Hockey goalie gear was a lot heavier than I’d thought it would be. Didn’t they have all those space-age materials nowadays: stronger than steel, lighter than air, etcetera? A gaggle of peewee players in a mix of random hockey gear watched me suspiciously as I waddled to the net.
“Come on, boys,” I said, banging my stick on the ice. “Show me what you got.”
“I’m a girl,” one peewee in a face mask said, one hand on her stick, the other on her hip.
“Sorry. Come on, ice rats,” I said. “Show me what you got.”
Miranda glided onto the ice in a perfectly pressed track suit, helmet, gloves, and hockey stick. She was carrying a bucket of pucks. “May I?” she asked the tiny mob.
“Stick and puck is for kids,” some very brave boy said. Miranda had cowed men three times his age and twice his size.
“Five minutes and then he’s all yours,” she said with a winning smile that was somehow more terrifying than her glare.
“Our parents paid for the ice time,” he said, tilting his head in challenge.
Her eyes narrowed and she clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Okay.” She rested her closed hands on her hips. “How about I buy you all ice cream after this if you let me play?”
The brave kid and the girl conferred silently. She nodded. “Okay,” the boy said. “Five minutes.”
“Cross my heart,” I promised.
Miranda grinned evilly at me and dumped the pucks on the ice. “Ready?”
I got into my crouch. “Bring it.”
She then proceeded to hurl pucks at me at high speed. I ducked some of them. Stopped one. Several hit me. Hard. “Now I see why you wanted to do this, so you could legally hit me with things.”
“I’ve wanted to hit you with things for a long time.” She fired one between my legs and I flinched, glove hand covering my junk. The puck hit the post and rebounded with a clang.
“Damn, Randa.”
“Not like you’re using them.”
“Rude!” I skated my wobbly way behind the net to recover the puck only to have some teenager sweep past me and pick it up.
“Do you still think this is a good idea?” she asked.
“Letting you shoot pucks at me? No. The job, yes. It’s a great idea,” I said. “It’s a piece of cake with bonus family reconciliation for Carson. It’s practically a vacation.”
“In La Crosse. No offense,” she said to the watching kids. “Do you want a turn?” she asked the girl.
“Yes, please, ma’am.”
Miranda waved her to the high slot.
“Don’t knock La Crosse, it’s a nice town. It’s pretty. They got the Mississippi River. And Oktoberfest! That’s huge.” The girl aimed a slapper at my five-hole and I dropped to a butterfly to block it. That was going to hurt tomorrow. Quick as a flash, she shifted her grip, sending the puck to my blocker side, top shelf where Momma keeps the cookies, as they say. “Nice job, Ovechkina!” I shouted.
Miranda tapped her stick on the ice in appreciation for the girl’s shot. “Forgive me for questioning your methods, but why are we doing this now? We do have”—she paused, throwing the children around her a quick look—“some rather explosive events to investigate.” She nodded for the kid to step aside and, scooping up a puck, skated in a graceful figure eight in front of my net. Like a cobra confronted by a mongoose, I was hypnotized. With a snap of her wrist, the puck flew at my face. In desperation, I threw up my gloved hand and the puck slammed into it with a resounding and satisfying smack.
“Woo hoo! Yes!” I pointed my blocker at her. “In. Your. Face!”
Unsurprisingly, she shot two more pucks at me in rapid succession. “Why are we here?”
“For Carson!” I said dancing out of the way to the laughter of children.
“For Carson’s sake,” she said with the raise of one eyebrow. She did that better than anyone I’ve ever known.
I met her eyes coolly. “Yes. For Carson.”
She levelled her eyes at me and then skated off the ice without a backwards look.
“All yours!” I yelled to the Stick-and-Puckers as I skated marginally less gracefully after her. I caught up with her on the mats. “Carson is alone. And he shouldn’t be. He has a family, Miranda. A great family that loves him. He needs to get his head out of his ass and work it out with them before he dies alone and the only people who show up for his funeral are federal agents and