Free The Recruiter (A Thriller) by Dani Amore

cascades form his forehead, drenches his T-shirt.
    Finally, the stern-faced girl with the black hair walks toward the TV and changes the channel.
    Samuel forces a big grin on his face and waves her over.
    She approaches.
    Samuel points at the readout.
    “My PR.”
    She looks at him, a blank expression.
    “Personal Record.” It isn’t. It isn’t even close. Pretty pathetic, in fact, if you look at the distance and calories burned. But she won’t notice.
    “Uh-huh,” she said. Uncertainty in her voice.
    “I’ve gone twenty-five miles in less than an hour. See?” He points to the readout but she’s already moving away. Not good enough. She has to see, and later if necessary, she must swear that she saw the clock read forty-five minutes.
    “Look.” His voice is more cutting than he intended. But she stops. He waves her back and she comes. Leans over him and looks closely at the clock.
    “That’s…great,” she says. “Really great.”
    “It’s an important accomplishment for me,” he says. He hops off the bike and follows her to the desk.
    A siren sounds not too far away.
    She takes her seat behind the desk, and Samuel finds his name on the exercise bike sheet. He fills in the time.
    Clearly. And legibly.
    He sticks his hand out.
    “What a great workout. My name’s Samuel, by the way.”
    She shakes hands. “That’s why we’re here,” she says. “Great workouts.”
    Samuel wipes his face with the towel.
    “I feel great.”

Twenty-Six
    With the aid of crutches and her latest installment of painkillers, Beth makes her way from the driveway to the house. It’s a cold, gray day with heavy mist in the air.
    Beth looks at the house, a squat brick structure devoid of any charm. No flowers. No tidy shrubbery. Just brown grass and a cement porch with a black wrought iron gate.
    Anna drove the rusted-out Pontiac Sunbird home from the hospital. The trip was nerve-wracking for Beth, not only because her mother is a terrible driver, but she is also drunk. Normally, she will do anything to avoid riding in a car with her mother, but her only hope, Peter, was nowhere to be found.
    Her mother fumbles with the keys, and Beth takes them gently from her hand, unlocks the door, and steps inside. She looks at the keys in her hand. A cheap piece of plastic with the figures of black men dancing and the word Jamaica on it.
    It’s a small house. Just an eat-in kitchen, a small living room, and a bedroom downstairs. One small bedroom upstairs.
    The smell of dust combined with old food is nearly overpowering after the sterile atmosphere of the hospital.
    “I’m going to my room,” Beth says.
    “Do you need anything?” her mother asks. The words slurring to sound like: d’ya nee ’sing?
    Beth doesn’t bother answering; instead, she walks up the stairs to her room with difficulty, a few awkward moments that send shafts of pain deep into her knee.
    Beth bangs open the door to her bedroom, makes her way to the bed, and sits down. Her room hasn’t changed from the way she left it Friday night before the game. It’s neat. No clothes on the floor.
    But it seems different.
    A single bed with a white comforter with pink flowers on it, a worn throw rug, a dresser and night table. A small boom box on top of the dresser, a few CDs next to it. A reading lamp and a book on the night table. There’s a bookshelf with a few pictures of her teammates. One of her mom and dad. Another of her as a young girl with a ring of flowers around her head.
    On the walls are pictures of basketball players. Nothing like the posters they sell at Nike shoe stores, though. These are action photos from Sports Illustrated . Gritty, real-life stuff. Beth closes her eyes to their images. She can see them in her mind’s eye. She’s looked at them for so long, they’re burned onto the hard drive of her dreams.
    She wants to lie down and sleep, but she can’t.
    It’s all gone, she thinks, looking at the athletes in the pictures. Basketball was her way