Hero by Mike Lupica Read Free Book Online

never got the chance.”
    “But see, that’s the thing!” he said. “My dad was at his best under pressure! The worst trouble always brought out the best in him. That’s why there has to be a reason he didn’t get the chance to save himself. And I’m going to find out why.”
    Neither one of them said anything now. Zach turned his head back toward the television, where somebody on Charlotte had just made this amazing dunk, throwing the ball down so hard Zach was surprised he and Kate couldn’t hear it over the mute button.
    “Don’t do this,” Kate said.
    “I have to.”
    “You know I’ve got you no matter what you do,” she said.
    “I know,” he said. “I know. ”
    “But you’ve got to let this go,” she said.
    He shook his head slowly, side to side.
    “Please listen to me,” she said. “Listen, because I sometimes feel like I know you better than I know myself. And I know that if you don’t let this go, you’re going to get so lost in it that even I won’t be able to find you.”
    “No.”
    “No to which part?”
    “No, I’m not letting it go. And no, I could never get that lost; you’d invent a new kind of GPS if that’s what it took for you to find me.”
    “You really and truly believe somebody killed your dad?”
    “Yes.”
    “Let’s say you’re right,” Kate said, “even though I’m not really saying that. Who would do something like that?”
    “You want the short list, just from the last couple of years?” he said. “Or the longer one from his whole career?”
    “And you really believe a fourteen-year-old can find something that nobody else has?” Kate said.
    “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I do.”

8
    ZACH tried to stay with the game after Kate was gone but knew he was going through the motions with the Knicks the way he was with a lot of things lately. Letting people think he was the same old Zach, when he was never going to be that Zach again.
    Maybe things would be a little different when he was back playing basketball again instead of just watching it, when he was back on the court with the guys, getting a chance to channel his energy.
    Only it wasn’t just energy he needed to blow off. It was the anger he was carrying around with him, making him feel like some kind of ticking bomb.
    All in all, he thought he did a pretty good job of keeping a lid on it, hiding it from everyone, even Kate. Maybe not doing such a bang-up job of hiding it when he tried to beat up the brick wall that day. But most of the time.
    Problem was, he was mad all of the time. And as much as he needed to know everything he could about the crash, as sure as he was that somebody had sabotaged his dad, reading up on it only made him madder.
    He knew he wasn’t the only kid in the world something like this had happened to. He knew that really bad things happened all the time, and to good people. They got sick and died. They got hit by hurricanes in New Orleans. Earthquakes. Tsunamis.
    9/11.
    It didn’t change what he felt, and what he felt was that he didn’t just have a dark cloud following him around lately; it was as if the thunder and lightning were inside him.
    Were him.
    He was upstairs now, on the balcony outside his bedroom, staring out at the park. In his hand was the rare Morgan silver dollar, an 1879, his dad had given him once as a present, with Lady Liberty on it. He’d told Zach that even though it was made of silver, it was worth its weight in gold.
    And something he should never lose.
    “Why?” Zach had said.
    “Are you chafing on me?” his dad had said, throwing one of Zach’s expressions back at him. “Because I gave it to you, that’s why. And because it’s gonna be the only good luck charm you’ll ever need.”
    Zach tried to squeeze some luck out of the Morgan now as he stared at the buildings on the other side of the park. The view was amazing as always, but it was doing nothing for him. He kept replaying the conversation with Kate inside his head, thinking of ways