The Presence Protocol
A standalone novel · Vera Calder
Opening scene · Chapter 1 · For adults 18+.
Buy on Amazon or read with Kindle Unlimited
Chapter 1 — Practice Court Four
Cal
At a quarter past nine the other two still hadn't turned up, and Cal was standing on the baseline of court four bouncing a ball on his strings to see how long he could keep it going without moving his feet. He was up to forty-something. The sun was up and on the far fence but not yet on him, and the air had the dry early cold that made the hair on his forearms stand up and would be gone in an hour.
Ebba was at the net post with her phone, racquet clamped under one arm, scrolling with her thumb.
"He's not answering," she said.
"He doesn't answer before ten. I think it's in his contract."
"Then why did he say nine?"
"Optimism."
Two people came along the path between the courts. One of them, a man in a staff shirt pushing a ball cart with a bad wheel, turned off toward another court. The other one kept coming, and she was tall, and her hair was very blonde, and Cal let the ball drop off his strings, caught it, and put it in his pocket.
Ebba looked up and her whole face changed. "She came," she said, and went around the net post toward the gate.
Cal went too.
At the gate the two women hugged properly, Ebba up on her toes and rocking them both from side to side, saying something in Swedish into the other woman's shoulder that made her laugh. Then Ebba stepped back and remembered he was there.
"Cal, this is Marisa. Marisa -- Cal Kendrick."
From the path he'd had her at about Ebba's height. She wasn't. She was close to his, close enough that he didn't have to tip his head much to look at her, which happened to him maybe twice a year. She had a guest pass on a lanyard and a canvas bag on one shoulder. Her thick yellow-blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail that reached the middle of her back. Close up she was better looking than she'd been at fifty yards, and in his experience it usually ran the other way. The hair was drawn clear of her face, showing high cheekbones and a clean line from her ear to her chin. He shook her hand. Her eyes were blue beneath straight brows, and he kept them a second after the handshake was over.
"Do you follow the tour?" he said.
"Some of it. I came to see Ebba."
"Smart. She's the one to see."
"We'll find out," Ebba said.
"How long have you two known each other?"
"Since juniors," Marisa said.
"Are you Swedish?"
"Swedish-American. I grew up in Stockholm."
"My mother's from Stockholm."
"I know. Ebba told me."
He turned to Ebba. "You briefed her."
"I told her you'd be here." Ebba was retying her shoe with one foot up on the bottom rail of the gate. "That was the briefing. Don't make it into something."
He put his hands up, racquet and all, and turned back to Marisa.
"Swedish-American," he said. "Which half's winning?"
"Both my parents are Swedish. I was born in New York."
"That's it? Born there?" He thought about it. "New York's worth twenty percent, tops. I'm ruling you eighty percent Swedish."
"And by your method you are fifty. At best."
"Fifty's generous. I grew up in Florida." He tipped the racquet so it fell into his other hand. "But my fifty finds your eighty very interesting."
Color came up her throat and into her face, fast, and she looked off at the next court. He hadn't expected that. He liked it more than the line deserved.
"He says things like that before ten in the morning," Ebba said to her phone.
They stood around. Somebody two courts over was grunting on every forehand in a way that was going to get old for the person across the net. Cal's phone buzzed on the bench. He went and picked it up.
Stuck, so sorry. Can we push to 10?
He walked it over and held it out so Ebba could read it. She read it and looked at Marisa.
"We're short," she said. "Do you want to hit?"
Marisa looked at the two bags on the bench, his and Ebba's. She took one of Ebba's spare racquets out of the side pocket, turned it over in her hand, squeezed the grip twice, and said, "Which side?"
"Mine," Ebba said. "Come over here with me."
"My side's the fun side," Cal said. "You get the whole half. And me."
"I am not sure that makes it the fun side," Marisa said, one corner of her wide mouth lifting.
Ebba laughed, one loud bark, and walked to the far baseline, and Marisa went after her.
So it was him alone on one side and the two of them on the other. He fed. The first half-dozen he sent down the middle at an easy pace, the kind of ball you hit to someone's uncle at a club. Hers came back clean. Her feet were already moving to the next place before the ball was over the net. He sent one to her backhand at about three-quarter pace. She was there early, took it out in front, and put it back crosscourt, deep and heavy, and he had to give ground behind the baseline to get his racquet on it.
"Was that on purpose?" he called. "Or did you get lucky?"
"I guessed." She was bouncing on her toes, waiting. "You had hit six to the middle. The next one was going somewhere else."
He hit the next one harder. She hit it back harder.
After that he hit for real. She ran it all down. Her split step came on time, every time, and she recovered to the middle in small quick steps instead of the long loping ones people use when they've learned the game by playing it. Somebody had taught her that, early. Ebba was taking the balls that came to her side and otherwise staying out of the way.
He went down the line. She was half a step late and framed it into the bottom of the net. She bounced on her heels and waited for the next ball.
Ebba went to the cooler at the back of the court for water. Marisa stood near the baseline with the racquet resting on her shoulder, and Cal walked up to the net.
"You're cutting the follow-through short on your inside-out forehand," he said. "Your shoulder stops before the ball's off the strings."
"Which shot?"
"The inside-out. On the crosscourt you get away with it. On the inside-out it's costing you pace."
"The inside-out is not a pace shot for me."
"What's it for, then?"
"Direction. I put it where I want it."
"If you finished it you'd have more margin."
"More margin, and less control of where it goes. I know what I am trading."
She didn't wait to see whether he agreed.
"Where did you play juniors?"
"In Sweden."
"At a level?"
"I was competitive."
He waited, and nothing else came, and she took the racquet off her shoulder and looked at the strings.
Ebba came back with three bottles of water and handed one across the net to him, and they hit for another fifteen minutes or so, the three of them, until the sun had come over the fence and onto his side of the court. At ten the singles player came through the gate with the other player behind him. Marisa walked over and gave Ebba her racquet back, handle first.
Marisa picked her bag up off the ground by the gate. Cal walked over.
"What are you doing this evening?" he said.
She put the bag on her shoulder. "I am going back to Palm Springs. I am staying with friends."
"When does that start?"
"This evening."
"I'm at the Hyatt. In case the timing changes."
"It won't."
She looked past him. "Ebba, I'll text you."
"Do," Ebba called from the bench.
Marisa went out the gate and up the path. Cal found he was still holding the gate open for nobody, and let it swing shut.
He watched her go up between the courts, past the water fountain at the end of the row. He turned back toward his bag. Then he turned and looked again. She was walking fast and upright, her shoulders loose, the ponytail swinging, the bag knocking against her hip, and he watched her until the path bent behind the windscreen of the last court and she was gone.
Something about her had caught on him, the way a tune does when you know how the next bit goes and can't get there. He stood with it a second. It didn't come, and he let it go.
End of sample
You’ve reached the end of the opening scene.