From Left Field: A Hot Baseball Romance (Diamond Brides Book 7) (4 page)

Navy blue letters marched across the wall: BUNT. Bold Unlimited Nature Time. BUNT was the Foundation’s primary program, a structured initiative to get kids to look up from their TV screens, to forget about video games for a few precious hours.

It shouldn’t amaze him any more, but it did—the way these kids opened up when they got outside for the first time. A lot of them lived in the inner city. They went to under-resourced schools. Some spent their entire lives in neighborhoods that were too dangerous for them to go outside and play, even to throw a ball around a blacktop diamond, or to shoot hoops on a crumbling court. Most kids today spent less time outdoors than prison inmates. Less time than
chickens
raised on giant poultry farms.

BUNT made a real impact, giving kids their first taste of playing outside. They didn’t need month-long treks to Alaska or expert teams to scale Everest. Sniffing a flower was a revelation to them. Rolling in the grass. Sleeping out under the stars.

Just looking around the room made Adam feel more relaxed. His brightening mood carried over to the greeting he gave the intern behind the desk. “Good morning, Abby!”

“Good morning, Mr. Sartain.”

Jesus. “Call me Adam, please,” he said, just like he had every other time she’d greeted him with that formal tone in her voice. It must be hard for a college kid to relax around him, but “Mr. Sartain” made him feel like he should trade in baseball for shuffleboard. He nodded toward Jason’s office. “Is he in?”

Abby’s frown was disturbing. “No, sir. In fact, I didn’t see him yesterday, either.” She must have sensed Adam’s concern, because she hastened to add, “I was able to handle all the phone calls myself. And I’ve been working on that website project, just like Mr. Reiter and I talked about last week.”

“Great,” Adam said, trying to sound pleased. But he stalked into his office without wasting more time on small talk.

What the hell?
Jason had never skipped out on the Foundation before. Maybe something had come up at home. Adam picked up the phone and punched in his manager’s number from memory. The call went straight to voice mail.

Fighting an uneasy roll in his stomach, Adam turned on his computer. Jason had set up the system, networked the whole thing, tied it all together so anyone could use the mammoth flat screen in the conference room. Adam typed in his password and swore as the computer flashed a warning: “Access Denied.”

He forced himself to slow down, to pick out the letters and numbers precisely with his index fingers. He’d given in to Jason’s badgering about six months ago and finally walked away from his longstanding password: Rockets18. Jason had convinced him that anyone with half a brain could piece together the team name and Adam’s jersey number, and the guy was probably right.

But the meaningless stream of letters and numbers Adam had adopted at Jason’s suggestion didn’t work when he tried to log in now.

He typed it a third time, just to be sure, and then he called out, “Abby? Did you have any trouble getting into the system this morning?”

“No, sir,” she said, and he heard her push back her chair, watched her appear in his office door.

He fought the urge to swear again as he turned the screen to face her.

“That’s really strange,” she said. “Your login screen is totally different from mine. It’s almost like you’ve been hacked or something.”

That time, he
did
swear. And he reached for his phone to get Ken Roberts, the computer guy he kept on call. Roberts picked up immediately, which was the last thing that went right for a long, long time.

~~~

Four hours later, Adam was on the phone with his agent.

“Dammit, Gary, I don’t know
how
he did it. But I’m fucked to hell and back.”

“Calm down,” Gary said. “It can’t be as bad as you think it is.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” Adam shouted. “I’m staring at the goddamn numbers!”

And he was. He was staring at the computer screen Roberts had finally managed to unlock after employing something he called the Nuclear Option. He was staring at a bank account that was drained dry—no, goddammit, past dry because two checks had already bounced. He was staring at proof that Jason Reiter had embezzled every last cent from the Sartain Foundation. The Foundation, and half a dozen investment accounts that he’d maintained for Adam’s personal finances.

Adam was broke. Ruined. Millions of dollars gone, vanished like smoke.

Gary’s voice was singsong in his ear. “I’m just saying we need to get professionals working on this. They can trace the money. They can find the bank accounts. We’ll work it all out and string that guy up by the balls. It’ll just take some time.”

Time…

Adam had been a fucking idiot. For the past five years, in every meeting with his lawyers, his accountants, his manager, he’d told them to maximize donations to the Foundation. The Foundation was the one thing that would outlast his years with the Rockets. It was the one thing that would make a difference in the long run.

Everyone had agreed that was a safe way to proceed. Aside from actually doing good for thousands of children, the Foundation gave him a tax shelter. There were a million arcane rules and regulations, but he’d been assured he could draw a generous salary once he retired from the team. It was all win-win.
 

And he’d put Reiter in charge of everything.

He stared at the zeroes on the screen, at the red numbers splashed across the bottom of the page. Sure as shit, they could track Reiter down. They could sue his ass from now till Doomsday. But the son of a bitch would be an idiot if he hadn’t already squirreled the money away in the Caymans or Switzerland or someplace where it would be impossible to trace.

And Reiter wasn’t an idiot. That’s why Adam had hired him in the first place.

Adam Sartain was fucked to hell and back.

Haley looked around the table at her eager staff, wishing she’d had time to change clothes after her tour of the farm. Everyone else was wearing T-shirts and jeans, the perfect daily attire for working with dozens of needy animals. She decided to make the best of things. After all, she
was
the executive director of the operation. She wrapped up her summary of her visit to the Reeves place.

“In short, it’s everything we could wish for.”

“But…” That was Kate, vice-president of Paws and Haley’s constant voice of reason.

“Who said there was a but?” she asked, forcing a laugh.

“Come on, Haley. We can all read your tone of voice.”

She looked around the table to find her employees nodding in unison. So much for keeping cool under pressure… “
But
,” she said. “It’s going to cost a lot more than we planned. The Reeves place is bigger than any of the other properties we’ve considered—a lot bigger. We could double our operations on the first day there, with the potential of increasing tenfold. But we’ll need some major financing, and we aren’t going to get that unless our own bank accounts are healthier.”

“So we need a fundraiser,” Kate said.

“We need the mother of
all
fundraisers,” Haley corrected. “More than a bake sale or a car wash. Alas, opening up a meth lab is right out—we
know
how that’ll end up.”

“Yeah,” Kate said drily as the rest of the staff laughed. “And I don’t think a high-priced call girl racket will get us where we want to be either.”

Haley said, “So? What do you think? What can we do to raise the big bucks?”

She sat back and waited for her staff to become creative. Over the years, she’d learned that a loose hand on the reins often led to major accomplishments. Each of her employees was enthusiastic, and they all brought different areas of expertise to the table. Allowing them to brainstorm had let Paws find its way out of past challenges from a dozen different quarters, including the municipal heavy hitters of zoning regulation, health inspection, and tax collection.

And the staff didn’t let her down now. They talked about creating a Pet Ownership University, teaching online and in-person classes about all aspects of companion animals. They considered a “Paws to Refresh”, a street fair where concerned citizens could purchase tickets to enjoy food and drinks donated by local restaurants, all profits going to Paws. And they revisited the idea of a bake sale, but selling gourmet desserts donated by some of Raleigh’s finest chefs.

In the end, though, no single project seemed like it could begin to yield the amount of money they needed. It was Kate who wove the threads together. “What if we stage things?” At Haley’s questioning look, she went on. “What if we start with something small, say, an upscale bake sale. We can put that together quickly while we do the heavier lifting on Paws to Refresh. And then we can move on to Pet Ownership University, organize that while we’re finalizing the street fair. We can wrap everything up with a huge silent auction, you know, in some hotel ballroom, with beer and wine and light refreshments, charging admission on top of collecting bids from people.”

Haley was touched by Kate’s enthusiasm. But she had to be the one to apply some brakes.

“I love the idea of the bake sale—it’s something we
can
pull together quickly. And a car wash too. But Paws to Refresh will take months to pull together, and we don’t have that kind of time. Now that Mr. and Mrs. Reeves have decided to go to New Mexico, they’ll want to move fast, within a few months, anyway. Let’s save Paws to Refresh for next year, once we’ve acquired the farm. As for Pet Ownership University…” She sucked breath between her teeth. “Two words: Missy Newton.”

Everyone around the table nodded. Missy was a recurring nightmare for Paws. She ran a pet store boutique, Fab Fidos, but the only animals she sold came from dangerous puppy mills. She’d built a clientele by providing extravagant beds and leashes and entire mansions full of toys. Her puppies, though, almost always showed the unfortunate effects of breeding programs that weren’t nearly robust enough—the animals suffered from a lot of diseases, and they were notoriously hard to train.

For years, Missy had been after Paws to launch a partnership. She said she’d pay a pretty penny to Paws’ trainers to get her puppies in line. Haley had resisted every overture, trying time and time again to educate the businesswoman about the terrible plight of the breeding animals that were the source of Fab Fidos’ stock. But Missy refused to listen, refused to believe that she was contributing to animal cruelty in any way.

Haley had other reasons for disliking Missy Newton, more personal ones. But she didn’t need to get into those, not here. Instead, she went on: “Pet Ownership University would bring Missy, and other people like her, crawling out of the woodwork.” She watched her staff nod in agreement. “But let’s go with the other ideas. Ginny, can you manage the bake sale? And Stacy, can you be in charge of the car wash? And Kate, can you be the point person for the silent auction?”

Both women agreed enthusiastically. Paws could do this. They
had
to. The animals were counting on them.

~~~

Predictably, the game was as shitty as the rest of Adam’s day.

In the top of the third, he went back for a fly ball. He’d played left field for the Rockets for ten years now; he knew every angle in the park. He wasn’t surprised when he felt dirt under his cleats, telling him he’d reached the warning track. He wasn’t surprised when he felt the wall against his shoulders, telling him he’d reached the limits of the playing field. He wasn’t surprised when he saw the line the ball was taking, when he extended his glove high above his head, when he jumped at the precise second to make his leap coincide with the ball’s arc.

But he was surprised as hell when his hand came down empty, and his body smashed hard against the wall.

His timing was off. He didn’t bother watching the fans scrambling for their souvenir in the stands. Instead, he limped back to his place in left field, stretching hard to keep his muscles from cramping. He glanced toward the dugout and saw one of the trainers hovering on the second step, but he waved the guy back. Second game of the season—too early to give in to aches and bruises.

That Philadelphia home run, though, was the beginning of a rout. The next guy at the plate walked on four balls. The ninth-place hitter batted him over. The lead-off batter stepped up and knocked out his first homer of the year, a wicked fly ball to right.

And the Rockets never recovered.

Adam did his best at the plate, but the left-handed Philadelphia pitcher was a lousy match-up for him. Adam struck out swinging twice, and he was caught looking a third time. And just like that, the Rockets were .500 for the season.

The locker room was quiet after the game. All the boisterous bragging of Opening Day was gone, replaced with the low-key frustration of a team struggling to find its feet when public opinion said it should be sprinting down the straightaway. It had been like that for a lot of spring training—some great streaks where everything clicked for four or five or even six games and it looked like the team was destined for the post season, only to be followed by a clutch of games where absolutely nothing went right.

Adam knew his job, though. He hurried through his shower and pulled on street clothes. Sure enough, the reporters were waiting for him by his locker. Ross Parker led the pack. The columnist already had his notebook out and his pen ready. “So, Adam. It looked like you should have had that fly ball in the third.”

Is that a question?
That’s what he always wanted to ask, when reporters gathered around with their easy observations and sly comments. But he knew better than that. He had to give them what they wanted.

“It’s tricky,” he said. “Getting used to twilight and the light stands and the full stadium after all those weeks in Florida. We were knocking the dust off tonight. We’ll be back in it tomorrow.”

Another reporter chimed in, a new guy Adam didn’t recognize. “So your excuse for those three strikeouts is the lighting?”