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“Aren’t Detective Cantor and I old news by now?”

“Maybe at your publication. Not mine. At our shop, Sis, you remain the gift that just keeps on giving.”

“So now you’re the one having me followed?”

“Got a tip that you were here.”

“My ass.”

“Which you might think about doing a better job of covering up,” Jack Wolf said.

I raised the paper a bit and was delighted to see him recoil, if only just slightly.

“Still scared I might beat you up, Jack? Wow. Maybe Dad was right. Maybe he really did have more than one daughter.”

I made a slight feint at him again. He flinched again. Then he turned the key in the ignition and started the car.

“We’re done here. I got what I came for.”

I reached in and put a hand on his shoulder to stop him from pulling away.

“You know, it occurred to me when I saw you sitting there how many pricks I’ve had to deal with since Dad left the team and the paper to me.”

He said, “And I’m one of those pricks, right?”

“Just smaller.”

One Hundred Six

Six weeks later

IT WAS THE FRIDAYof Super Bowl week at the owners’ hotel, the Four Seasons Miami. But I suddenly felt as if I’d gone back to the future, having once again been summoned by A. J. Frost to meet with him and the rest of the Hard-liners in Frost’s penthouse suite, this one on the other side of the country from the Beverly Wilshire.

The Wolves hadn’t made it to the Super Bowl. Billy McGee had recovered enough to play the next week and had gotten us all the way to the conference championship game before we lost, pretty badly, to the Vikings.

I had come to Miami for Super Bowl week anyway. All the owners came to the Super Bowl as far as I could tell, for the parties and the face time and a handful of league meetings, some of which included me.

I was pretty sure why they wanted to see me. It had to be about the second wave of coverage of my relationship with Ben Cantor. The pictures of me in a sweatshirt that barely left anything to the imagination went viral the way the college pictures of me had, as if I had once again become the pinup girl for bad—and slutty—behavior in the NFL.

This time Cantor really had been suspended by the SFPD. Indefinitely. With no guarantee that he’d ever get his old job back or be any kind of cop ever again.

Now came this call from A. J. Frost, telling me that it wasn’t just me he’d invited up to his suite tonight but Commissioner Joel Abrams as well.

“What’s this all about, A.J.? Or should I be able to figure it out for myself?”

“You’ll understand when you arrive,” A. J. Frost said.

I had known since the league meetings in Los Angeles that the rest of the season would essentially be a probationary period for me, even if my team did finally get to within a win of the Super Bowl. Maybe my uncle’s influence with them extended only so far. Maybe there had been an understanding with all the other owners that all bets were off if I embarrassed the league again. I wasn’t sure. Maybe I was projecting.

But I didn’t like any of this. And I wasn’t sure whether I was more angry or sad that I might once again face losing the Wolves. Probably a little bit of both. I knew by now how much I had come to love doing this job, running this team, how much I’d wanted the Wolves to make it all the way to Miami. And couldn’t lie to myself about one other thing: I didn’t exactly hate giving orders.

My brothers hadn’t been able to take the team away from me. John Gallo hadn’t been able to, either. I was going to make sure that Michael Barr didn’t, even though I wasn’t entirely sure how or what the rules of engagement were going to be with him going forward.

I just didn’t want the Hard-liners to do to me now what I had been sure they were going to do to me in Los Angeles.

I’m good at this,I told myself in the elevator.That has to count for something.

With the exception of the commissioner, they were all waiting for me when I arrived. Carl Paulson of the Bears. Rex Cardwell and Ed McGrath and Amos Lester. The annual commissioner’s party would be held later at Zoo Miami, a setting I found completely appropriate. But that wasn’t for a few hours. Still plenty of time for me to face a trial by jury.