Page 71 of Thin Ice

"No."

He started at the top, cleaning the cut above my left temple and closing it with adhesive strips, no sutures. "It'll hide under the hair," he said. And under a helmet. I hated how fast the thought came to me.

My ribs took longer. It was the right side, where the car had clipped me. He pressed along each one, watching my face.

"Breathe in. All the way."

I did. It hurt.

"Again."

I did it again, and this time I tried to hold a neutral expression. He looked up over the reading glasses as if he'd seen that trick before.

"Deep contusion. Maybe a crack in the eighth, but nothing's moving. It'll hurt to breathe hard for at least two weeks."

"But it will hold?" I asked. "Contact's fine. It's stable."

He stopped and then wrote something down.

He'd told me what happened to the ribs, and I answered with what I could still do. I'd been doing that since I was twelve.

He checked the hip last, moving the joint through its miserable little range.

"It's old damage, and I don't think there's anything new. You were lucky. You landed on the good side."

Lucky. A car hit me, nearly broke ribs and tore open my head.

He packed up his kit. At the door, he gave Elias instructions—periodic applications of ice and watching my pupils overnight. Then he was gone, and Elias turned the deadbolt behind him.

Elias told me the plan for the day.

"No police," he said. "The league's counsel made that call at seven this morning, and Mac agreed with it. A police report would mean a public record. That record means at least one beat writer with a courthouse source, and by noon the story is Mercer Attacked before Game Seven, and every camera in North America will be pointed at you." He stood at the counter. "I don't like it, but I agreed to it anyway."

"Doyle?"

"Doyle knows you had a security scare, and that I moved you. He doesn't know where, and he didn't ask. That's professional security behavior. The team brass knows you're resting off-site. Your coach was told you'll be at the rink tomorrow at the normal time." A beat. "You will be. Barring anything unusual, that part isn't negotiable from their end or yours."

"The car?"

"Gone. Michael's running traffic cameras on every road out of the park, and mud obscured the plate in the two frames we have. The driver isn't searchable yet." His tone was flat. "He was a face that looked like nobody, and that's a professional feature, not an accident."

Elias explained that we were in a safe house leased through a shell. The doctor worked off the books. I sat at the table and sorted it in my head. A man had tried to kill me before six a.m., and I was absorbing it like Boston's forecheck.

My phone buzzed on the table.

Brick: Maddie informed me that if we lose she's transferring her loyalty to a team that respects her time. She's fifteen going on forty-eight. God help us.

He didn't know what happened. He was sitting in Webster Groves with his wife, a crossword puzzle, and his daughter, thinking my morning was as ordinary as his.

I typed tell her I'd do the same and deleted it. It sounded like a man performing being fine, and Brick would smell it through the phone.

Nolan: She's a good kid.

***

A duffel arrived at one o'clock. Elias took it at the door from a man I didn't see and carried it into the bedroom I'd been assigned.

It was my game-day suit, folded carefully. The duffel also contained my tablet and toilet kit. Elias's anonymous courier also brought the most important items: the roller, lacrosse ball, percussion gun, heating pad, and pill bottles.