Page 48 of Break the Ice

“Morasca sent them.”

“Probably,” I answer. “He couldn’t land a hit on his own.”

I bid Kai good night without any more information. He might be my only real friend on the team, but I’m keeping the game me and Marisse are playing close to the vest. She works for the team, and it would complicate matters if anybody found out.

For a second time in a row, she didn’t show up to our preseason game. She still doesn’t seem to understand our arrangement.

But I’ll make her get it—the hard or easy way.

It doesn’t matter to me.

I withdraw my phone from the pocket of my jeans and check the tracker. The green dot that represents Marisse blinks away on the location on the map.

Gourmande.

She was out to dinner tonight. But with who?

My expression darkens, my fist clenched around my phone. I’m a second away from dialing up Mitch and telling him to bring his kidnapping gloves when he calls me first. My intense anger’s wiped out with four little words spoken as a greeting.

“Autopsy results are in.”

“And was it the smash to the head?”

“As we suspected,” Mitch answers. “He hit his head on the coffee table on the way down and never woke up. Whoever hit him is strong.”

“Marisse is a former athlete, but I doubt she’d be that notably strong.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“What about the DNA on the bottle?”

“Inconclusive at this time. We don’t know whose prints they belong to.”

“If not Marisse, then it’s got to be a third person. Somebody else showed up to the room that night. Before me.” I’ve slid into the driver seat of my Corvette, though I haven’t started the engine. I’m more preoccupied making sense of these rules.

“The girl could be lying. It could be her.”

“There’s something we’re missing. Find out what.” I twist on the Corvette with a rumble from the engine, then decide I have one more order to give. This one about Sugar. “And Mitch?”

“Yeah?”

“Send a car for Ms. March. Have it drop her off at my place.”

“Another car,” says Mitch. “Is she going to actually take this one?”

“She will if she wants to win round two.”

15. Marisse

“It’s strange seeing his office so empty,” Jerry says. She hides her frown behind her coffee mug, taking a slow sip. “It makes me wonder about the future of the Wolves.”

I pour creamer into mine, then I pause and look up. “I imagine it’ll be part of the fight for his estate. All of his assets. The team being one of those.”

“Two ex-wives equally as vicious. Then you have the partials like Mr. Beringer and Mr. Blackman. It could get ugly.”

“How’s Mr. Beringer been doing? Every time I’ve seen him as of late, he’s looked stressed.”

“Judge for yourself. Does that look like a guy that’s having a great kickoff to the season?”