“You’rebig for that.”
“I’ve put on weight since then, but I had decent wheels. They tried me on the D-line, but even back then those boys were all three-twenty plus. And I wasn’t athletic enough to hold my own at two-sixty against O-lines where the tackles made me look like a middle schooler. OSU plays in the big leagues and the NFL is another planet. With the Browns I did most of my field time on special teams. I was never going to be a starter.”
“Guys we play against in high school are running four-threes like it’s nothing.”
White said, “Well, not to put a stop to the shop talk, guys, but…?”
They turned to see her standing a few feet from them.
Decker glanced at her and said to Tyler, “You want to talk here or somewhere else?”
“How about the beach?”
White hiked her eyebrows at Decker. “You mean out on all thatsand?” she said.
“Fine,” said Decker. “Why don’t you wait here, Agent White? And let them know where we went.”
White was about to protest, but then she glanced at Tyler and slowly nodded. “Sure, I can let youfootballershave some alone time.”
The two big men walked off, leaving White to sit down in a chair and wait, her lips pursed and her gaze hanging on Decker’s broad back.
Chapter11
I’M…UM, I’M SORRY ABOUTyour mother,” said Decker as they reached the sand and headed south. Decker had taken off his shoes and socks and rolled up his pants. Tyler had slipped off his flip-flops and was carrying them. Decker was awkward at social encounters like this. As a young man, before his brain injury, he could be empathetic and consoling and even glib. Now, on the other side of his near-death experience, he was none of those things.
“I think I’m gonna wake up and she’ll be there waving at me.”
“I can understand that. So, when was the last time you actually saw your mother?”
“I stayed with her last week, this week I’m with my dad.”
“Tough going back and forth?”
“It was at first, but then I got into a routine. Well, I did with Mom. Dad never has had much of a routine.”
“So you saw her last a week ago?”
“No, I had lunch with her three days ago, at the golf clubhouse where she lives.”
“Wasn’t she at the courthouse then?”
“She had the afternoon off, she said.”
“She seem okay, no problems?”
“Yeah, she was fine.”
“Did you ever meet her private bodyguard?”
“No. When I was with her last week, she didn’t have a bodyguard around.”
That remark caught Decker by surprise but he decided not to comment on it. “But at some point did she tell you that she had one?”
“Yeah, she mentioned it at lunch. I asked her what was up.”
“And what did she say?”
“She said it was over some stupid stuff from being a judge, but she didn’t want to take chances.”