The Favorites: A Novel(59)

“You good?” he asked once he got ahold of my hand.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

I didn’t even look at him. We had our warm-up routine down to a science: stroking two full laps of the rink side by side, forward and backward progressives switching between several different dance holds, then running through a few of our trickier program elements to make sure we were completely in sync.

“You seem…” Garrett leaned down. “Distracted.”

Distracted? Ridiculous. I’d never been more focused in my life. Distracted was what I’d been before, when I was still letting Heath’s machinations get to me, but I was finished with that. I had wanted to go to the Olympics since before I even knew Heath Rocha existed.

Out of the corner of my eye, a swirl of emerald silk—Bella and Heath whizzing past, close enough for the flare of her skirt to brush my leg.

Garrett tugged me closer, keeping me clear of their path. My temper flared. They should be the ones getting out of our way.

Two minutes left in the warm-up. We ran through our midline step sequence and moved on to the twizzles. I cued up my mental movie again, zipping through it on fast-forward.

First, every step of our free dance, flawless, even better than we’d done it in San Diego.

Garrett and I standing on top of the podium, the national anthem heralding our fourth consecutive U.S. title. Heath and Bella an inconsequential blur on the silver medal step.

Then the Olympic team announcement. The flight to Italy. Our arrival in Torino. Walking in the opening ceremony in our Team USA uniforms. Everything up to the moment when we had those golds around our necks. Shaw and Lin, the first Americans to win Olympic medals in ice dance since Lin and Lockwood in 1988.

As I entered the final turn of the twizzle sequence, I was smiling. I was so close. Soon it would all be mine. The gold, the fame, the security. Everything I’d longed for since I was four years old, and more.

I reached for Garrett. He reached back. Behind him, a flash of green and black.

And then blinding white, rushing toward me.





Garrett Lin: Of course it was an accident.

Ellis Dean: That bitch did it on purpose.

Katarina Shaw and Bella Lin collide during the warm-up at the 2006 U.S. Nationals free dance. Katarina attempts to brace with her hands but reacts too slowly. Her head smacks into the ice.

Jane Currer: Ms. Shaw should have paid more attention to where she was going. Sometimes she seemed to forget she wasn’t the only skater on the rink.

Garrett crouches down to check on his partner. Katarina gets back up on her own. Her balance wavers, and Garrett catches her by the arm to steady her. There’s no audio, but Bella skates closer, seeming to ask if Katarina is all right. Heath stands slightly apart from the others, watching the whole interaction. His face is difficult to read.

Veronika Volkova: I would not care to speculate. I have never paid much attention to what happens at the Americans’ little championship.

Katarina brushes past Bella with a blatant shoulder check on the way to the boards. Garrett follows Katarina off the ice. Heath stares after them, until Bella grabs his hand.

Ellis Dean: I’m telling you. Watch the video.

A slow-motion replay of the collision shows the moment Bella and Heath skate toward Katarina and Garrett. It looks as if the two couples have enough room to maneuver past, but at the last second, Bella and Katarina crash into each other.

Ellis Dean: The way Bella glances over her shoulder, then shifts her heel? It’s so obvious.

The slo-mo replay again, this time zoomed in on Bella’s face. At the moment of impact, she’s looking right at Katarina with a resolute expression.

Garrett Lin: She and Heath had the lead. And she could have been injured too, you know.

Medical staff intercepts Katarina to examine her, though she tries to wave them off. The camera follows until a medic leads her into a private room and shuts the door behind them.

Garrett Lin: We all wanted to win. But not like that.

Sheila Lin goes into the private room where the medic took Katarina. Garrett stays outside, pacing back and forth. The warm-up session now concluded, Bella and Heath come backstage too, standing off to the side. Heath keeps glancing over at the closed door.

Veronika Volkova: All I will say is this: it certainly seemed like something Sheila Lin would have done.





Chapter 39





“Ms. Shaw, can you tell me where we are right now?”

I blinked into the flashlight beam as the medic checked my pupil dilation. Behind him, Sheila stood, arms folded across her white leather moto jacket.

“St. Louis, Missouri,” I answered. “The Savvis Center.”

The most important competition of my career. But by all means, take your time.

Frannie and Evan had finished their skate to the Lord of the Rings score, and the first notes of Lou Bega’s “Mambo No. 5” blared through the arena, which meant Josie and Ellis were on the ice. I’d already given a detailed report of my symptoms (dull pain, no nausea, no blurred vision) and listed the months of the year in reverse order to prove I was lucid. But this guy kept asking me inane questions and shining that damn light in my eyes.

“And what’s today’s date, please?”

I sighed. “Friday, January thirteenth, two thousand six.”

I’d heard some of the other skaters joking about the date, what bad luck it was to have the final on Friday the 13th. Figure skaters are a superstitious bunch at the best of times—tying their boot laces a certain way before every skate, carrying lucky charms at competitions, repeating prayers and affirmations under their breath as they take the ice.