This was all staggering news, hard to wrap my head around. I knew it was a big deal that she’d made the Banneker track team, but this?

“So what exactly are you saying?”

He leaned over the fence and replied, “Get ready for every NCAA Division One track coach to come to watch her run and knock at your door with scholarship money. Get ready to watch her smash records in the coming years. Your daughter, Detective, is a running marvel.”

Glancing at Jannie, who was grinning, her eyes shiny, I said, “Don’t let it go to your head.”

“I promise,” she said, and laughed.

“We’ll all talk later,” Coach Anderson said. “I’ve still got athletes in the last few events.”

“Absolutely,” I said, then looked at my daughter in wonder. “Where did that come from?”

She shrugged. “I have absolutely no idea. I’ve always been fast, but I dunno, something clicked last year, and running just felt different.”

“God’s given you a remarkable gift,” Bree said. “You’re obligated to work hard to make that gift as big as it can be. You know that, right?”

Jannie nodded and glanced at me.

“She’s right,” I said, and tried to lean over and kiss Jannie.

But she pulled back, acting embarrassed, and whispered, “Dad. C’mon.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I was overwhelmed by the moment.”

“Need a ride home?” Bree asked, trying to defuse the awkwardness.

Looking uncomfortable, Jannie said, “I should finish watching the meet. Be part of the team.”

“You should,” I said, checked my watch. It was ten past four. “I’m going to Union Station to get Damon.”

“I’m going to get dinner,” my wife said. “See you in an hour?”

“Hour, hour and a half,” I said.

We headed toward the exit. We were almost out when I said, “Wait, I should tell Jannie that if Nana Mama and Ali show up they should all take a taxi home.”

But when I turned, I saw something I wasn’t expecting at all. My baby girl, my track prodigy, was talking to a very tall, very muscular, very handsome boy, and she was smiling wider than she had been winning the race.

“I thought there might be something going on there,” Bree said. “His name’s Will Crawford. He’s the captain of the team.”

This whole teenage daughter thing was new to me. So was the idea of boys in her life. Honestly, I felt like I was constantly in unexplored terrain with Jannie. “So what should I do?”

“My advice?” Bree said. “Give her some space. Send her a text and walk away.”

Chapter

96

Damon was supposed to arrive at Union Station at four forty-five.

I got to the station with four minutes to spare and jogged through the grand main hall, remembering the last time I was in the rail depot, back on Christmas Day, when a terrorist named Hala al-Dossari tried to bomb the place.

Al-Dossari was currently behind bars in a federal supermax facility in Kansas, but she would always haunt Union Station, at least in my mind.

Approaching the Amtrak ticket counter, I glanced up at the arrivals and departure board and saw that Damon’s train was right on time and passengers would arrive through gate G.

Hey bud, I texted him. I’ll be right at the top of the stairs.

Tags: James Patterson Alex Cross Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net