CHAPTER ONE
Shortly before Megan Radcliffe’s favorite show started, a very odd event occurred that was followed by a horrifying event.
The show started at 8:00, so Megan walked to her kitchen at 7:50 to make a snack. To get to the kitchen, she passed a window that looked across the street at the home of Margaret and Nathan Finch and their two children, Annie and Ryan. Megan saw a woman pounding on the Finches’ front door. She was shouting, but Megan couldn’t hear what the woman was saying.
Megan watched for a moment. Then she went to the kitchen, fixed some cheese and crackers, and headed back to the living room. She had taped the show, so she wasn’t worried about missing any of it. At some time between 8:05 and 8:10, she passed the window again and saw the woman leave the porch and walk away from the Finches’ house. That was the odd event. Megan’s show paused for a commercial at 8:15, and she looked out the window in her living room that faced the Finch house. The light from the Finches’ living room illuminated the porch, but no one was on it. At 8:30, when her show ended, Megan heard a car stop across the street. She recognized Arthur Proctor, who taught English at Marie Curie Middle School, walking to the Finches’ front door. She saw him ring the bell, then she saw him go inside. She had finished her snack, and then took her plate to the kitchen. When she returned to the living room, she saw Proctor bolt out of the Finch house, leaving the front door wide open.
Megan opened her front door and walked toward the teacher. He looked horrified.
“What happened?” Megan shouted. Proctor waved her away. He had his phone out and was shouting into it. This is what Megan heard:
“911. What is your emergency?”
“They’re all dead.”
“Sir, who am I speaking with?”
“Sorry, I’m just … I’m Annie’s teacher, Arthur Proctor. I came to the house to talk about Annie’s scholarship, and I found them.”
“Found who?”
“Everyone. The Finch family. They’re all dead.”
CHAPTER TWO
Robin Lockwood’s first-year contracts class at Yale University’s law school was held in a large classroom where six rows of desks curved in a graceful arc from one side of the room to the other in front of the professor’s podium. Robin tried to hide from the professor by sitting three seats in from one end in the last row. Despite her best efforts at camouflage, Professor Dawkins found her on the second day of class and posed a hypothetical question that presented facts that were similar to the case she had read the night before, but added an unsettling twist.
Having a really good memory had made life easy in college, but Robin had discovered that law school required much more than just memorizing facts. You had to be able to solve puzzles, because the professors were always challenging you with problems that made it impossible for you to put a square-peg fact in a round-hole situation.
When the professor zeroed in on Robin, Robin’s stomach clenched the same way it did at the beginning of a fight in the Octagon. Robin could solve problems in a cage fight with an arm bar or a right cross, but she suspected that she would be thrown out of Yale if she coldcocked her professor. So, she took a deep breath, thought for a moment, and gave an answer that made Professor Dawkins smile.
“Very good, Miss Lockwood,” Dawkins said just as class ended.
“Great answer,” said the woman seated next to Robin.
“Thanks. I was really sweating,” Robin answered as she shut her laptop and stowed it in the duffel bag that contained her workout gear.
“Samantha Jefferson, but everyone calls me Sam,” the woman said as she held out her hand.
“Robin Lockwood,” Robin said as she shook it.
“I’m in a study group that’s meeting in an hour,” Sam said as they headed for the door. “Do you want to join us?”
“I’d love to, but I’m in training, and I’ve got to get to the gym.”
The woman’s brow furrowed. “Training for what?”
Robin blushed. “I’m a professional fighter, MMA. I have a fight in Las Vegas coming up in a month.”
“No shit?”
Robin laughed. “Yeah, shit. The only good news is that fighting isn’t nearly as scary as these law school classes.”
“Is this fight on TV?”
Robin blushed again and nodded.
“Wow. How does a law student get into MMA?”
“It’s the other way around. Fighting got me into law school.”
Sam looked puzzled. Robin smiled.
“My dad and my three brothers were all championship wrestlers in high school, so I wanted to be on the high school team. Some of the parents panicked when they found out their sons would be in close physical contact with a girl. They lobbied the school board, and I was told I couldn’t be on the team. But Lockwoods are fighters, and my dad hired a lawyer. We sued and we won. That’s when I decided that I wanted to be a lawyer when I grew up.”
“You wrestled against boys?”
“Yup. And I did okay. I actually placed third in my conference my senior year. Then I went to a college that had a ranked Division I team. I didn’t even think about trying out, but I still liked combat sports, so I found a gym that taught mixed martial arts, and the rest is history.”
“Well, I’m impressed, and I’ll warn everyone not to piss you off.”
Robin laughed.
“And the offer to join the study group is open when you don’t have a conflict. We can use a brain who can get a smile out of Professor Dawkins.”
When they were outside the Sterling Law Building, Robin and Sam swapped phone numbers and chatted for a few minutes more. Then Robin headed for the gym that she’d found in her first week in New Haven.
Robin was five foot eight with a wiry build, blue eyes, high cheekbones, blond hair that molded to her oval face, and a straight nose that had never been broken—a tribute to her defensive skills as a cage fighter. As she ran, she wondered how she was going to balance law school and her fighting career. It hadn’t been that difficult in college, where she’d majored in physics, a subject that came easily to her. But the amount of reading her law school professors assigned had her burning the midnight oil and rising groggy and bleary-eyed every morning. Add in several hours of intense physical training and the end result was a body and brain left gasping for air every day.
Twenty minutes after saying goodbye to her new friend, Robin stopped in front of a building that could not have been more different from the Sterling Law Building. That Gothic-style edifice was modeled on the English Inns of Court and embellished with stone sculptures, wood carvings, and stained glass. Robin’s gym was on the ground floor in a corner storefront that advertised training in boxing, karate, and other martial arts and let passersby look through plate glass windows at wrestlers grappling on mats, fighters working the heavy bag, and muscular men and women hoisting weights or running on treadmills.
Robin went inside and started for the locker room when she saw her manager, Bruce Dowling, walking in her direction. Dowling was thick and wide, with thinning brown hair and a face that displayed scar tissue built up during his days as a professional boxer.
Robin was always glad to see Dowling, but she was surprised to see him in her gym this morning. The last she’d heard, Dowling was in Manhattan working on contracts for his other fighters. Robin smiled, but Dowling looked serious.
“What brings you to New Haven?” Robin asked.
“Business. We need to discuss something that’s just come up.”
“Oh?”
“You know who Mandy Kerrigan is?”
“Of course. Next month, I’m on the undercard of her fight in Vegas.”
Dowling nodded. “Kerrigan is the number two contender in your weight class, and she was supposed to fight Angelina Mendes in the co-main event, winner to fight for the championship. Yesterday, Angelina broke her ankle during a training run. They need a ranked contender to step in so they won’t have to cancel the fight. You’re ranked ninth, and you’re on the card.”
Robin felt a rush of adrenaline, and she lit up like a Christmas tree. Then she noticed that Dowling looked grim.
“Why the long face?” Robin asked. “This could be a huge break.”
Dowling nodded. “It’s a good payday, and you’ll get national exposure, but I don’t know if you’re ready for someone like Kerrigan.”
“Hey, Bruce, aren’t you supposed to give me the Rocky pep talk?”
“No. I’m supposed to tell you the facts of life. You haven’t lost yet, and you have a ton of potential, but you’ve been knocking off opponents who have nowhere near what Kerrigan can bring. In baseball terms, you’re Double-A and you’re ready to jump to Triple-A, but Kerrigan is in the big leagues.”
Robin reached out and touched Dowling’s forearm. “I know you’re looking out for me, and I appreciate it, but I have to take this fight to see how good I am. I won’t be fighting when I finish law school. This might be my only chance to be in line to fight for a championship.”
“You’re sure you want to do this?”
“I have to, Bruce.”
“Okay, then. I’ll make the call.”
Robin squeezed Dowling’s arm. “Cheer up, Mr. Dowling. Think about the big fee you’re going to get.”
Dowling shook his head. “I just hope it doesn’t all go to doctor’s bills.”
* * *
Bruce Dowling had hired several sparring partners for Robin, and she spent part of her workout grappling and part on improving her boxing skills. After a quick shower, Robin walked around the corner to a local Italian restaurant. Over lunch, she and Bruce discussed the contract for the Kerrigan fight. Robin had leverage because the show was coming up soon and Dowling had gotten her the best payday of her career.
After lunch, Bruce returned to New York, and Robin walked to her apartment, which was halfway between the gym and the law school. Robin had no time for entertaining. All she did was study and train. The apartment was perfect for her Spartan existence. It had one compact bedroom, a small kitchen with a table for dining, and a living room wide enough for a sofa, a television, and the desk where Robin studied.
She had her torts class in an hour. She parked herself at the desk and started reading a case the professor was going to discuss, but she found it difficult to concentrate. She couldn’t believe everything that had happened to her in the five years since graduating from high school in Elk Grove, the small midwestern town where she’d grown up. She’d had a stellar college career that had led to acceptance at an elite law school, she’d become a nationally ranked MMA star who fought on internationally televised fight cards, and she had hobnobbed at parties in Las Vegas, New York, and LA with celebrities from the movie, sports, and music industries. Now, she was on the verge of a shot at a world championship.
Robin wondered what she would do if she became a world champion. She had always assumed that she would stop fighting when she graduated from law school, but she might put off her legal career if she could become financially secure by fighting.
She laughed at herself. One step at a time, she thought. That world title was only a vague possibility. Professor Gupta’s torts class was very real and, now, less than an hour away.
Copyright © 2023 by Phillip Margolin
