Strike Me Down - Mindy Mejia Page 0,47
who’d also taken a turn at vStrike, was still gushing about the experience an hour later. The amateur preliminary rounds were in full swing, filling all three rings with ducking and kicking opponents while replays flashed overhead, but Nora barely noticed them. She was still replaying her own fight and trying to analyze what it meant.
She’d steadied herself by the time Mike had found the rest of the group, still finishing their turns at vStrike, and brought them back to the suite. Nora drank automatically, filling her hands with a new glass whenever the old one emptied. She discussed the progress of the case with Jim at one point, retaining absolutely nothing of the conversation, and debated most of the night about telling Mike what happened, but what would she say? This wasn’t dating. It wasn’t sex, this overwhelming desire to track Logan throughout the stadium, to replay every exchange, turn over each look and gesture to discover what, if anything, lay buried beneath.
By the end of the night, after the preliminary brackets had completed and the announcer wrapped up the fights, Nora was exhausted. She needed to talk to someone, someone who could understand that no matter how impartial she appeared, she wasn’t independent, and that lack of independence was clawing at her throat.
“Where’s Corbett?” she asked Katie, who was giggling and hiccupping as she and Mike collected their things.
“Got a message on his phone and said he had to run into work. You two want to share an Uber with me?”
Nora told them to go ahead, and fought her way through the crowds toward the skyway. Corbett would listen. He wouldn’t judge. She’d already shocked him out of all expectations he might have had for her behavior or emotions. He would provide the guidance she so desperately needed right now.
She reached the skyway and was skirting the edge of the lingering groups of fans when a familiar figure caught her attention. One story below, on the plaza, Corbett’s wiry-haired head moved through the crowd. Nora tried to go back, but the security guards weren’t letting anyone return to the stadium; she was stuck in the glass-encased walkway. Following his progress, Nora started to frown. Corbett wasn’t moving with the crowds toward the train or parking lots, and he wasn’t walking toward the Parrish office, either. Instead, he skirted the edge of the stadium, checking his phone every few seconds.
Nora reached into her pocket to text him, but then fell still. Another figure joined him from the shadows of the stadium wall, someone wearing a long, dark coat. They put their hood up a split second after stepping into the light, but it was enough time for Nora to see the person’s face.
Logan.
Corbett spoke to the hooded figure and they began to walk together, directly underneath the skyway.
Logan and Corbett?
Nora’s mouth fell open. She backed up, bumping into a group of people, and rushed to the other side. They weren’t there. She waited, her mind reeling, and by the time the pair came into sight again they were at least a hundred yards ahead of her and crossing an intersection. She broke into a run, but the amount of people leaving the stadium made it impossible to keep the street in view.
When she reached the intersection, they were gone. Nora checked either side of the glass, peering down each of the shadowy streets. She jogged another block, looking right and left. Nothing.
What the hell was Corbett doing with Logan?
Retracing her steps back toward the stadium, she pulled her phone out again. She was jabbing out the text, “Where are you?” to Corbett when she glanced into an alley and spotted movement in the shadows. Two people, half-hidden by a dumpster, seemed to be in the middle of an argument. She shook her head against the volume of alcohol she’d drunk tonight, and squinted into the darkness until the taller person came into focus.
It was Corbett.
As she watched, a flash shot out from the other person’s arm—a haze of gold, like the vStrike gloves streaking through the virtual ring—then Corbett’s body jerked and disappeared.
NORA
“WHY WOULD Corbett be standing around in an alley?”
“I don’t know.” Nora unzipped her dress pants and let them fall to the floor. Two hours later, she was still replaying the images she’d seen outside the stadium. Two people. A sudden movement. The person who looked like Corbett had fallen. And the other person, the flash of gold which must have been Logan, had followed him down.