Delayed Penalty (4 page)

Freeze the puck – This happens when the puck is held against the boards with the skate or stick in order to stop play briefly or gain a face-off.

"Seventeen-year-old female rape victim...right pupil dilated...BP 80/60...skull fracture..."

Those were the words swirling around my head, and I wasn't sure what to think or feel for someone I didn't know. This all this seemed unimaginable, particularly when I found out her age. She was just a child. After they kicked me out, they discovered her name was Ami Sutton, a seventeen-year-old female originally from Lebanon, Oregon, who moved here three weeks ago. Both parents were dead. She was alone in a city where no one knew her and now this happened?

"Welcome to Chicago," was my first thought.

"Sir?" a younger nurse called my name, her eyes guarded as she watched the door where the police were standing. I knew at any moment they would be questioning me. "Are you waiting for Ami Sutton?"

Was I?

Well, yeah, I was.

"Yes, I am." I nodded, making my way over to the nurses' station.

"The doctor called and said he's taking her into surgery now. We can call you when she's out."

"I think I'll stay," I told her, glancing down at my phone to see it was now five in the morning on Christmas Eve.

"Suit yourself," she replied, her stare on the clipboard in her hands. "Can I get a phone number and a name in case you're not around when she's out?"

"I said I'll be here. I'll be sitting right over there...
waiting
."

"Your name then?"

I rolled my eyes, knowing she wasn't going to let me get away. "Evan Masen,"

Her eyes did that shocked—recognition—fluttering thing as she looked from me to the clipboard in front of her. "As in Evan Masen,
hockey player
for the Blackhawks?"

"Yeah."

She gave me a nod, but it wasn't as cold as it had been.

I must have sat there in the waiting room for a good hour before I wrapped my mind around what I wanted to or should do. My parents and Caitlin were waiting for me, and I knew I'd catch shit from her if I wasn't home.

But I couldn't leave. Anytime I told myself I would, I just sat there and stared at the wall, numb from what I had witnessed.

In the end, I had to know that she'd be okay. Every minute that passed without any word about her condition added to the churning in my stomach.

Having been up for nearly twenty-four hours, I dozed off in the chair only to be woken by a little boy poking my shoulder. I blinked, looking around. The sun was up now, reflecting off the fresh snow.

"Hey," he said, smiling.

Sitting up straight, I dug my palms into my eyes with a yawn. "Hey yourself."

His smile grew a little wider. "You're Evan Masen, huh?"

Raising my hand to my hair, I scratched the top of my head. "Last time I checked I was."

From then on he was a whole mess of words that I didn't catch, but I nodded and agreed. I ended up signing his jersey for him and taking a few photos with him.

That was when the doctor finally came out to deliver the news. He stopped at the nurses' station. She pointed to me, and then he walked over to the window where I was sitting. I stood, not knowing what else to do.

"She's stable, but it's going to be a long road for her." Tired and worn, he rubbed his scrub hat and swallowed. "There was a lot of internal bleeding, and we had to remove her spleen. The head trauma was severe enough that we're keeping her in an induced coma so she can heal."

"What does that mean?" I shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the next to keep from swaying, from both exhaustion and nerves.

"It means that she needs time and then we'll take her off the medication, slowly."

"So she might not wake up?"

"It's hard to say," he said, looking over his notes once more. "We're transferring her to Northwestern where she can get better care." He was right. She could get better care at Northwestern. I also liked the fact that it was only four minutes from my condo, and I could get there faster.

Shit. Now you're thinking about travel time?

He patted my shoulder, his expression reassuring. "I'll have the nurses give you her room number. She's going to be there a while." I thanked him and then he gave me a smile. "Good game last night."

It was hard to avoid when my face was plastered all over the city, but it also felt good.

Unfortunately, for me, none of that mattered because a feeling of dread had settled over me. My mind kept going back to when those doors closed and the feeling that took residence in the pit of my stomach. Even though she was stable, I still felt uneasy. I felt like at any moment they were going to come back out here and tell me she was gone.

I went from celebrating a victory to pacing the waiting room in a matter of twelve hours.

I walked back over to the nurse, got the room number, and then headed over to Northwestern Hospital.

I called my parents after that and told them some bullshit about the snow and an early morning practice the day after Christmas. I knew they didn't believe me, but they also didn't push. I got a few text messages from Caitlin telling me I was an asshole for not coming but then another one telling me she loved me. Knowing they would understand, I wanted to tell them but decided against it. This was unbelievable. I was waiting around at a hospital for a girl I didn't know, just to make sure she was going to be okay.

But then what?

Would I talk to her?

I had my answer when a nurse from Northwestern said I could see her if I wanted to.

When they let me in, I didn't know what to say. I found myself sitting there staring at her, and then before long, I began talking to her. Just talking.

She was covered in a thick white blanket from the neck down. Her left arm rested over it, and the right was tucked inside. Her head was bandaged, and the skin under her eyes had turned black and purple. She was swollen to the point that her face didn't look normal. It looked like whoever did this to her had punched her more than once. Red, raised patches of skin, cuts and scratches were scattered everywhere as was red raised patches.

She looked awful.

I wanted to hold her again like I did in the cab. For some reason I reached out and touched her hand. Her skin was cool to the touch, battered and fragile. It felt like there wasn't any life left in her, but something happened when I touched her hand. A sense of pride surged through me, knowing that I got her here and gave her the chance to fight for her life.

The doctor had gone over the list of her injuries with me when I arrived. They confirmed she was only seventeen, and she had, in fact, been raped. She had a fractured skull, a broken hand from fighting the guy off, and internal bleeding. Most of which was under control, but she wasn't out of the woods yet. Like he'd said, there was a long recovery ahead of her. It literally looked like she had been attacked by an animal. Looking at her now, the numbness started to fade, and I was pissed. How could someone do this to someone else?

A sense of helplessness took over as I watched the machine keep her alive. I thought about my parents and how angry they probably were that I wasn't home, but I couldn't think of anywhere else I wanted to be besides right there with this girl. It was strange for me, being drawn to a stranger. I found myself watching her again, the machines and her breathing. I looked at her bruises and wondered how she ended up that way. I also found myself wondering what she was like. Who was she as a person before this?

Maybe that was what made me stay.

What drew me to her so much? Why her?

The doctors didn't leave me alone in there; they were busy performing tests, checking vitals, making notes. You name it, they were in there doing it. Some of the tests really pissed me off. They seemed personal and something they shouldn't have been doing to her without her knowledge. Pregnancy tests, STIs, you name it, they tested for it. Thankfully, all tests came back negative, and she hadn't contracted anything. It still didn't make it any easier to witness.

When something happens to you, good or bad, the sudden impact of the situation isn't the most damaging. Your body and mind continues to go over the trauma of what happened over and over again until it stops.

The problem was it wouldn't stop for me. My mind was constantly turning, constantly replaying the images and the scenario in my head as I looked at her lying in that hospital bed. It was an endless loop. Just when I thought it would stop, my mind pushed play again.

Then I thought about what must have happened to her family and how she got like this, and it was just a mess of thoughts, really. I was glad when the doctors finally kicked me out because I needed to clear my head.

While I stood there giving the nurse my contact information, completely unapproachable with my shoulders tense and my teeth grinding in frustration, a cop managed to find me. My mind was still in that room, still questioning everything I had seen, and still reliving that moment when I walked down that alley.

"Let's talk," he said with a nod to a private room near the door.

I knew this was coming. You couldn't bring a girl into the hospital who had been left for dead and not be questioned.

He was tall, probably close to six-foot-two, and completely bald, though it was clear it was by choice and not genetics. His head was shiny, almost like he'd rubbed some kind of oil over it. Maybe he had. I didn't trust him already.

He was also younger than any detective I'd ever seen and dressed casually in jeans and a polo shirt. Shouldn't they be wearing suits?

"Evan Masen? I'm detective Paulsen." He spoke in a low voice, the tone catching me off guard, never offering me a hand shake or anything, all business. "Can I speak to you in private?"

"Yeah, sure."

He had just shut the door when he looked up at me and went for it. "What were you doing in an alley?" he demanded, more accusing than questioning.

"I was walking home," I told him, trying to keep my cool. I wanted to yell at him for questioning my motivations. I saved her life, yet they acted as though I had something to do with her injuries.

"Who was with you?"

"I was alone when I found her." I took a deep breath, managing to keep my anger under wraps.

"What were you doing out so late?" he asked.

"Getting dinner with one of my teammates."

"Where were your other teammates?"

"It's a big city. I have no clue. Probably at one of the local bars."

"So it was just you walking around at two in the morning?"

By then I was pretty annoyed, and he was about to find out just how much. "I'm an NHL hockey player. I just got back from Detroit and was hungry and had dinner with a teammate, Shelby Wright. After dinner I was on my way home, alone."

"What time was that?"

"Fuck, I don't know…late?"

"So you're telling me you were walking around at two in the morning on your way home? You're sticking to that story?"

"What are you saying?" I was instantly defensive after everything I'd been through over the last day. This girl and this situation were doing a number on me.

"Well, if you think your lawyer can defend you against a crime such as rape just because you're a professional athlete, you've got another thing coming." He snorted, crossing his arms and leaning back in the chair.

I did have a good fucking lawyer. Too bad I hadn't contacted him yet.

I leaned forward, intending on making my next words sink in. Either that or I was about to punch a cop. "I. Didn't. Do. It!"

He gave me a nod, finally accepting the truth or possibly just humoring me.

"Do you have any leads?"

"We have a few, but nothing has panned out yet. A few witnesses came forward. She was walking home from Ballet Chicago where she was at her class. She's enrolled there, and her class lets out at seven. We assume she must have been walking home, but she lives on South Lake Shore. That's a long walk. Like I said, we don't have a lot of details."

From what that detective said, she lived at Regents Park in the Indian Village, which was located on South Lake Shore. Ballet Chicago was on North State Street. I actually passed by it on my way home. All the details just didn't add up. Why would she be walking that late at night when her class got out at seven? I found her at nearly two in the morning. Had she been out there that long?

"Have you spoken with her dance instructor?"

The detective looked over at me, deciding whether or not to answer me after I got so testy with him. "He's being brought in for questioning, along with a few others that were spotted in the area at the time of the incident."

I called my lawyer after that. He didn't pick up, but I left him a message letting him know I might need his services really soon.