Changing the Rules (Richter Book 1)(51)
Sasha was smiling. “And how was that?”
Claire curled up in the front seat. “Freaking amazing.”
They pulled down the street that Claire needed to become more familiar with, very quickly. “What about Neil? What does he think?”
Sasha shook her head. “Neil is a man. And protective about you.”
“He’s not happy.”
Sasha shrugged. “Let me know if Cooper is bruised tomorrow and I’ll talk to him.”
Claire lost her smile. “You don’t really think he’d do—”
“I’ve brought him off a ledge more than once these past years. The man loves you as his own, even if he never says it.”
That had unexpected tears filling the back of her eyes.
Gwen had told Claire that more than once, but to hear it from Sasha made it more real.
“Thanks, Sasha. We don’t do this enough,” Claire said.
“It appears that is about to change.” Sasha turned the corner. Neither of them looked directly at the car that had a man watching in the shadows, but both of them saw it.
Sasha signaled a garage door opener with her phone.
“Burst out of the car and yell at me and slam the door into the house. Make sure he sees you but don’t give him a target.”
Claire smiled. “Showtime.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Leo Eastman lived in a gated apartment complex. Or at least, the man posing as Leo Eastman lived there. Lars followed Eastman until he pulled into the employee parking lot at the school. And Cooper took charge of planting a tracer on Eastman’s car.
While Claire experienced her first day back in homeroom, the apartment above Eastman’s experienced an unexpected odor that required a team to identify and fix the issue. By the time Claire was delivering her revised report on Macbeth, Eastman couldn’t so much as burp in his apartment without someone at headquarters hearing or seeing it.
With a renewed desire to see the case find some resolution, Claire systematically spent time in the principal’s and vice principal’s offices, and Coach Bennett’s classroom, long enough to plant an audio device in each of them.
By track practice, Claire was linked in and listening to clips of conversations.
Her first glimpse of Cooper was on the field. It took colossal effort to avoid searching him out and looking at him. But in doing so, she found a rhythm in watching everyone else.
The sprinters, which she was technically a part of, stayed together. They stretched together, ran together, and gossiped together. As age and grade tended to be a hierarchy, and only permeated by a younger student if their skills stood out, it was easy to identify the students like Marie Nickerson.
She texted Cooper from across the field, didn’t look his way. Find a way to make me run with the distance runners today.
He didn’t text back, but she could tell the message had been received.
Without shifting her routine, she joined the three girls she ran the relay with and started her warm-up stretches. The girls were talking about prom dresses and hairstyles. Considering Claire hadn’t had a senior prom, she found herself wrapped up in their excitement, even though the prom was over two months away.
They moved from stretching to warm-up laps, and the conversation never stopped. “What about you, Claire? Anyone ask you yet?”
“Why does the guy have to ask?” she responded.
“Right? That’s what I’ve been saying.”
And so the conversation circled.
When they stopped to catch their breath, and the team started to segregate, Claire found herself face-to-face with Cooper for the first time since he reminded her what it felt like to be kissed. Thankfully she was flush from the run, and any blush while looking at him wouldn’t look out of place.
She found herself squinting to see if there was in fact any bruising on the man.
Coach Bennett clasped his hands, Cooper at his side.
Bennett huddled them up. Most of them sat in the grass, stretching. “We’re going to run full relays today. I want to see clean starts and smooth passes. The invitational is a week from Saturday, our first competition of the season. This will set the pace for the year. We have some strong teams. Solid teams. Chelsea, I want you taking Claire’s place as anchor today.”
A hush went over the group. Chelsea wasn’t on their normal relay.
“Why?” Claire asked, speaking out.
Coach Bennett stared her down, his lips a thin line. “Because she needs to practice in case your English grade doesn’t pull up and you let your teammates down.”
Claire dropped her shoulders and looked at her team. “What do you want me to do, then?” she asked.
He pointed across the field. “Distance runners are doing a five-mile loop.”
Several sprinters groaned.
“That sucks,” one of the guys muttered. Sprinters hated distance runs.
One of the girls mouthed the word sorry.
Claire stood and dusted off her shorts. “No, it’s fair,” she said to them. She turned to Chelsea. “You totally got this.” She extended her hand and fist-bumped the other girl.
“I can help you in English,” Leah offered.
Bennett and Cooper exchanged smiles. “That’s the kind of teamwork I like to see.”
Claire took a few steps.