Over the Line Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Kindle Press, Seattle, 2015

  A Kindle Scout selection

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, Kindle Scout, and Kindle Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  For Tim. My shield.

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  EPILOGUE

  Preview: Snowbound

  About the Author

  About the Editor

  CHAPTER 1

  Practice was going for shit. Gabriel Miller burst across the line as fast as he could, every muscle and ligament in his left knee screaming in protest. Even after a successful surgery and two and a half months of taking it easy, the knee he’d blown in last season’s playoffs felt ten years older than the other. Defensive coordinator Dan Swells had noticed, and Gabriel had seen him and the head coach, Colin Flaherty, conferring more than once after he attempted a dash or limped off the field after practice. The rest of his body felt in top shape, as if he were still fresh out of college, but this knee could break his career before he was ready to let it go.

  He blocked quarterback Lane Messinger’s pass, leaping as high as he could and swatting the ball out of the air, and Dan’s applause echoed from the sidelines. But when Gabriel hopped on his right foot to avoid putting weight on his knee, he saw the defensive coordinator’s mouth tighten like he tasted something sour.

  Picked fifth overall in the 2006 draft by the Milwaukee Marauders, Gabriel had been on the path to success for so long he didn’t know how to deal with disappointment, even one as common in football as a blown knee. In high school his coaches had praised him, but it wasn’t until he got to college at the University of Colorado Denver that he was able to prove himself. He’d set new records for sacks, forced fumbles, and interceptions throughout college. The first three seasons of his professional career he’d lived up to coaches’ and critics’ expectations, becoming a key player on the path to the Super Bowl. The team had built its way to greatness, picking great players in the draft and building up the ones it already had through both rigorous training and constant encouragement.

  Last season, the Marauders went ten games without a loss and ended the regular season with a record of 14-2. An easy favorite for the Super Bowl, they instead suffered a crushing loss to the Ann Arbor Sailors in the final game of the playoffs, the conference championship game. The Marauders’ most reliable receiver Troy Gable dropped several passes that would have been touchdowns, Lane had an off day to put it mildly, and to top it off Gabriel blew his knee trying to intercept a pass. The final score was 54-17.

  Analysts were predicting another great season, but the word “choke” had been thrown around an awful lot since the botched playoff game. A lot was riding on how they handled the recovery from such a loss, and no one knew it more than the man whose knee injury was being picked apart in every corner of the professional football world. If they could see him at this practice, he knew they would write him off. One of the analysts for local radio station WPPT, Will Hermitt, had advised on air that Gabriel get traded. “Defensive ends don’t recover from injuries this severe, and if the team wants a title, Miller’s got to go.”

  Gabriel wrote those words on a piece of paper the first day of training camp and taped it to the outside of his locker where everyone could read it. He trained harder than anyone else on the team, but he was starting to fear that Hermitt was right.

  Shoving that thought away, he started to line up for the next play when Swells blew the whistle and waved him to the sidelines. A rookie from Penn State, Badgley Kelso, ran in to take his place. Coach Swells looked like he always did- a flustered man in his early fifties with flyaway white hair and piercing blue eyes. Right now, he looked like he’d rather be anywhere but here having the conversation he was about to have with one of his star players.

  Gabriel tried to hide his limp on the way to the sideline and failed. “It’s just sore coach, I promise. I’ve been working it really hard.”

  “That’s the problem. If you can’t work it as hard as the other, and if you’re in this much pain, we’ll have to put you on injured reserve and that’s all there is to it.” Coach Swells couldn’t meet his eyes so Gabriel knew it was already going to happen unless there was an obvious improvement and fast.

  “Trainers and docs have been working me over for months. I’m completely healed. There’s nothing else they can do. I just have to work out the stiffness,” Gabriel said, watching as Kelso blew a play he could have done in his sleep when healthy. Both he and Swells grunted and shook their heads.

  “You’re the best defensive end I’ve ever coached and that’s saying something,” Swells said, keeping his eyes on the field. “Bar none, Gabriel, and I mean that. But your knee is only about sixty percent. The rest of you is rarin’ to go but that knee just won’t let you. It can’t. You know it and I know it. If we don’t get something figured out, you know what’s going to happen.”

  “I’ll be traded and feel lucky to make league minimum for the rest of my career. On a bad knee, that won’t even be five years.”

  Swells nodded, his fluffy hair bobbing. Any bystander would think Gabriel had been dismissed with that movement, but he knew the older man well enough to know Swells’ mind was working overtime, trying to figure out a way keep his best player in the game.

  “Give me some more time, coach. That’s all I need. If I’m not ready in another month, we’ll talk about other options,” Gabriel said, trying to keep the edge of a whine out of his voice.

  “If you’re not at eighty percent in a month, I’ll have to either put you on reserve until you are or cut you. You know the higher-ups aren’t going to tolerate any more time than that. Kelso is a god-damned mess, but he’s all we’ve got to back you up right now. A month before the season opener is not enough time to clean him up if I still have you listed as a starter. I’ll get approval for whatever you can find that you think will work, but you better think fast.” Swells was serious, and Gabriel knew this was it. He nodded and reached out a hand. Swells shook it, and the deal was sealed. One month to get himself well enough to play. It wasn’t much time, and he had no idea where to start.

  Breathing through her nose, Quinn Hadley squeezed her core muscles and lifted her feet off the floor. Her forearms lay flat on the mat, the only part of her making contact now. Keeping her head up, her eyes focused on a point in the distance, she curved her spine up and over her head, letting her body set the pace. Her legs arched over until her toes were hovering about four inches over the top of her messy auburn bun. Scorpion pose had been her only goal when she’d started practicing yoga six years ago, and she could never have imagined she’d someday be able to do it, let alone teach it to others.

  For now, she was alone in her studio at 7:40 a.m. Feeling unfocused this morning, she’d come to the studio right after dropping off her son Cooper at his summer foot
ball practice for some extra time on the mat.

  Reversing her movements, she went into a bridge backbend, then walked her feet out from under her and dropped into savasana, the corpse pose. All five-foot-five of her lay flat on the mat. Focusing on her breathing and making sure there was no tension in her muscles as she rested, her mind calmed and sharpened, her body energized. This was in many ways the best part of a good yoga flow in the morning. The time of rest afterward left her body as loose as a rubber band in a drawer and her mind cleared and prepared for the day without actually having to deal with its stresses yet.

  She kept the corpse pose for about twenty minutes before she heard the door to the gym open, a muffled thwump through the walls. The students from her class wouldn’t arrive for another two hours, but there were three other instructors in the building, all using the same common entrance. She was the only one who taught yoga here, but two taught Pilates and one taught Zumba.

  Quinn lifted her hands off the floor, rolled her wrists and ankles, then pulled her knees to her chest and fell to one side. A few deep breaths later she pulled herself up to sit, the air rushing in and cooling the parts of her now damp with sweat. A soft bleeping noise from across the room alerted Quinn to a text message. She stood and crossed the room to get it, plucking the smartphone off the floor. Thus begins another day, she thought to herself with a smile. The smile faded as soon as she saw who had sent the text. Her former mother-in-law, Tracy McDonald.

  Parole hearing at 11:00 a.m.

  That explained the missed calls she hadn’t been able to figure out over the last few days. Of course, if whoever had called would leave a voicemail she would have been able to prepare before now. She didn’t respond to Tracy, knowing she had to start getting ready now if she was going to make it to the hearing on time.

  Quinn walked out to the reception area of the gym. Darla was behind the desk, blonde and perky and as chipper as always. “Can you cancel my classes for the day? Something just came up and I have to leave.”

  “Sure can!” Darla chirped and grabbed the phone.

  As Quinn walked back into the studio, she heard Darla leaving messages for her students. She grabbed her gym bag and headed to the showers. Turning the water on as hot as she could stand, she scrubbed off the sweat and let the heat soothe her muscles. When she stepped out, she stood naked before a full-length mirror, looking over her body and the reason she had to attend this hearing.

  Pale, puckered scars covered the right side of her body in a splatter pattern from just above her belly button to her shoulder. Those scars became melted-looking dots and strands that missed her ear but marred the right side of her face from her throat to the forehead above her eyebrow. She’d gotten a tattoo to fill in the part of her eyebrow where the hair no longer grew, but there was nothing she could do about the missing lashes besides apply the false ones every morning. It was a miracle she’d been able to keep the eye.

  Mitch, her high school sweetheart and the father of her only child, was in prison for throwing battery acid at her. His sentence for the charge of aggravated mayhem was life with the possibility of parole, and she intended to see he served every day of it.

  If she was going to be ready to show up across town at the prison on time, she was going to have to hurry up. She pulled on a white full-zip jacket and a pair of black yoga pants. The outfit was hardly court appropriate, but it was just going to have to do. There was no makeup in her gym bag, but it was better for the parole board to see the scars on her face.

  Quinn left the gym in a hurry, with Darla still leaving messages for her students. She pretended to adjust her hair so her arm hid her face from view as she ran to her minivan in the front lot. Her heart managed to keep to a regular rhythm as she drove across the city toward Beecham Correctional Facility, the maximum-security prison where Mitch was being held. It was 10:50 a.m. when she pulled into the lot and by the time she got through the security checks, she had sweat running down her back.

  When she entered the conference room moments before 11:00 a.m., she was flushed and breathing hard. Mitch hadn’t been brought in yet, and she took a minute to gather herself. A Kleenex from her purse did most of the work, and a hair tie did the rest, pulling her mass of wavy hair off her face and neck and leaving nothing to hide the scars on her cheek and forehead. She didn’t even apply lipstick as she usually did to mask the puckered white mark that ran diagonally across her lips. Every little bit she could do to show the board what this man had put her through would help to keep him right where he was.

  When Quinn got into the conference room, she was surprised at how many people were on the parole board. Four men and two women sat on the other side of the table, all of them in suits. A stenographer, a young Hispanic woman in a smart gray tweed suit was sitting at the table, ready to take the minutes. Tracy and Mitch’s father, Gary, were there as well. Quinn held herself separate from them, keeping to one side of the room until the members of the board sat down and got their case notes ready to commence the hearing. A door banged open and two guards came in, pulling a man in an orange jumpsuit behind them. Chains rattled between his wrists and ankles.

  Mitch looked pale and gaunt, his brown hair grayer and thinner than it had been when she’d last saw in him at his sentencing hearing nine years ago. His face was more wrinkled, and she saw scars on his arms that weren’t there when she’d been his wife, as well as some hazy prison tattoos on his fingers. When he saw her, his face lit up and he made an air kiss in her direction, a gesture that didn’t go unnoticed by the members of the board. The oldest man on the board scribbled a note in the hearing file and gestured for everyone in attendance to sit down.

  Panic threatened as Quinn took her seat, her chair just inches from her former father-in-law’s. Blood rushed through her ears as the board member at the center of the table started the pat speech that had probably opened every parole hearing for time immemorial. “You are Mitchell Grant McDonald?” the old man asked, lifting his eyes to Mitch.

  “Yes,” Mitch grunted, barely audible.

  “You are joined here today by myself, Commissioner Daniel Spector, and Commissioners Elsa Grande, Fred Melton, Martin Rescot, Andrea McFadden, and Tom Fjord. We are prepared to make a decision today depending on the evidence presented in this hearing. Mr. McDonald, you’re presently serving one life term with possibility for parole after five years for aggravated mayhem. You accepted a plea agreement, pleading guilty to the charge of aggravated mayhem in exchange for a dropped charge of assault with a caustic chemical, which would have increased your sentence to life without parole. Is that correct?” Another yes. “Do you have any appeals pending at this time?”

  “No,” Mitch answered.

  “I want to make everyone here aware that the proceedings today are being recorded by the stenographer, Ms. Willa Martinez, and anything you say can be used against you in any appeals or further court proceedings in this case...”

  Quinn started to tune everything out, figuring she didn’t really need to hear all the particulars of the parole process. They rehashed the history between Mitch and her—the details of the day the crimes occurred, and a concise recounting of the trial and plea agreement.

  She ignored Tracy and Gary as they pled for their son’s freedom and was heartened by the board members’ seeming lack of interest in their words. Mitch was allowed a chance to plead his case as well, but he declined. Quinn thought this was odd, seeing as he’d fought so hard to get a plea that would allow him the option of parole.

  “And now, we will hear a victim’s impact statement from Quinn Hadley, former wife of Mitchell McDonald.” One of the female commissioners, a plump older woman with a cloud of pure white hair and blue eyes that seemed to look into Quinn’s soul pursed her red-painted lips and waited for her to begin.

  She didn’t know what to say or what would make a difference, so she started at the beginning. “I married Mitch in Racine when I was fifteen, after we found out I was pregnant with our son, Cooper. As soon as w
e got married, Mitch became possessive and jealous, eventually to the point that I couldn’t hold a job or leave the house for any reason if he wasn’t with me. The physical abuse started after Cooper was born, when he started calling me fat and ugly, and he would hit me with the handle of a flyswatter even as I ran on our treadmill trying to lose all the baby weight.” She took a shaky breath, tears forming in her eyes, and focused on the brooch on the older woman’s lapel.

  “He hit me for every reason from not bringing in the newspaper to not changing our son’s diapers promptly. This continued until one night he hit me hard enough to break three of my ribs. While I was in the hospital, I arranged for myself and Cooper to go to a women’s shelter here in Milwaukee. He began stalking me almost immediately, showing up at the shelter every day when he got off work. I got a restraining order, but every time I would leave he would be there. He tried to see our son at the day care, and was arrested once for violation of the protective order,” she said, then paused for a moment as the commissioners verified the arrest in their records. When they looked up at her again, she continued.

  “After the arrest, he spent thirty days in jail. I thought about moving, but with no high school diploma yet and little work history, I didn’t have much chance of getting a job that paid well.” She hung her head at that point, feeling the old shame creep in.

  With an effort, she kept going, her voice wavering as fear and pain started to take hold. “The more he showed up the more time I spent at the shelter, and I never left the building without a partner to go everywhere with me. The police couldn’t do anything until he broke the law and as long as he stayed five hundred feet away, he was compliant. He continued that way for eight months, until the day I filed for divorce. He was outside the courtroom with a glass jar in his hand.”

  She stood up, knowing this was the part of the story the board was there for, and reached for the top of her jacket. She unzipped the jacket, revealing her scars to the board. Elsa Grande’s eyes widened and she blinked a few times at the sight. The men stared at the parts of her stomach and chest that looked like the skin had melted, their eyes wide. She had left her bra and shirt in her gym bag so they would see where the worst damage had occurred. The stenographer’s mouth fell open.