HE CROWD WENT berserk every time the hit was replayed on the megatron, and that was often, I was told later. My helmet flew five feet and rolled another six, ending at the feet of a zebra who picked it up and maybechecked inside to see if my head was still in there.

I think my brain bounced against my skull multiple times like a bird trying to introduce itself to a window until its neck snaps.

Yep, the crowd cheered and whooped whenever the megatron belched out the replay.

Then I was told that they stopped cheering. Because I didn’t get up. Because I didn’t move a muscle. And then someone noticed I had stopped breathing and had also turned blue. They told me the head trainer was alternating pounding on my chest like a punch press attacking metal slabs and blowing air into my mouth. Later, they told me I died on the field twice but he brought me back both times from the hereafter. They told me he was screaming in my ear, “Hang on, ninety-five. Hang the hell on.” I was such a nobody that he knew my jersey number but not my name. My professional football player identity was a nine and a five printed on my chest. Nine and five. Violet and brown in my counting colors mind. I never consciously assigned colors to numbers. My brain did it for me without my permission.

The collision changed everything about me, because it essentially rewired my brain. So I died, twice, and then came back, essentially as someone else. And for the longest time I thought that would be the most awful thing that would ever happen to me. And then came that night and those three bodies in neon blue, and the gridiron blindside dropped to a distant number two on the list of my personal devastations.

* * *

“Excuse me, sir? Sir?”

Decker opened his eyes to see the woman staring down at him. Not the old lady from behind the desk. She was far younger, maybe in her late twenties, dressed in black slacks and a light blue blouse with the two top buttons undone. She had a fresh complexion and an optimistic, efficient air about her. She must be very new, he thought. She wouldn’t look this way in a year. Or maybe even in six months. Dealing with scumballs all day aged you faster than the sun.

He eyed the lanyard ID riding on her hip.

Sally Brimmer. Public Affairs. She must have come on after he left. His luck was running great right now.

Lie perfectly, Amos. You can do this. You have to do this. Every word counts. Because there will be blowback on this. Every word…So hit it.

He stood and held out his hand. “Yes, Ms. Brimmer?”

They shook hands. Hers was swallowed by his and he hoped she didn’t interpret his sweaty palm as evidence of his deceit.

She said, “I was told you wanted to meet with Sebastian Leopold?”

“That’s right. I understand he needs legal counsel.”

“And who do you understand that from?”

Decker fought back the anxiety building in his chest, fast-framed through his mental DVR, formulated his response, and out came the words.

“I have a contact at the News Leader, Alex Jamison. Heard of her?”

“Yeah, I have. She’s good. She probably does know. And you’re a lawyer?”

He showed her a business card with an office address on the other side of the city that was actually the address of a law firm.

She stared down at this and then handed it back. “We’ve got an emergency going down,” she said.

“I heard. Pete Rourke told me on the way in. Mansfield High School. His grandson goes there. I hope he’s okay.”

“So you know Pete?”

“We go way back, Ms. Brimmer.”

She sighed and looked around. “I’m not really the one who should be making this decision.”

“I could come back.” Before she could react to this offer he quickly added, “But Leopold has to be arraigned in forty-eight hours or else he gets released. I doubt anyone here wants that.”

“No, no they don’t. It’s just that—”

The right words flashed through Decker’s mind. It was like he was reading off a teleprompter. “And sending him to an arraignment without counsel or with ill-prepared counsel could create a legal snafu that could come back to bite the department in the ass, pardon the French. I know you don’t want that either. No law-abiding citizen would.”

She started to nod halfway through his spiel.

“You’ll only need a few minutes?”

“All I’ll need,” he said.

She hesitated and he could read the vacillation in her eyes.

She wanted no part of this and was feeling boxed into making a decision.

The farther he got into this lie the more anxiety he started to feel. He drew a long breath, pushing the bile back down his throat with the exhalation. “Just a few minutes,” he said. “Then I’ll be out of here. And he won’t be able to complain later.”

Decker truly meant this last part.

“You know what he’s accused of?” she asked.

“Yes, I know it pretty well, actually. But regardless of these heinous acts, he is entitled to counsel. And if he’s found guilty they can lethal-inject him without one complaint from yours truly. That I promise.”

The truth will surely set you free, Amos.

Her vacillation finally broke, like water from a womb.

“Okay, follow me.”

And Amos Decker followed her.