The Innocent: The New Ryan Lock Novel Read Online Free PDF

at play, not to mention the sensitivity of such a matter. Only Malik didn’t need to understand any of that. All he needed to appreciate was that there was right and there was wrong, and what he’d seen was all kinds of wrong.
    Laird got up and walked toward the door, a clear gesture that the unscheduled meeting was over. ‘I’ll take on board what you’ve said, Coach, but I think it might be best for everyone if you left this with me. You have a game to win.’
    The last thing Malik cared about right now was the game. Twenty-four hours ago that would have seemed unthinkable, but a lot could change in twenty-four hours.
    The two men’s eyes locked. ‘Thanks for your time, Chancellor Laird,’ Malik said.
    Laird raised a bunched hand, as if he were about to give Malik an attaboy punch to the shoulder. Malik threw him a look to suggest that he might not have a hand if he tried it. He settled for an open-palmed pat. ‘You’re doing great work, Coach. Great work.’

Eight
    Malik sat in his pick-up. He was angrier than when he’d arrived. He hadn’t thought that was possible. He was angry at Tromso for covering the whole thing up. He was angry at Laird for treating him as if he was making a mountain out of a molehill. But most of all he was angry at himself.
    The trustees were all men with either money or serious political connections. No doubt the guy had cooked up some bullshit story about what he’d been doing. Laird had probably bought it, but he was chancellor because he was an operator. Getting the perpetrator to stand aside was probably as good as it got, especially if the kid was too scared or embarrassed to file charges, or even to admit anything had happened. And who was going to take the word of a black coach versus some buttoned-down white trustee?
    Malik had been wasting his time going to see Laird. And Laird was right: he did have a job to do, a game to win. But that didn’t mean this was the last they’d heard of it. If for no other reason than that Malik had to be able to look at himself in the mirror every morning when he was shaving, he was going to figure out exactly what had happened.
    He’d get some answers, and if they made him unpopular, so be it. Like the rest of the country, he had watched what had gone down at Penn State, and how Joe Paterno’s legacy had been tarnished by the sin of omission. Malik wasn’t going to let himself suffer the same fate. There was no way someone was going to turn to him one day and ask why he’d left things alone instead of satisfying himself that he’d done everything he could.
    If Tromso or Laird didn’t like it, well, that was too damn bad. Malik was his own man, and he wasn’t planning on changing now.
     
     
    Malik walked into the kitchen. The kids were at school and Kim was unloading the dishwasher. He grabbed some plates from the bottom rack and began to put them away. He and Kim had always shared domestic chores, much to the amusement of male buddies and teammates, who’d arrive to catch him sweeping the hallway or vacuuming the carpets. But it was that kind of marriage. A partnership. Malik was pretty sure that was one of the reasons they had lasted where so many others had failed. They’d kept it real.
    ‘You going to tell me what’s going on?’ she asked him, lining up some glasses in a cabinet.
    He sighed. ‘That obvious?’
    ‘Who are you talking to?’ she said, smiling.
    She sat down at the kitchen table. He sat next to her. He explained as best he could what had happened — what he had seen, then how Tromso and now the chancellor were making out like it was none of his business. She listened quietly.
    As he finished, he said, ‘Before you say anything, I know what I saw, Kim. I’ve been over it in my mind a dozen times since last night.’
    Last night? Was it really that short a time ago? Sitting here with his wife, unburdening himself, with the watery spring Minnesota light filtering in through the window, it felt like a week