Dead Wrong (A Cal Murphy Thriller Book 7) Jack Patterson (good beach reads .txt) 📖

the front and looked at the foot of the passenger’s seat.

“KJ! Where are you?”

Jameson stood up and scanned the garage area. He started to hyperventilate.

“KJ!”

Then his son tapped him on the back.

Jameson spun around to see KJ standing there. He stared mouth agape for a few moments, trying to figure out how his son escaped the car so stealthily.

“Don’t ever do that to me again, son. You scared me half to death.”

KJ laughed. “Aww, come on, Dad. I was just messin’ with you.”

Jameson held out as long as he could with the evil eye for KJ before caving. He smiled and tousled his hair. “Just don’t do it again,” he warned.

The buzz of his cell phone cut Jameson’s evil eye short. He glanced at the screen. It was his agent, Scott Perry.

Jameson rolled his eyes and sent the call to voice mail. He wasn’t in the mood to talk.

***

TWENTY MINUTES BEFORE TIP OFF, Jameson gathered with the rest of the Wizards’ players in the locker room for one final diatribe from head coach Walt Ryman. At age 68, Ryman was on his way out of coaching. Jameson knew the old man still possessed the coaching acumen to succeed at the sport’s highest level—he just wasn’t sure how committed Ryman was. If he wasn’t griping about NBA officials calling every hand-checking foul, Ryman was warning players about how too much social media would ruin them both personally and financially. But tonight something was different.

Ryman rubbed his forehead and then slid his hand down the right side of his face. He sighed and grunted while staring at the floor. After a few moments of awkward silence, he looked up and scanned the players.

“Let’s just win tonight, okay?” he said. “Do it because it’ll make an old man happy.” He paused. “It might make some young ones happy too.”

The team exited the room in near silence. Jameson couldn’t remember a time in his 16-year career when he’d been in such a quiet locker room before a game. He’d been in plenty of locker rooms with disappointed players following a loss. But never like this, beforehand. It was eerie and unusual.

As Jameson crossed the threshold into the walkway leading to the arena floor, he felt a tug on his shirt. He stopped and looked back to see Ryman yanking on him with one hand and motioning him to come back with the other. Jameson didn’t hesitate to comply. He slipped through the onslaught of players exiting the room and in a matter of seconds was left standing alone in front of his coach.

“Did you want to see me?” Jameson asked.

Ryman nodded but said nothing.

“What’s all this about?” Jameson asked again.

Ryman drew a deep breath and eyed Jameson cautiously. “We need you tonight in the worst way.”

“You know I do my best every night,” Jameson shot back.

“I need you to do better than your recent best.”

Jameson cocked his head and furrowed his brow. “What exactly do you mean?”

“I mean, I need you to play like the Kelvin Jameson we all fell in love with the first few years you were in the league—you know, the one who won the Rookie of the Year Award. I don’t need washed-up Kelvin Jameson bleeding this club out for a ton of money. I want you to find yourself again on the floor in this game—and prove to us all that we weren’t crazy to believe in you.”

Jameson nodded. “I get it. We’re both two aging dinosaurs in a young man’s game—and you hope that if I can rekindle that old magic that maybe we have a shot in the playoffs.”

“I’m tired of finishing second to somebody—everybody, every year—I want to win one more title before I retire.”

Jameson bobbed his head up and down. His eyebrows shot upward. “I’m with you, Coach. I think it’s high time we go out and show the fans what we’re really made of.”

Jameson turned to go before he felt another tug on his jersey. He stopped and looked back at Ryman holding a fistful of his shirt.

“This is it for me. One way or another at the end of this season, I’m gone. I know that. But I put my neck on the line for you when we signed you. I said you’d bring us a championship. Don’t make a liar out of me.”

“I’m gonna make you a prophet—don’t you worry.”

***

WITH TWO MINUTES REMAINING in the game, the Wizards watched their 20-point lead vanish and soon found themselves trailing by two points. On the next several possessions, each team struggled to score. Jameson could feel the anxiety heighten to an almost palpable level. The fans, the coaches, the players—he sensed everyone was wondering if another Wizards meltdown was about to happen. It had been the story of the last six weeks for a team with more than just playoff aspirations. Many pundits picked the Wizards to advance to the NBA Finals in November. But as the season neared the middle of February, Jameson hoped they could still qualify for a playoff spot. The odds seemed to dim with each gut-wrenching loss.

With forty seconds left in the game, Jameson took the ball on the right wing, made a nice move to the basket to slip the defender and tied the game with a dunk. The crowd roared with delight as the decibel level in the arena soared.

Jameson looked over at his son seated four rows behind the Wizards’ bench with his mom. KJ was cheering and waving a white towel. Jameson pointed at him and smiled as he backpedaled down the court.

On the other end, the Wizards’ point guard Eric Ford stripped the ball from one of the Spurs players to set up a final shot to win the game.

Ryman called time out and diagramed a play.

“I want the ball in Jameson’s hands. If they double-team you and you can’t get a shot off, Ford’s going to be open right here,” Ryman said as he sketched. “Either way, somebody is gonna get