There's a review process. I have to follow it. What does that mean? It means you're suspended from practice and competition pending investigation, Coach Marsh said. And something in her jaw tightened as she said it, the words clearly costing her more than she let show.
I'm sorry, Joe. I don't think you did this, but I don't get to decide that alone. Joe sat very still for a moment, absorbing it. Then she nodded once, the same careful, controlled nod her father used to give when a plan fell apart and there was nothing left to do but adjust. "Okay," she said quietly.
"What do I need to do?" "Wait," Coach Marsh said. "For now, just wait." And Joe, if you have any idea how those pages ended up in your bag, now would be the time to say so. Joe thought of the locker room unlocked open all afternoon during practice.
She thought of the way Grant had watched her weeks now with the patience of someone counting on time to do work that fists could not. She had no proof. Not yet. Only a feeling cold and certain settling low in her stomach. I have an idea, she said carefully.
I don't have proof. Write it down anyway. Coach Marsh said everything. Dates. Whatever you remember.
It might matter later. Joe almost smiled at that despite everything. She was already doing exactly that. Had been doing it for weeks. In a small notebook her father had taught her to keep without ever explaining why until now.
Coach Marsh did not let the matter rest as quietly as the meeting with Joe might have suggested. That same evening, after practice ended and the gym had emptied, she walked across campus to the athletic director's office, a folder of her own tucked under one arm, containing 11 years of notes on every freshman she had ever coached. And nothing in any of those notes that resembled what she was looking at now. I don't buy it, she said, setting the folder down without opening it. The words alone carrying more weight than any page inside.