Play Maker (Bitsberg Knights Duet)

“Good luck.” We both stood, and she walked me back to the front entrance of Harvest House. We embraced, and she held the door open for me. “Tell Hudson we all have his back too.”

“I will. Thanks, Lacey.”

Back at home, I slipped the drive into my laptop and waited for the files to open. I found the video and pushed play, not really sure what to expect. As Lacey had said, it was shot at a non-profit basketball tournament held at Harvest House’s gym. The coverage showed the players and the beginning of the game. I scanned the crowd as the game went on and slowed down when I spotted Hudson in the stands. He looked like he was sitting by himself, but as people came and went, he smiled and interacted with them. It was apparent, even without knowing what they were saying, to see that he was well-liked.

But then, halfway through the second quarter, a blur of action caught my eye. “Wait” I stopped the footage and rolled it back a minute. I played it slower and narrowed my eyes to make sure I’d seen what I thought I had.

Hudson was sitting in the crowd, cheering on the team after a three-pointer, when someone passed in front of him and dumped the soda in his hand. The soda spilled all down Hudson’s front and he shot to his feet, his face red, to confront the guy who’d bumped him. The two got into an argument, and Hudson stormed off. I followed him as long as I could until he walked out of the frame. I watched the rest of the footage, but Hudson never returned to the game.

The time stamp on the video showed it was half an hour before the assault had taken place. I sighed and leaned back in my chair. The assault took place a few blocks away from Harvest House, in a rough patch of the city and the convenience store was halfway between the two. I had no idea why Hudson never returned to the basketball game—or, at least, not to his original seat. I did see what had him so agitated when he stopped in at the convenience store, but that still wasn’t enough to prove anything. The prosecutors could simply argue that in his state of mind, he’d snapped and lashed out at the victim who’d had nothing to do with the argument at the basketball game.

I watched it back a couple more times and then it hit me. When Hudson had originally taken his seat in the stands, he was wearing a backpack. But when he left, there was no backpack. Midway through the game, when the players were off the court, the camera had zeroed in on the crowd and when it hit Hudson’s abandoned seat, there was someone walking away with the backpack. I flipped through my digital files and pulled up the clip from the convenience store’s security cameras that showed Hudson interacting with the clerk—the one that had testified against him at the trial.

No backpack.

An idea was percolating in my mind, and I couldn’t seem to make my fingers move fast enough over the keys as I dug through my files for one last video—the dashboard camera when the cops had pulled over and picked Hudson up two days later. He was wearing the backpack.

I tapped a pen against my lips and tried to fit the pieces together. After a few minutes, I picked up the phone and called Lacey.

22

Ross

The week after the stunning victory crawled by. My life became an easy routine of wake up, scarf down a pre-workout meal, head to practice, drag myself through the drills, and only go home when my body felt like it had been sent through the spin cycle on an industrial-sized dryer. Nothing mattered to me. I didn’t care what I ate or what I wore, or who I talked to. I had to shut that side of my brain down, or else I would fall into a dark pit, wondering what in the world had gone wrong with Shelby. We’d texted a couple of times since the phone call after the game but hadn’t made plans to meet up and talk. It was like an awkward dance around the real issue. She was always busy with work, and I was busy with practice and prepping to fly to LA for the Super Bowl.

Thursday’s practice was the last one before we’d leave, and as I was leaving, Chance sidled up to me in the locker room. “Hey, Leverette. You all right? Your ass was dragging a little on that last drill.”

He smiled, but his comments sparked a slumbering rage, and I jumped up from my seat at the bench. “Fuck you, Beauman. Worry about your own shit, all right?”