Love Game

“You’re going to get another fine after today if you don’t get banned from tennis altogether,” he said. “I’m worried about you.”

“Why? Don’t stress, mate.”

I stowed my gear in the back of my Land Rover while Jason heaved a steadying breath.

“Look. We have two weeks in Hawaii to rest for the Open,” he said. “I have the place all rented. A nice place. Huge. Guest house, pool, courts. You can take it easy, rehab the elbow if it’s truly bothering you. And, not that you’d listen to my advice, but no girls. No partying. Just try to chill out, as the Americans say.”

I slammed the back door of the car shut and chucked Jason on the shoulder. “Whatever you want, Jase.”

He rolled his eyes but didn’t protest. What could he say? Nice as he was, he wasn’t my father, and he wasn’t a coach. I didn’t need a coach. I didn’t need anyone trying to get in my head. I played how I wanted to play and won—or lost—when I wanted to.

No one but me had a say.

Still, the guilt nipped me in the arse again. Dad wouldn’t have been happy about me tanking the tournament. Or swearing at the umpire. He’d have been disappointed. Sad, even.

Maybe so, but he isn’t here anymore, now is he?

No one had given me a say about that.

Daisy

San Francisco, one year ago…

“Don’t move.”

He didn’t sound angry or commanding but calm. Almost matter-of-fact, which struck me as odd, even in those mind-numbing first seconds of terror. A casual voice coming through the black knit material of a ski mask.

I didn’t move. I couldn’t. He was on top of me, crushing me, one black-gloved hand clapped over my mouth and his face inches from mine. His pale blue eyes just stared at me. They watched me almost curiously while the cold blade of his knife rested against my cheek. My breath rasped in my nose in short, strangled hisses, my eyes wide in the dark of the room as I tried to take inventory of just what the hell was happening.

It was so dark. Inky blackness. A glimpse of flowered comforter brought flashes of understanding.

Guestroom. Parent’s condo. Because I’m housesitting. Alone.

No, not alone. There was a man.

Someone please help me, there’s a man…!

I could see nothing but the pale, oblong cut-outs of the ski mask and the dull glint of silver against my cheek. My chest felt crushed under the weight of him as he lay on top of me, that flowery down comforter the only thing separating his body from mine.

Broken glass and what was likely the demolition of one of my mother’s prized artifacts from their trip to Africa sounded from elsewhere in their large condo.

A break-in. This is a break-in.

I stared at the man. He stared back. His hand on my mouth made my jaw ache. Nearly smothering me while others—Christ, how many? What are they going to do to me?—ransacked my parents’ huge condo.

“Shh,” the man said from behind his ski mask. The cold side of the knife blade pressed into my cheek above his hand. “It’ll be over soon.”

Dear God, what did that mean?

I would have been sobbing with fear had I the breath to do it, or any moisture in my body. I was dried out and emptied by the terror until there was nothing left but me, the man, and the air I desperately gasped through my nose.

A loud smash from the living room.

The man in the ski mask flinched and his eyes darkened. “Clumsy fuck.”

“Hey,” said a breathless voice at the guestroom door. My eyes darted to another figure in a ski mask; he carried the lumpy shape of a bulging bag in one hand, and a crowbar in the other. “Time to split.”

“Jewelry?”