TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER ONE
LOGAN’S STOMACH HAD been in knots since the day before yesterday, when the general manager’s executive assistant had called to schedule this appointment. Now, as he walked through the door, the receptionist’s smile—something between pity and dismay—told him contract addendums and codicils had nothing to do with the meeting.
“I know I’m early,” he said, “but any way Fletcher will see me now?”
Mandy’s I-feel-so-so-sorry-for-you expression intensified. “Sorry, Mr. Murray, but he left explicit instructions that they weren’t to be disturbed.”
“They?”
She shot a glance toward the door. “Just the coaches and the doctors.”
Just the coaches and doctors. Plural. His heart beat a little harder as he admitted that he had no one but himself to blame. If he hadn’t gone ballistic when that last concussion put him on the injured list, they might not feel it necessary to gang up on him this time.
“It shouldn’t be much longer,” she added. “Can I get you something to drink while you’re waiting?”
In other words, sit tight and keep your mouth shut, like a kid sent to the principal’s office for acting up in class.
“Thanks, but I’m fine.” In truth, he was anything but. He couldn’t remember a headache this bad. Couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t hold down anything heavier than soup. Couldn’t admit any of it to the guys on the other side of that door.
The phone on Mandy’s desk beeped, startling him. Logan added “jumpy” to his list of complaints.
“Yessir, right away,” Mandy said. Then, “You can go in now, Mr. Murray.”
He was halfway to the door when she added, “Can I at least bring you a bottle of water?”
Logan wondered what sort of Logan Murray gossip had prompted her concerned tone. “Sure. Sounds good,” he said. “And please call me Logan.”
As he entered Stan Fletcher’s office, the five men who’d gathered to decide his fate stood: the general manager, head coach, doctor, team psychologist and offensive coordinator. Logan hoped, as he shook each extended hand, that they wouldn’t notice the tremors pulsing from his hard-beating heart to his fingertips. His agent was in New York, celebrating...wedding anniversary? Wife’s birthday? Logan only knew that he’d walked into this meeting alone and unprepared.
The GM pointed at the chair nearest his own. “Take a load off, son.”
Logan sat in a buttery leather wingback and did his best to look at ease, despite a strange new empathy for Daniel in the lions’ den. Three quick knocks cracked the prickly silence, and Mandy joined them, carrying a cobalt-blue water bottle.
“Here you go, Mr. Mur— Logan.”
“Thanks, Mandy,” he said, taking it. Once the door closed quietly behind her, Doc Dickerson broke the brittle silence.
“So. Logan. How’s the head?”
He nodded. Smiled. Pretended the team doctor’s bedside manner didn’t need fine-tuning.
“Good,” he lied, propping an ankle on a knee. “Fine. Never better.”
“I’m surprised to hear that, frankly.” He got up and handed Logan a large manila envelope.
He willed his hands not to shake as he removed CT scans and X-rays. “Might as well be reading hieroglyphics,” he admitted, holding the films up to the light. He’d seen enough of these things during the course of his career to know how to read and interpret them. But this time, his eyes refused to focus.
“This is your third Grade 3 concussion,” Gerard continued. And, as if to soften the blow he was about to deliver, the doctor added, “That hit you took when we played the Steelers? One of the worst I’ve seen in my career.”
No one, not the men on the field or fans in the stands that day, would deny it. Neither would anyone who’d seen replays on the news. The ensuing pressure had compelled the Knights’ high muckety-mucks to call in a neuropsychologist. Logan wondered why he wasn’t now present to reiterate the results of the California Verbal, Rey Auditory, Benton Visual Retention and the Stroop Cognitive tests. Clearly, the sole purpose of this summit was to use the test results to sideline him for a couple of games. Much as he hated the idea, it beat the heck out of the alternative. Logan decided to take it on the chin, without complaint.
Gerard returned to his seat as Fletcher said, “I know it seems coldhearted, dumping the decision on you this way, but I’m afraid that Steelers game was your last.”
Logan’s heart pounded harder. He sat up straighter. Surely he didn’t mean...
“Last game of the season, right?”
The GM slowly shook his head.
His mouth went dry. What’s with the dramatic pause? Logan wondered, uncapping the water bottle. Giving me time to let the inevitable sink in?
“You’re welcome to take the films and test results to outside specialists for confirmation,” Fletcher said, “but you should know, we’ve already consulted with the best in the area...”
Logan took a sip of water as Gerard put in, “...and they all concur.”
Logan swallowed. Hard. His powers of concentration had been off since the hit. Had he missed a sentence or two? Because surely they weren’t trying to tell him that his days as an NFL quarterback were over. He had two more years on his contract. And he’d bounced back from Grade 3 concussions before. Twice before, to be precise.
He faced the head coach, a man he’d come to think of as a friend. “Are they saying what I think they’re saying?”
Hildebrand exhaled a shaky sigh. “’Fraid so, pal.”
Now the offensive coordinator chimed in with, “Believe me, Logan, this isn’t something we want to do.” A furrow formed on his brow. “You’re the best QB in the league, and it’s gonna kill us to lose you.”
He’d gone toe to toe with Richards nearly every play of every game, all three of his years as the Knights’ first-string quarterback. The man was stubborn, but his straightforward honesty had earned Logan’s respect. It was the only thing that kept him from lashing out, the way he had last time when they’d put him on the disabled list.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Logan told the team psychologist. “Waiting till I blow my stack before you put in your two cents?”
O’Riley quirked an eyebrow. “Are you feeling the need to blow your stack?”
Groaning inwardly, Logan ran a hand through his hair. “Save the shrink-speak for one of your other nutcases, and give it to me straight.”
“Dr. Gerard already gave it to you straight. you’ve played your last game.”
They took turns spouting excuses and rationalizations, but Gerard’s was the only explanation that stuck in his dizzy, throbbing head: “The next Grade 3 could cause significant, irreversible brain damage. Worse, it could kill you.”
In the demoralizing hush that followed, Logan heard Gerard’s wristwatch counting out the seconds, each tick hammering home the inevitable. But his career didn’t have to be over. He was young. Physically fit. He could rebound, as he had before, if they’d give him one more chance.
“I’ll sign a waiver,”