Fluorescent lights automatically switched on as Dane and Austen entered the locker room. Without the boys or the trainers or equipment guys milling about, the locker room was filled with a grand silence. The only sound was a softswishon the low-pile carpet as they walked.
“Wow,” Austen muttered as she looked all around the huge, crescent-shaped room. The players’ benches and stalls were made from a golden wood that shone in the bright light. Every athlete’s gear was neatly stacked in his stall, his jersey hanging, ready for tomorrow’s game. “It feels soimportantin here.”
“Heh. Yeah, I guess it does.” Dane liked to observe people when they saw the room for the first time, to see it from their eyes. It reminded him how lucky he was to have made it here.
She pointed across the room, at the stall that was walled off behind a layer of glass.
“What’s with that?” she asked.
“Lemme show you.”
He took her to the stall. He didn’t need to tell her which player the stall belonged to. Once she saw the bouquet of roses, now long dried, he could tell that she knew.
“Campbell’s,” she said somberly.
“Yep. Soupy’s stall. Exactly the way he left it after his last game with us.”
She frowned at the fallen player’s ratty, sweat-stained gear preserved behind the glass. “That’s heartbreaking.”
“Management keeps trying to order the equipment guys to tear it down and clear his stuff out. I’ve had to fight them tooth and nail to keep it in here.”
“I’m surprised they even let you keep it.”
“The equipment guys are on our side. They loved Soupy, too. As long as we put up a stink, they won’t do it.”
“What was Soupy like?”
“Great guy. Greatfuckin’ guy. Hathaway was our captain and our best player, but Soupy was like our captainoffthe ice. He taught us everything about the pro lifestyle—how to dress, how to manage the money, how to get women, you name it.”
“Ah, so Soupy was the original womanizer of the Dallas Devils?” she asked with a smirk.
“Oh, you should’ve seen him in action. He was a total man-rocket. All that handsome bastard had to do was winkat a girl and her panties turned to mush.”
“Ew, Dane! You can be so vulgar sometimes …”
“Sorry, I’m not trying to be gross. That really was how it worked for him, though. He oozed charm.” Dane paused. “He wasn’t perfect, of course. He loved to party—hewasthe party—and yeah, he loved to drink. Probably more than he should’ve.”
“He drove drunk that night,” Austen said somberly.
“Yup.” He peered into the glass and shook his head. “I love the guy. But I can’t tell you how much I hate him for doing that.”
“Did he drive drunk a lot?”
“No. Never. See, that’s the thing that doesn’t make any sense. The night it happened,we were at Hath’s that night—because it was our tradition to get wasted as a team at the captain’s house after the series was over. So Hath gathered up everyone’s car keys to makesureno one could drive home—that was a tradition, too. To prevent something like that from happening. If you needed to go home, you called a car. Hell, we had a fleet of cars reserved for the night.”
“Hm.” Austen tapped her chin. “So how’d he get his car keys?”
“No one knows. No even saw Soupy leave. He was with us one moment, then he was gone. Hopped into his car and drove off, drunk off his ass. Never even said bye, which is not like him at all. Half the team was passed out at 4:00 AM when we got the call that he was gone.” He shook his head. “That was a fucked-up night.”
“I can’t even imagine.”
She spotted the stall next to Campbell’s, which was completely empty, save for the player’s nameplate.
“Hathaway’s locker,” she said, stepping in front of it. “But all his gear is gone.”
“And that’s the way he left his. While the rest of us were at Soupy’s funeral, he came up here and cleaned his locker out. Then he took off, never to be seen again.”
“That’s so strange. What was he like?”
