Page 121 of Ricochet

“Is everything okay?” Lacey asks.

“Not even a little bit,” Stone answers, his voice hard.

Lacey sighs. “Give me two minutes. And Stone? Be careful.”

“I always am.”

As soon as the call ends, Stone presses down on the accelerator, and the engine roars. Less than two minutes later, we’re pulling up outside his apartment, and his phone goes off.

He frowns as he looks down at the text. “He’s at the arena.”

“It’s past one o’clock in the morning. What the hell is he doing there?”

“No idea. I’m just gonna grab what I need, and then we’ll head over there.” He opens his door, then pauses to look back at me. “Unless you want to stay here.”

I can tell he’d rather me do that, but I shake my head. “No way.”

Inside, Stone grabs the weapons he doesn’t normally carry around with him while I go into the bathroom to brush my teeth with the toothbrush I left here a few days ago. I’ve been staying with him more often than not over the last week.

We get back to the car, and Stone drives us to campus. It takes us half the time it normally would to get there if he had been following the speed limit.

It would really suck for him to get arrestedbeforehe commits a murder.

After he parks, he leans over the center console, takes my face in his hand, and presses his lips to mine in a quick, lingering kiss.

He’s nervous, but he’s still keeping his shit together better than I am.

Entering through the back door of the stadium, we head past the locker room and down the tunnel. The sound of skates on ice reaches our ears as we approach the rink. Most of the lights are off. The stands are thrown into darkness while the rink is lit up only by the lamps directly above center ice.

Stone and I enter the bench area to see Eric skating alone. He’s in sweatpants and a hoodie, surrounded by pucks as he shoots them at the lone net. His hits are fueled by anger and force rather than accuracy. Most of the pucks bounce off the posts or fly right past the goal altogether.

“Vaughn.”

At the sound of Stone’s voice, Eric spins on his blades. His eyes widen. At least, as much as they can through the swelling around the left one. Nearly half his face is painted with splotches of black and blue and purple. Some of the bruises are yellowing around the edges, so the swelling was probably a lot worse than it is now.

Opening the gate, I step out onto the ice. It hasn’t been resurfaced yet after our game, so it’s easy to walk on.

“Who did that?”

“Coach,” Stone says.

Eric nods even though it wasn’t a question.

“Why?” I ask, trying to put all the pieces together.

“Because I told him I was done. That I wasn’t helping him anymore.” He leans on his stick and winces. “Pretty sure he cracked a couple of ribs too.”

“Then what the hell are you doing here?” I snap.

“I missed skating and came to clear my head.” He sighs and wipes at the sweat across his brow. “Not that it’s helped at all.”

“So I was right.” Stone steps up beside me, his hands balled into fists. “He was the one who suspected me and brought you here to try to find evidence.”

Again, Eric nods. “He and my uncle were friends. I thought he wanted to help me get justice.” He shakes his head and scoffs. “Once I found out the truth about Jimmy, I connected the dots. Accused Coach of a bunch of shit, and he didn’t like it.”

“Why didn’t you go to the hospital?” I ask. “Turn him in?”

“Because I’m fucking scared of him.” He shakes his head and looks away. “Fuck. I thought he was going to fucking kill me.”