I wanted to sprint after Meredith but good sense told me not to. A grown man chasing a girl across a high school campus wouldn’t look good, especially when the girl had already been assaulted once. I took several deep breaths, told myself I’d get another chance with her and walked into the gym.
A high school gym has distinct smells. Stale popcorn, old sweat and an odor belonging only to a wood playing floor. The new Coronado gym had none of that, as bright and shiny and new as if it had opened that morning. All six baskets were down, the girls working in pairs at each one, doing footwork drills in the area below the basket.
“Rotate!” a voice yelled from the far corner and the girls moved in their pairs to the next basket on their right and went to work again.
I looked to where the voice had come from. She was about six feet tall, dirty blonde hair pulled tightly away from her face, wearing a bright white T-shirt emblazoned with “Islanders” across the front in red. Red mesh basketball shorts and running shoes in the same colors. She was lean and bounced with that flame-turned-to-low energy athletes have. No whistle around her neck, but there was no doubt she was in charge as her eyes swept the gym, watching each pair of girls intently as they worked.
The eyes stopped on me and she jogged across the floor, seemingly gliding because she moved with such little effort.
“Help you?” she asked without a smile.
“Just watching.”
“Practice is closed,” she said.
“I talked to Rob earlier,” I said. Not a complete lie, but not the truth earlier.
“Rob?”
“Stricker. Your A.D.”
“He didn’t tell me,” she said, then glanced over her shoulder. She yelled “Okay. Water and then back in for shells. Hurry up!” The girls jogged out of the gym and she turned back to me. “And he doesn’t go by Rob.”
Dammit. “My name’s Joe Tyler. I understand Chuck Winslow was helping you out?”
She threw her shoulders back, stiffening, a questioning look now in her eyes. “You working for or against him?”
“For. Definitely for him.”
The girls started trickling back in the gym, red faced and sweating, looking in our direction.
“Look, I don’t want to take practice time to do this,” she said, watching the girls return. “But I can talk to you afterward.” She hesitated. “You the friend that used to live here?”
Her words were like small hammers on my spine. “The friend? I don’t know. I used to live here, yes.”
She ran a hand over her mouth, watching me. “His point guard in high school? You look like a point guard.”
Chuck had done a lot of talking about me in my absence. I felt guilty, like I’d forced him into it. But a small sense of relief flooded through me, glad she was talking about basketball and not Elizabeth. “Yeah, that was me.”
“I’m Kelly Rundles, the coach.” She pointed in the direction of the girls. “I’m short an assistant coach today. You rebound for my guards and we’ll talk when we’re through.”
I stared at the girls. There was irritation in their faces now, frustrated that some intruder had interrupted their practice. I didn’t see any welcoming looks coming from their direction. I could still play a little, but I’d never coached.
But it all came back to Chuck.
“Deal,” I said and followed her to the center of the court.