Read Play Dead for Free Online

Then cheering. Finally awestruck. When she turned around and gave the man behind her a 'high five,' she had officially been converted. The basketball game reminded her of the first time she had been to the New York Ballet at Lincoln Center as a wide-eyed five-year-old girl. There was a similar artistry to the basketball players' movements, like a complicated, well-choreographed dance interrupted by unpredictable obstacles that only made the spectacle all the more fantastic to the eye.
    And David was the principal dancer.
    She immediately understood the sweeping praise. David was poetry in motion, diving, leaping, swooping, spinning, twisting, chasing, ducking, pirouetting. There was a tenacious, aggressive gracefulness to his movements. One moment he was the cool floor leader, the next a daredevil trying the impossible like some comic-book hero. He would drive toward the basket only to have a man cut him off and then, like a true artist, he created, often in mid-air. When he shot, his eyes would focus on the rim with a concentration so strong she was sure the backboard would shatter. He had a sixth sense on the court, never looking where he passed, never glancing at the ball on his fingertips. When he dribbled, it was like the ball was part of him, just an extension of his arm that had been there since birth.
    And then the finale.
    Scant seconds remained, the outcome very much in doubt. The beloved boys from Beantown were down by one point. A man wearing the familiar Celtics green and white passed the ball to David. Two men from the enemy camp covered him like a blanket. One second remained. David turned and launched his unique, high-arching, fade-away jumpshot. The shot lofted the orange sphere impossibly high, heading for its target from an impossible angle. The crowd stood in unison. Laura's pulse raced as she watched the ball begin its descent, the game and hearts of the crowd riding on its slow movement toward the basket. A buzzer sounded. The ball gently kissed the top of the glass backboard, and then the bottom of the net danced as the ball went through for two points. The crowd screamed. Laura screamed.
    The Celtics had won another game.
    'Telephone is ringing, Mrs Baskin,' the Australian accent said.
    'Thank you.'
    Laura rolled over on her stomach, the phone gripped tightly in her hand. She wondered if it had been during that fade-away jumpshot that she first had begun to fall in love with David. She heard a click and the ring that originated in Boston traveled halfway around the planet to the small town of Palm's Cove.
    On the third ring, the receiver on the other end was lifted. A voice came through the static-filled wire.
    'Hello?'
    'T.C.?'
    'Laura? Is that you? How's the honeymoon?'
    'Listen, T.C., I need to talk to you.'
    'What's up?'
    She quickly recounted the past day's events. T.C. listened without interrupting and, like Laura knew he would, he immediately took control.
    'Have you called the local police?' T.C. asked her.
    'Yes.'
    'Good. I'll catch the next plane out of here. Captain said I'm due for a vacation anyhow.'
    'Thanks, T.C.'
    'One more thing: stress to the police the importance of keeping this quiet. The last thing you need is a plane-load of reporters pounding on your door.'
    'Okay.'
    'Laura?'
    'Yes?'
    He heard the strain in her voice. 'He'll be all right.'
    She hesitated, almost afraid to speak her mind. 'I'm not so sure. Suppose he has one of his . . .' The words stayed in her throat, the thought too unpleasant to be spoken. But T.C. was one of the few people David trusted. He would understand what she was talking about.
    'T.C. is my closest friend,' David had said to her last year. 'I know he's rough around the edges and I know you don't easily trust, but when there's real trouble, T.C. is the one to call.'
    'What about your family?' Laura had asked him.
    David shrugged. 'I only have my older brother.'
    'What about him? You never mention him.'
    'We don't talk.'
    'But he's your brother.'
    'I