False Start (24 page)

"Of course it was you. Who else could it
" 

Eddie?

"All this time I thought
"

Nick released the button. "Yeah, well you thought wrong. About a lot of things."

Verbalizing her stream of consciousness, she blurted, "But you always came off so judgmental, so critical of me."

The doors opened and they stepped out. In a flash, Nick turned toward her, pinning her against the wall. "Only because you couldn't see that the only twin who ever really loved you was standing right in front of you the whole time."

With that, he turned, strode across the near-vacant lobby, and pushed through the revolving doors. Just like that, he was gone.

Damn.

Three reporters from the sports department, smelling of pepperoni, cigarette smoke, and beer sauntered into the elevator.

"Hey, could ya hit six, please?"

Mattie turned to look at the overweight, short-sleeved-plaid-shirt-wearing dolts, and said, "Press it yourself."

She made her way to the stairwell and stomped her way up all eight flights to Lester's office. By the time she had reached her destination, her despair had turned to fury—at herself for not being upfront with Nick, at Nick for walking out on her, and at Lester for thinking of this stupid idea in the first place.

 With notebook in hand, Mattie marched down the hallway leading to his door and pushed it open. "You wanted to see me?"

Lester looked up from his computer. "Yes. Close the door. Have a seat."

She sat in the chair in front of his ginormous desk and glared at him, holding little regard for what was about to happen next.

Pointing to the morning paper, he said, "That was quite a finish."

Mattie raised her eyebrows expectantly.

Lester leaned forward with his hands clasped on the desk in front of him. "You know, you really had me fooled. Hell, you had everybody fooled. Even Nick."

Here it comes…

"Care to set the record straight?"

"Why? So you can run an exclusive?"

He narrowed his eyes, shook his head, and leaned back in his chair. Using the kindest tone she had ever heard come out of his mouth, he said, "No, Mattie. So you can restore your integrity. Because, for the record, I think it's worth restoring."

She looked at him. For the first time, she didn't see the conniving, manipulative publisher whose sole concern was how many hits her columns got per week. She saw a decent human being who seemed to truly care about her.

Who knew?

"Just a minute." She got up and dashed out to Jessica's cube to retrieve the box of tissues.

Sitting back in her own chair, fully stocked with nose-drying accouterment, she asked, "Where would you like me to start?"

Lester's expression softened, and he smiled. "How about the third grade?"

She told him everything, all the way up to the blowout she had just had with Nick. When she was finished, he frowned and asked, "So all this time, you thought Nick was the bad guy?"

Mattie nodded glumly. "I know. The one man I blamed for ruining my life actually saved it."

If her eyes weren't brimming with tears she would've noticed Lester scribble down what she had just said on a notepad. When he was done, he looked up.

"I think I know a way we can fix this, but first you have to hear the rest of the story."

Mattie shifted in her seat. "I'm listening."

"I don't know if you're aware, but Eduardo DeRosa is number five on the FBI's most wanted list."

Lester proceeded to detail the federal criminal allegations against Eddie, including money laundering and extortion, and the long list of wealthy women he was involved with during their engagement, each of whom filed civil lawsuits against him for fraud and forgery. Facts the
Gazette
had printed in its coverage of Eddie's dramatic disappearance that Mattie chose to ignore when she cut herself off from reality and became the Plate Spinner.

Lester paused and asked, "Does it bother you to hear this?"

While surprised to hear he was in so deep with the feds, she felt somewhat vindicated to learn that he had indeed cheated on her.

She took a deep breath. "No. Go on."

"Now, as you know, Eddie had invited Nick to stay at his place on the night before the wedding and asked him to house sit while you two were supposed to be on your honeymoon. What Nick didn't know was, by the time Eddie handed him the keys to his Ferrari so he could drive to the church in style, Eddie had already swapped their driver's licenses, passports, credit cards, and birth certificates."

"Why didn't Eddie go to the church with Nick?"

"Nick said he offered to drive him, but Eddie begged off saying he had one more errand to run before the ceremony."

"Like flee the country?"

Lester pointed at her. "Bingo. As soon as Nick left for the church, Eddie took Nick's car and drove to Toronto. No one's heard from him since."

He paused. "Still with me?"

Mattie nodded, and he continued.

"Nick, in the meantime, well—he got screwed. First, you deck him at the church, and then the cops arrest him in the emergency room. They hauled him away, and, 'cause Eddie forged his prints when he started at the investment firm, there was no way for Nick to prove he wasn't Eddie without a credible character witness. When he couldn't get hold of his folks, he called you, but you didn't pick up. Didn't reply at all."

Lester gave her a rather unsavory look.

"Go on," Mattie instructed, frowning.

"It took the defense well over a month to get the judge to drop the charges against Nick, but by then, he had lost everything. His place on the team, his endorsements, his money, his friends. He had to start at the bottom of the barrel. And that's where I found him. Coaching cross-country at my kid's high school. Who would've thought? The great Nick DeRosa, the Comeback Kid, coaching high school cross country."

He leaned forward across his desk and asked her, "Do you have any idea how insane that is? That's like finding Derek Jeter coaching peewee T-ball in a suburban park district league."

Mattie squirmed. She knew Nick was good. She just didn't realize how good.

"Well, he loved that job. He told me so himself."

Lester leaned back in his chair. "I know he did. He was great at it, too."

Then he asked something that made the little hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. "So you never heard from Eddie after the wedding?"
She narrowed her eyes. "Why?"

"Because it would make a hell of a story. For the right reporter, that is."

"Ya don't say." She clasped her trembling hands in her lap.

"One of our guys got a lead on a story. Rumor has it Eddie's run out of cash and is getting pretty desperate. The Feds think he might attempt a re-entry to liquefy some assets."

"Holy crap. Do they think he'd actually come back here? To Chicago?"'

Lester pulled a face. "Could be. He had a lot of friends here. It wouldn't be the first time a criminal returned to their old stomping grounds."

It was the first time Mattie heard Eddie referred to as a "criminal." She rather liked it.

Opening his desk drawer, Lester pulled out a business card and handed it to her. "Detective Rohmer was the chief investigator on the case. If you've got any ideas or information, I'm sure he'd be happy to hear it."

Tucking the card in her wallet, Mattie asked, "So you're not going to fire me?"

He shook his head. "To be honest, I could tell something was sizzling between you and Nick from the very first day. I was actually a little relieved to hear you weren't married. That would've been much stickier to deal with. But your readers…"

Mattie sat on the edge of her seat. "What about them?"

Lester grimaced. "Let's just say, some aren't taking it so well."

"So, what now?"

Pulling one side of his mouth into a smile, he shrugged and said, "I'm a firm believer in second chances.

Mattie let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you."

Pointing his finger at her, he added, "Don't get me wrong. You'll still need to make a public apology, and you should expect some backlash. But, it's been my experience, if you're honest with people, you'll win them back. Besides, you still have a marathon to run, young lady."

Mattie started. "But Nick quit."

Lester nodded. "Yes, he did. Damnedest thing, though. He paid back the advances on his bonus."

"What?"

"All he asked was to be reimbursed for the running shoes he got you," he explained with a smile spreading from one end of his mouth to the other.

"I don't understand."

Lester put the picture from the sports section on his desk and turned it in her direction. "They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I think this one says just three, don't you?"

"Most people run a race to see who is fastest. I run a race to see who
has the most guts."

– Steve Prefontaine

Nick had just finished running five fast miles on the field house track at Knollwood High School to try and clear his head. It had been a month since he had walked out on Mattie, but she was still under his skin, deep and inextricably. Who he thought she was, and who she turned out to be, why she did what she did, and what he was supposed to do about it were just some of the thoughts that kept turning his heart and mind into knots.

He stopped running and walked to his gym bag, catching his breath. Pulling out a towel, he covered his sweaty face and let out a groan.

Gotta get a grip.

Just then, a voice boomed across the cavernous high school field house.

"Mister D."

He turned to see several members of his former cross-country team approaching.

"Hey guys." He blotted his face and neck with the towel. "What are you doing here?"

After shaking hands with some and exchanging several high fives with others, Drew Bates, the team captain, asked, "Practice started a couple of weeks ago. What are you doing here, man? We thought you left us for good."

"Oh, hey, I told you—that wasn't my decision."

At least a dozen skeptical faces stared back.

"You don't believe me?"

"Whatever. Thing is, you gotta come back. Ginsburg's coaching cross-country and he sucks."

This was followed by a chorus of groans.

Nick laughed. "Aw, come on. He's not so bad."

"He's ancient, Coach," Drew pleaded as the other boys fanned out behind him. "We need somebody young. Somebody we can respect. Somebody who cares about us. We want you back."

He handed Nick a stack of papers. "And so do over two thousand other people."

Nick's eyes widened. "What's this?"

"A petition. We're presenting it at the school board meeting tonight. You should be there. Unless you got something better to do."

Scanning the signatures, he recognized several faculty names as well as parents of his former team members.

Who knew?

Wondering what would cause the tide of acceptance to wade in his favor, he asked, "Whose idea was this?"

When no one responded, Nick looked up from the petitions. Scanning the group, he didn't see Bobby Crenshaw, Lester's son.

"Where's Bobby?"

"Orthodontist."

"Was this his idea?"

The boys cast quick glances at each other before responding with a wall of defiant silence.

Smiling, Nick nodded his head. "Once a team, always a team, huh? I get it."

At that, the boys relaxed their stance.

Doubtful that the same school board that ousted him would reinstate him, he told them, "Guys, I'm touched, really, but I'm kinda into something else right now."

He looked into their faces, some hopeful, some already showing their disappointment. At the sound of the Coach Ginsburg's whistle, all but Drew scattered. Taking back the petitions from Nick, he pointed his finger at him and said, "We're still gonna present these tonight. See you at seven. All right?"

 "Yoohoo, Coach. Over here." A skinny middle-aged bottle blonde who had spent too much time in a tanning booth waved at Nick from across the park.