Dead Ball: A Dakota Mystery

By M.K. Coker

Summer was for fun...

A former star basketball player, Sheriff Karen Okerlund Mehaffey just wants to have fun watching the local girls' summer team play against an elite Dakota team that sports the country’s top uncommitted college recruit. True, life-changing scholarship offers are on the line, but no one expected that murder would be done.

To make things even stickier, the talented and unfairly maligned daughter of Karen's boyfriend is vying for one of those scholarships, and this may be her last chance to catch the eye of scouts.

Someone is playing for keeps, but who? From entitled players and helicopter parents to classless coaches and dubious sponsors, Karen and her detective-uncle, Marek Okerlund, must play a deadly game of justice to find a killer.

DEAD BALL is a character-driven police procedural. Tenth in series. Word Count: 96,000. Occasional profanity. Minimal gore.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M.K. Coker
• Release date: Oct 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005257286

M.K. Coker

M.K. Coker grew up on a river bluff in southeastern South Dakota. Part of the Dakota diaspora, the author has lived in half a dozen states, including New Mexico, but returns to the prairie at every opportunity.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Summer was for fun.

Adjusting her young cousin’s dusky hands on the basketball, Sheriff Karen Okerlund reminded herself that this was not a competition. Nothing but a simple game of HORSE. No harm, no foul. No arm-busting push-ups for slacking off in practice. Just a sunny, lazy Thursday afternoon during the waning days of July. School was out. Nothing mattered for an eight-year-old but fun.

That Becca Okerlund already towered over her classmate and friend Emily Bolvin, who waited impatiently for her turn, was no guarantee of either her talent or her desire to take up the sport Karen loved. Still, Becca would likely play anyway unless she proved to be as clumsy as her father, Marek Okerlund, Karen’s younger half-uncle and part-time detective on her roster.

Marek looked on with a sort of resigned anticipation of abject failure. That had been his own experience in many facets of school life, from books to sports. By inches alone, he should have been a basketball player, as he outstripped Karen’s lanky six-one by eight inches.

Come on, Becca. Shoot it! Em tapped one scuffed red Keds sneaker over a crack in the concrete driveway where Karen had spent the summers of her youth endlessly dribbling and shooting at the now-rusted and drooping hoop. She really needed to replace that, along with the tattered net. She just needed to find the time, which, as the sheriff of a large but sparsely populated rural county, was rare.

The game of HORSE between the two girls who’d been playing hopscotch on the sidewalk had been entirely spontaneous. Karen had come out to shoot a few hoops to clear her head after an all-nighter to help her night-shift deputy deal with a schizophrenic farmer out near Fink. That had entailed getting him under control before he killed his wife and kids, rousing Dr. Hudson at the lone clinic in the county to evaluate him, getting a detention order from Judge Rudibaugh, and finally driving the cuffed and doped-up farmer to Sioux Falls to a locked ward.

Then she’d slept until noon and had a leisurely lunch of leftovers before coming out to blink in the sunlight. On a whim, she’d asked the girls if they’d like to play HORSE, and now she was teaching Becca how to shoot. Her young cousin had apparently never done such a thing before, which Karen found criminal. What kid her age had never played HORSE?

Karen sketched the bare bones of the game. If the ball goes through the hoop, then Em has to make it from the same spot you did. If she doesn’t, she gets a letter. H-O-R-S-E. And you get to pick the next spot to shoot from. If you don’t make the shot, it’s Em’s turn. First one to get to E—

Wins? Becca interrupted hopefully.

Loses. Em shook her head. Duh.

Why’s the game called HORSE? Becca’s pale-blue Okerlund eyes wandered over to Gun Shy, aka Gunny, the liver-colored field springer spaniel that Marek had reluctantly let Becca adopt. "Why not dog?"

Karen blew out a breath. Well, that would be a very short game.

Becca’s nose wrinkled. "Then why not elephant or rhinoceros?"

"Or Tyrannosaurus rex, Em suggested. That’d be a really long game."

How did kids come up with this stuff? One of the mysteries of the ages. Focus, here. The letters are just a distraction. It’s the game that matters. She got Becca back in the shooting position. There, you’ve got it. Karen leaned back. Now just—

Gunny, who’d taken her mistress’s wandering gaze as an invitation to play, raced over and nudged Becca under the arm. The girl giggled, the ball slipped, and Karen gritted her teeth. Before Karen could take her wrath out on the dog, Marek reached down with one big hand, grabbed the dog’s collar, and hauled off the chastened spaniel to the jungle masquerading as Karen’s front lawn—another thing she hadn’t found the time for.

Marek pointed downward. Sit.

The command likely was meant to be sharp and decisive, but it came out, as it always did, a gentle subsonic rumble that tickled the ear. The dog looked up, way up, at a face that looked like a suffering Byzantine saint. With a sigh, the dog collapsed into a heap, flattening a goodly crop of dandelions and dislodging a bee that buzzed around his head.

Good enough, Marek muttered as Karen readjusted smaller hands that were far more used to holding a pen, a pencil, or a brush—the girl was a precocious artist.

Okay, let it fly, Karen told Becca.

The ball went up in a high arc... and landed on top of the spaniel, who leapt to his feet, attacking the ball like it was a pheasant he’d been bred to flush and fetch. That he was gun-shy, hence his ironic name, had almost led to his execution.

Em grabbed the ball and shook her head at Becca. Boy, you’re bad.

Give the girl a break, Em. She’s never played ball like you have.

Unlike Becca, Em had athletic siblings, cousins, uncles, aunts, and a real hoop with a backboard at the Bolvin Farm outside Reunion.

And it’s supposed to be fun, Marek rumbled.

Karen shared a look and a memory with Marek. One of the very few times that they’d shared any time together growing up, despite living across the street from each other, had been on this same cracked concrete, playing the same game of HORSE. It had been a short game. Not just because she was an ace shot and he wasn’t, but because her father had pulled up in his cruiser.

If he could have, Arne Okerlund would have arrested Marek, his much younger half-brother and Karen’s junior by four years, for trespassing. But Karen’s mother had brought out some lemonade and given her husband a rare and very pointed glare. So her father had kept his mouth shut and his cuffs on his belt. But Marek had fled without waiting for the lemonade and somehow managed not to trip over his puppyishly large feet as he made it up the steps of 21 Okerlund Road and into safety.

Don’t borrow trouble.

Those had been her father’s only words to her after the door slammed closed hard enough to make the screen door hum. But those words held so much history, so much resentment, and complicated relationships that neither Karen nor Marek had connected again in any meaningful way.

At least not until a widowed Marek had returned to Reunion with his traumatized daughter in tow after a couple decades of absence. In the Arne Okerlund playbook, Mareks—the family of Marek’s mother—played one, and only one, role in the game of life: trouble.

Gapped teeth biting her exertion-reddened lower lip, the pint-sized Em let the ball fly. All net.

Marek gave her a smile. Looks like we’ve got a budding point guard.

As she stared at her friend and her father, Becca’s dark brows beetled over her startling Okerlund eyes. She slapped the ball out of Em’s hands and with a fluid, unconscious grace, let the ball fly. All net.

Karen blinked. Lucky shot or more? She would hope for more. Because that was one sweet shot. Okay, and a forward, most likely... unless she grows to post height.

Becca’s budding grin faltered as she looked over at a fence protecting the abandoned orchard where Karen’s grandmother had lost her life while reaching for an apple. And that was how the widowed Leif Okerlund had married a woman half his age and earned the lifelong wrath of his eldest son.

Karen tucked her tongue in her cheek so as not to laugh. No, not a fence post. It’s a basketball position. Post. Center. The tallest, strongest girl on the team.

Oh.

Em hit the next shot. Becca echoed it. And the battle was on.

Karen whistled as the girls got stuck on the last letter. All the shots were close to the basket, of course, but still. Looks like your daughter’s got the competitive streak after all.

Marek shrugged. Maybe. Or just wants to please. Or have fun. She won’t play like you did. It’s not her passion. But she’ll be more...

Well-rounded? Karen recovered the ball as Becca missed the arced shot that Em had made from the big oil stain that had been there forever.

That ended the game. Em did a victory lap around the driveway while Gunny woofed from the jungle until Becca glared at him. Karen let her hands spin the ball. She’d done other things, played other sports, but basketball had always been it for her.

She’d had to stop playing competitively once her college career was done. Becca could do her art all her life. Maybe Becca was the winner here. Still, she had talent, potential, and in the right hands, that could be something more. She weighed the ball from hand to hand.

They’re only eight, Marek said with a faint smile that banished the Byzantine saint. Let them be kids before you start buying tickets to their WNBA games.

She huffed. I wasn’t thinking WNBA.

One dark brow that hinted red in the sun quirked. No?

No. She let the ball fly. All net. March Madness will do.

It’s all madness. He retrieved the ball—and dunked it.

Karen wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised. She’d tried to dunk that long-ago day, before her father had arrived, and hadn’t quite managed it. Maybe somewhere deep in that gentle giant beat a competitive heart.

That meant she’d just gotten her first letter in that old game. Where had they left off? He’d been at S, if she recalled correctly. Make him miss one more shot, and she’d win. Karen backed up to the three-point line she’d marked with red paint decades ago. The line was nearly invisible now, except to her. Care to finish that game?

Marek’s hands slipped into his jeans pockets. Nope. I’ll take the dunk as the final word.

Come on. Just for fun.

I did it, Becca piped up. Even if I lost.

Failure. A hard lesson to learn. One Karen had sucked at.

Whether Marek would have finished the game, Karen would never know. A white work van roared up and screeched to a stop. Blinking, she watched DCI Agent Dirk Larson—her significant other on hold—emerge with his seventeen-year-old daughter, Madison. The sunny sky was dimmed by the intensity of their identical storm-cloud faces.

What was up? Larson had cut off work in Sioux Falls early to come to Maddie’s Amateur Athletic Union basketball game against the premier state team. Karen knew just how important this game was for Maddie’s future. Karen was planning to go, to lend her support, not just for Maddie but the other girls on the team too.

Karen pursed her lips. Trouble?

In typical bullet-style fashion, Larson bit out, Ex. Asshole. Quit.

CHAPTER 2

Karen had only seen Larson this upset once before, when Maddie had first arrived from Chicago back in May and gone missing along with several other girls. That situation, thankfully, had a happy ending, but it had been a close call.

The girl was resilient, though. An athletic five-ten and one-hundred-thirty pounds, Maddie was saved from mere prettiness by her father’s stubborn chin, which was, like his, clenched tight. She would fit in well here, blond and blue-eyed, as many Scandinavians were, and some Germans, but not so much the Slavs. It all got mixed up anyway, and nowadays, even more exotic blends, like Becca’s Hispanic-Native, had been added to all of the above.

Translation? Karen asked Maddie since Larson’s jaw had stuck closed in the locked position. They would be lucky to get anything else out of him even with a jackhammer.

Wearing a sky-blue jersey emblazoned with a white 21 and the rest peppered with sponsor logos from regional businesses, Madison Larson wrapped her arms around herself, despite the heat of the day. Mom’s here. With Asshole Ashton.

The ball dribbled out of Karen’s hands. She reached out, gripping the girl’s knotted shoulders. No more summer fun. If Brian Ashton so much as air-touches you, Maddie, I’ll arrest him on the spot. He’ll never see the light of day again. I swear.

You don’t understand. Maddie’s lower lip trembled. It’s worse than that, than anything he’s done to me before.

What was worse than attempted rape? Tell me.

The teenager barely got it out, her voice gone thin. Ashton’s guest-coaching Achieve.

Her mind still full of possible crimes, not AAU teams, Karen let her hands fall to her sides. Achieve was the elite bistate AAU team from the Dakotas. It starred the consensus top national player of her class, six-six Skylar Swenson of Sioux Falls, who had a list of college offers that looked like the roll call of past national basketball champions. Maddie had once had a fairly impressive list herself, starting with her freshman year in high school. As a junior back in January, she’d committed to DePaul in Chicago, where she’d lived with her mother and brother.

But that had all ended when Brian Ashton, an assistant coach at DePaul and her mother’s new husband, had tried to turn a one-on-one instruction into a sexual assault. Unfortunately for Maddie, her mother had sided with her new husband rather than her daughter, and the accusation had turned back on the girl.

The DePaul administration had called it a domestic matter and didn’t bother to investigate. Decommitting as Maddie had, so abruptly and by a hurried text, had made other teams more gun-shy than Gunny. Scholarship offers abruptly dried up, leaving Maddie with few options other than a few walk-on offers from lower divisions. Though she still had her senior year in high school, most commitments had already been made to Division 1 schools, which was where her talents should have placed her.

Today’s game at Reunion High School had been designed to showcase the talents of the regional club team that Karen’s old high school coach, Rolly Fisk, had put together since retiring after recent budget cuts. There were some real overlooked gems on the team, and when she was able, Karen had put in some time mentoring them. Between Coach Fisk and herself and their connections throughout the state and beyond, they’d been able to pull in a few scouts and coaches to watch today’s game before the national AAU showcase tournament that weekend in Sioux Falls.

For Asshole Ashton to crash this last chance for Maddie was, indeed, worse. It was the assault not of a body, but of a dream. A dream Karen had lived—up until the last shot that had lost her and the University of South Dakota the national championship, back when the school had been a regular Division 2 powerhouse.

Marek cleared his throat. He stood on the edge of the jungle with hands on the shoulders of the young girls, who looked a bit frightened and bewildered at the tension and the tears welling in Maddie’s eyes. Sorry if I’m dense, but if Ashton’s coaching Achieve, why is he a problem, other than the awkwardness?

Larson unlocked his jaw and managed to get out, Threatened her.

Karen placed her body between Maddie and the younger girls, lowering her voice. How? Were there witnesses?

The girl’s hands, wide at the palms, fisted. It wasn’t a threat. It was an ambush. Him and Mom. They told me all would be forgiven if I just recommitted to DePaul and retracted my accusations. And if I didn’t, I was finished. Everywhere.

Threat, Larson repeated.

Agreed. And it made Karen’s stomach roil—and her hands, longer and narrower than Maddie’s, fist. Witnesses? Karen pressed.

Maddie’s face fell. I don’t think so. I mean, I was just about to go into the gym with the others, to warm up, and Mom pops up, pulls me outside. I was too stunned to stop her. And for a second, I thought...

That her mother had left Ashton to side with Maddie. Karen glanced over at Larson, saw the flash in his bullet eyes, and knew that if Leona Ashton had been there, she’d be dead. Most likely. Well, perhaps Marek, who’d retrieved the ball and was losing a game of HORSE to the girls, might have been able to stop him.

But she wouldn’t put money on it. But if Karen joined in with Larson? Dead, dead, dead. Karen had never met the woman, but she’d heard enough to know Leona was a self-absorbed bitch. But this was just cruel. They’d all thought the Ashtons were in the past—and good riddance.

When’s the game? Marek asked as he retrieved the ball after it boinged off the hoop.

Half an hour, Larson got out. She won’t go.

I can’t play. Maddie settled into a defensive stance. "Not with him there."

Now Karen knew why Larson had brought Maddie here, to her. Not to go arrest Asshole Ashton, as much as Karen wished she could, but to get Maddie back in the game. Talk about pressure. She took a deep breath, centered herself, and readied her shot.

Maddie, you’re in a buzzer beater here. It’s your last chance. A bit of hyperbole but not by much.

Maddie gave a fierce shake of her head, throwing her flyaway hair to the wind. It’s not about basketball.

The ball boinged again, and Karen snagged it as it whizzed by. She launched a chest pass, which Maddie caught just before it hit her between the eyes. "Yes, it is about basketball, Madison Larson. You’ve worked hard this summer, every day, every evening, pumping iron, shooting free throws into the night, traveling whenever and wherever, perfecting your game. You worked for this chance. And you’re going to take it."

When Karen saw nothing but stubborn misery, she tried a new angle. It’s not just about you, Maddie. You’re part of a team. Are you going to let them down? She rattled off every name, every single one, because they were Maddie’s sisters in a way that those not part of a team would never truly understand. Military, sports teams, they had a lot of parallels. They had your back, you had theirs, and you went through heartache, injury, and sometimes worse. Together.

Coach Fisk drew up a game plan that depends on you. Karen crowded the girl, who didn’t back down but was off balance, her stubborn chin tucked. Are you going to let the asshole win?

That fired up the red-rimmed eyes.

Karen pressed her point with one long finger to the girl’s shoulder. You don’t give him the win, you give him hell. The best revenge is taking it to Achieve. Let him see what he’s losing. What he’ll never have. You. Because you’re a baller, Madison Larson. And you deserve your shot. While he deserves a kick in the ball— She bit that off as her gaze fell on two little girls with wide eyes. Butt.

Maddie stared fixedly at Karen, her face as still and as inscrutable as her father’s, then she threw up a no-look shot, a long arc, before heading back to the car at a sprint.

All net.

CHAPTER 3

Shifting on his worn but retreaded Blunnies, Marek Okerlund waited outside the girls’ bathroom at Reunion High. From across the hall, a woman in a floaty floral top and crisp white capris emerged from the visitors’ locker room and propped open the dinged door.

As she turned and saw him, her lips pursed. You need to fix the air conditioning. The heat’s terrible for the girls. Dehydration is no joke. She paused when he just stared at her. Can we get some bottled water in here, at least?

Did she mistake him for the janitor, perhaps? He looked down at himself—his varnish-stained T-shirt and worn jeans and the tape measure clipped on his belt. He’d been in the midst of working on a wine cabinet; his part-time carpentry filled in for when he wasn’t needed as a part-time detective. So maybe she had reason for thinking he was the maintenance man.

Marek was about to tell her that the water fountains worked just fine, but he decided that wouldn’t be received well. The woman, a willowy five-eight, had suburban mom written all over her.

There’s a grocery store on Main. The new co-op was doing surprisingly well, much to the surprise of the many naysayers. Of course, the store wasn’t actually called a co-op. That sounded too... well, cooperative. Even if Dakotans had a long history of being cooperative, from helping each other during harvest to putting out prairie fires. I don’t know that they carry bottled water. But it’s your best bet outside of the Casey’s on the interstate.

She looked up at him, judged his height, and appeared to reassess his role. Are you the father of one of the players of...what was it? The Hoopsters?

HoopHers. Marek heard a giggle from inside the locker room. And not as yet, no.

Oh? After a glance at his bare ring finger, she sounded bright, too bright, and as if he weren’t too bright. He got that a lot. Well, if you have a daughter, she should have some height, at least. You’ve got to start somewhere, and as my husband says, you can’t teach tall. She turned and swept away down the hall, perhaps to find bottled water, perhaps to find someone who would do it for her. Or perhaps to buy a refrigeration unit.

The voices of girls floated out from the locker room.

HoopHers? A high-pitched nasally voice cut through the stale air. What a lame name. Like, is the boys’ team HoopHis?

After a second of silence came a titter, slightly guilty, even nervous, like a girl trying to make sure she was in the in crowd. It’s like... Whoopers.

More suggestions followed. Bloopers. Oopsers. Poopers.

The grating nasally voice returned. "Nah, the word you’re looking for is... losers. That’s what they are. Or will be, soon. And did you hear? They don’t even have any real sponsors. Not any with serious cash. Some lame old retired guy is their coach. And a bunch of loser players. Rejects. Like Dill. Get this—they had to do a gazillion car washes and sell popcorn and stuff. They’re losers. Period. I don’t know why we’re even here. It’s a waste of time. We could’ve been practicing against real teams at the Pentagon."

Marek hadn’t had much stake in the game today other than wanting Maddie to do well enough to get a chance to catch the eye of a scout or coach and play at the next level, but it was starting to become personal. He hoped HoopHers destroyed Achieve.

Raised voices down the hall had Marek turning his head as three men in intense—and what looked to be heated—conversation turned the corner. They were all in their late thirties to early forties, he guessed. About his own age. One was a towering man with features that screamed Nordic and a floral camp shirt that barely covered his beer belly. The wiry man next to him had perfectly cut fair hair on a head that barely skimmed the other’s shoulder. Yuppie used to be the term for that sort. He wore a pink polo shirt over loose knee-length khaki shorts. The last man, who had dark hair, ranged in height and fitness between the others. He wore a scowl over a T-shirt with a pink shoe with rockets on the heels with Achieve Liftoff printed below. So, Nordic, Yuppie, and Shoe Guy. The Three Stooges of sport.

If they were colleagues, they weren’t happy ones. The rumble of voices from the gym drowned out whatever the men were saying to each other. Marek turned away as the restroom door opened and a giggling horde of girls rushed out. He took a good look at them as they passed.

Get lost, pervert.

Turning, Marek saw Yuppie had come down the hall alone. This wasn’t the first time Marek had been taken for a perv for hanging around, looking at little girls. Marek tugged his cap from his back pocket and put it on. The man flicked his gaze up, stilled at the word DETECTIVE embroidered above the Eda County Sheriff’s Office shield, then blew air through his perfectly aligned and very white teeth. What incompetent idiot did you snag that off of?

Without waiting for an answer, Yuppie strode into the locker room and started barking orders. So that must be Asshole Ashton. Marek edged closer to the locker-room door.

Okay, listen up, Ashton snapped. "We’re here as a tune-up to the big show. The bumfucks we’re playing have a few gems, so don’t dismiss them, or I’ll bench you. You will win. Nothing else is acceptable. Now, after reviewing film, I have the starters for this game. Play well, and you’ll also start at the tournament. Otherwise..."

Absolute silence followed the implied threat.

Skylar Swenson at the post.

Wow, big surprise, a low voice murmured, then Marek heard a grunt, as if the speaker had been elbowed.

Ella Ulcek and Haley Husby at forward.

Hand slaps greeted that, underlain by a few hisses.

Payton Watkins and Kayla Lindquist at guard.

Absolute, complete silence followed. Then the nasally voice, pitched into the screech registers that made Marek’s ears cringe, broke it. You mean Lindy Kaiser, not Kayla Lindquist. I’m the starter.

Ashton said, Yeah, you can start—

Told you so, Lindy hissed, apparently to the unlucky Kayla.

—as water girl.

What! Shoes squeaked as Lindy must have launched to her feet. Lindquist is ham-handed, and Watkins is a freeloader.

The pregnant pause made Marek think perhaps the girl realized she’d gone too far.

I’m the best you’ve got, Lindy continued. You’re not going to get in my way of a D1 offer just because you think you’re some bigshot coach when you’re just an assistant. My father pays good money to—

Be part of the team, Ashton drawled. A pay-to-play position, that’s all. You’d never be on any team I had a part in assembling. You’re slow, you’re only a twenty-three-percent shooter, and you’re even worse in assists. Your team’s been winning in spite of you, not because of you. You’ll never make any D1 team, much less D-Free.

Marek had to think for a second. Division 1 was obvious, the highest division in college basketball, but D-Free took a bit longer. Scholarship offer. Free schooling.

That’s a lie, Lindy hissed. I’m good enough.

Marek heard not just denial but true fear in the girl’s voice. No matter Lindy’s snarky take on HoopHers, being eviscerated like that in front of her teammates had to sting. Not that she didn’t deserve some of the same after lashing out at her own teammates. Ham-handed, he knew all about, but freeloader? Expenses paid for by the team, perhaps? Interestingly, Ashton hadn’t listed slicing and dicing her teammates among Lindy’s sins. Perhaps that was irrelevant to him.

But that kind of behavior had meant immediate benching, if not expulsion, for any player under Marek’s football coach back in high school. He’d been a hard-nosed taskmaster who believed in sportsmanship and expected the same of his players. Team meant all, win or lose. You never ever dissed your teammates.

The restroom door finally opened again, and two girls dashed out. Becca and Em. About time. He caught their hands and raised his voice as he walked by the locker room. Let’s go snag a seat and watch HoopHers destroy Achieve.

Ashton’s voice barked out from the locker room, Over my dead body!

CHAPTER 4

Standing outside the HoopHers locker room with Larson, Karen felt the years melt away as Coach Rolly Fisk gave his pregame pep talk. She could just picture the girls fidgeting on the long bench in the locker room, tugging on their uniforms and their hair, bouncing a ball from hand to hand, making faces at each other, or rolling their eyes as the coach gave his habitual spiel.

Fisk’s foghorn voice rolled out into the hallway, where the air smelled of years of sweated-out hopes and fears.

"We want to win; who doesn’t? And you can do it. But that’s not the point. The point, girls, is the game. The point is to have fun, to enjoy the moment, the culmination of all you’ve worked for. No nerves. No pressure. Nothing but the game. That’s all it is—a game. And the game is all while you’re on the court. Respect the game, yourself, and your opponents. Go out and give it your best shot, and I’ll do the same."

As if released from a shaken pop can, the girls rushed out in a fizzy froth of limbs and giggles. Maddie lingered to talk to her father while Coach Fisk lumbered out, his worn ball cap askew, his clipboard full of scribbles only he could decipher, and his brow deeply furrowed. He nearly ran right over Karen.

She stopped him by putting her hands out. Coach.

What? Oh. Sorry. His faraway look—the one that said he was deep in some labyrinthine maze of strategy—faded. Good catch. You saved our asses, Okerlund.

Mehaffey. He tended to forget that when in game mode. Then she blinked at him. What?

He nodded toward Maddie, who disappeared into the gym with her father’s arm around her. Getting her back in the game. She’s our lynchpin. Like you were.