Different students.
Different injuries.
Same explanation.
The student had failed to tap.
The student had trained recklessly.
The student had refused instruction.
My hands went cold.
Anthony leaned against the doorframe.
“I knew it.”
Mark snapped toward him.
“Knew what?”
Anthony pointed at the files.
“That’s why people disappear.”
I thought about everyone who had stopped coming.
Emily, who injured her shoulder.
Ben, whose nose had been broken during a “hard round.”
A teenager named Lucas whose father had come into the gym screaming after his son suffered a concussion.
I had assumed they quit.
Everyone did.
Cole opened another folder.
Then stopped.
“What?”
I asked.
He pulled out a photograph.
Not a training photograph.
A medical photograph.
A young man lay in a hospital bed wearing a cervical brace.
The name on the folder was MICHAEL REEVES.
Anthony swore under his breath.
“Mike.”
“Who’s Mike?” Cole asked.
Derek moved suddenly.
Too suddenly.
He reached for the folder.
Cole stepped between them.
“Give me that.”
“No.”
“That’s private gym property.”
“It looks like evidence.”
Derek’s face hardened.
“Evidence of what?”
A woman behind us answered.
“Of what you did to
my husband.”
Everyone turned.
Melissa stood in the hallway.
Her face had gone completely white.
I had never seen her look afraid before.
“Melissa?” I whispered.
She stared at the photograph.
“Mike Reeves was my husband.”
The air disappeared from the room.
Derek said nothing.
Melissa stepped closer.
“He trained here before I did.”
Anthony looked stunned.
“You never told us.”
“I didn’t know.”
Her voice cracked.
“He told me he got injured during a competition.”
She looked at Mark.
“He said it happened in Sacramento.”
Mark backed against the desk.
Melissa’s breathing quickened.
“He spent six months in physical therapy. He still can’t turn his head all the way.”
She looked at Derek.
“You did that?”
Derek scoffed.
“He came after me hard.”
Melissa’s face collapsed.
“So it was here.”
Nobody moved.
She covered her mouth.
“My husband lied to me for three years because he was embarrassed.”
rolled his eyes.
