling all of them tonight. Before, not after.”

Eli catches up.

“That’s new,” he says.