She told me that. Maybe Witt isn’t as good at hacking as he claims.
“I translated the article and she was already playing on the twelve-year-old team at ten. It’s a local sports piece. She was a total prodigy. Did you know she played hockey?”
“Yeah, only because I ran into her at the rink.”
“The article quotes coaches and the head of the women’s hockey federation talking about her speed and vision. How she could see the ice two moves ahead.”
She’s always two steps ahead of me. How could she just quit hockey when she was a star?
“So she was good?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“According to this, freakishly good.” He pauses. “Apparently her dad used to say she played like she was reading everyone’s mind.”
A cold shiver snakes down my spine.
I don’t like hearing her dad attached to anything about her.
“What else?”
“It’s all very clean. Too clean.” Another click. “Pictures of her in braids, missing a tooth. Tiny little rink assassin energy.”
My mouth twitches imagining what she looked like. Ten-year-old Annika skating circles around bigger kids and hating every second of them underestimating her. Now I know why she hated me. I underestimated her, thinking she didn’t understand an athlete’s life.
“I’m sending it now,” Witt says.
My phone buzzes with a link and when I open it, there she is. Younger, obviously, rounder face, missing a front tooth and a hockey stick nearly as tall as she is but the eyes—same eyes as I looked into last night.
She’s focused and sharp, like cameras annoy her and she’d rather be skating than having her picture taken.
Next to her is a man in a track suit, one hand on her shoulder.
Her father.
I stare at the picture way too long, wondering who, what, when, where, and why.
Did he molest other girls? Where did he do it? Why did he do it?
“Parker?” Witt says.
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
No.
“I’m fine.” And I know as soon as I say it he knows I’m lying.
His chuckle rings false. “Sure, you are.”
I zoom in on the article, reading the caption, the quotesand the praise. Coach’s daughter. National team. Elite prospect.
The whole thing feels wrong, not because it’s false but because I believe it. I saw her skate and she gave it all up. This little girl I’m looking at is far from the woman who I held in my arms and told me she erased herself.
“What’s weird is that she drops off.”
“She changed her name,” I offer.
“P, this isn’t just a name change. It’s like someone vacuum sealed her past and forgot a few little fragments.”
