Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warnings:

Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Kip Grady/Scott Hunter, Background Rose Landry/Svetlana Vetrova - Relationship

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Kip Grady, Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Rose Landry, Svetlana Vetrova, Roger Crowell, Jack Crawford, Stan McQueen, Mary Shannon, Marshall Mann

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Scott Hunter Is Not Too Lazy To Be a Serial Killer (or Even a Spree Killer), Kip Grady is an FBI Agent, Rose Landry is a US Marshal, Svetlana Vetrova is a US Marshal, There Was Only One Bed, Cockblocked by the Long Arm of Justice, Also Known as the Two US Marshals Sleeping Outside Your Bedroom Door, Kidnapped Shane Hollander, Attempted Sexual Assault, Happy Ending, no one dies, Well Except All the People Scotty Kills, But They're All Redshirts, Scott Can Have a Little Murder As a Treat, Crack Treated Seriously, Very Silly Puns, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander

Language:

English

Series:

Part 11 of Inty's Gay Hockey Boys (Heated Rivalry fics)

Stats:

Published: 2026-09-26 Words: 8,921 Chapters: 1/?

Not Even a Spree Killer

Summary

For half a decade, every hockey player who wins Rookie of the Year has been found dead within a year of holding the trophy. It’s enough to make even a minimally superstitious athlete a little… concerned. But Shane Hollander isn’t worried about the supposed Calder Curse—until he ends up splitting the award with Ilya Rozanov.

Notes

Did I look up and find the actual video of the presentation of the Calder Trophy in 2011 and watch it multiple times to write this fic? Yes I did. Am I going insane? I’m really starting to think so…

This is my fifth ongoing Heated Rivalry WIP. I promise I’m going to finish the Vegas AU, everything else has no guarantees. Like, I am very much intending to finish all of them, Phoenix stop glaring at me! I'm just saying, if you're not okay with a story that updates once every couple of months if I'm very lucky, do not start this fic. Caveat lector, that’s all I’m saying here.

Details on the Rape Warning

The attempted sexual assault is Scott being creepy on Shane, in a serial killer sort of way. It doesn’t get beyond some heavy groping/bondage/knifeplay.

So many thanks to my betas for this one, Sunless_Garden and Phoenix_Ascended. All mistakes that remain are my own; the ones that aren't here are the ones they helped me fix.

Chapter 1

“And the Calder Trophy goes to…” Roenick said, drawing out the last syllable in his characteristic drawl as he tore open the envelope. 

Shane clenched his hands, digging his blunt fingernails into his palms. He wasn’t sure why Roenick was even presenting—it wasn’t as if he was a former Calder winner himself, which would have made sense, nor did he have any particular reputation for nurturing younger talent. Maybe it was just that he was one of the few hockey players willing to break his media training and say whatever dumb ass shit came to his mind—it made him a nightmare to his agent and his team’s PR department, but the League loved throwing him in front of cameras.  

And Shane was trying to distract himself with irrelevancies, because if he lost this, after coming in second to Rozanov at the draft—

“Uh… huh. You know, I think this is a first!” Roenick said, showing the card to his fellow presenter. 

Stroumboulopoulos, one of the TV personalities they’d dragged out to provide color commentary, leaned in to read it and did a visible doubletake. 

Shane turned to look at his mom, trying to telegraph his confusion with raised eyebrows; she just shrugged back, clearly as much out to sea as he was. 

What the hell was going on? What could be surprising about the Rookie of the Year award? Everyone had predicted that it would be one of the closest votes in history, so the result shouldn’t be shocking, no matter whether it had been Rozanov or Shane himself who had won.

Fuck, if fucking Vincent Lemaire had actually won, Shane was going to lose his shit. But how would that be a first? It wasn’t as if it would even be the first time the writers’ association had shit the bed… 

“Wow, folks, it sure is!” Stromboulopoulos said. “We’re making history tonight with the first time the Calder Trophy has ever been awarded to two rookies in the same year, because we have a tie between Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov!” 

Shane’s mom gasped audibly, and her hand flashed out and latched on to Shane’s forearm, her fingers pressing down firmly enough to make him jump with surprise. 

As applause started rippling out over the shocked crowd, several thoughts burst full-form into Shane’s head at once—like a triplet version of that one Greek goddess with the nice breastplate. 

Thank God I didn’t lose outright? I guess…  

We tied? Is a tie even possible? Isn’t there a tiebreaker? We would have had to have gotten the same number of first, second, third, fourth and fifth place votes…

Jesus, Rozanov is never going to let me hear the end of this… 

Even as those thoughts sprang up in his mind, though, Shane was rising on autopilot, fixing his face into the media-perfect picture of mildly surprised pleasure that his mom had trained into him. The cameras would be fixed on him, and like hell was he going to give them anything to use to make fun of him. 

His mom didn’t release her grip on his arm as he stood up, and so he ended up pulling her up with him. Not wanting to shake her off—the optics of that would be horrible—he turned toward her, instead, widening his eyes in consternation. For a second, she just stared back at him with glistening eyes, her chest heaving—but thankfully, she then seemed to recover from whatever fugue state she’d been in and finally dropped her death-grip on his arm, pulling him into a tight hug, instead. 

“Congratulations, Shane,” she whispered. ‘I’m so proud of you!” 

“Well done, son,” his dad agreed, clapping him on the back. 

They’d be prouder if I’d actually won the damn thing, instead of tying with fucking Rozanov, Shane couldn’t help but think, but he stuffed the childish complaint down as he made his way up to the stage. It didn’t seem like anyone in the audience was all that dismayed or upset by the tie, at least—now that they’d gotten over their initial shock, most faces he saw as he climbed the steps looked entertained, or even pleased. Well, probably some of them were figuring that with two winners, the Calder Curse surely wouldn’t strike again… 

Especially two winners who wouldn’t be caught dead having a drink together, he thought, with dark amusement. 

Moving on autopilot, Shane crossed the stage and shook Roenick’s hand, keenly aware of Rozanov mirroring his actions from less than a foot away, and then Roenick was handing them the trophy—or rather, the award, because the real Calder Memorial Trophy was a twenty-inch silver cup on top of a twenty-four-inch wooden plinth, and weighed almost twenty pounds, and was not, in fact, here on the stage with them. They’d take a bunch of promo shots with it later, before it got sent back to Toronto to have their names inscribed on the base, along with all the other winners going back to 1936. The thick crystal shard they handed them on stage was just a memento, for them to take home and put on their trophy shelf… 

Or, at least, for one of them to take home. They both grabbed for it at the same time, and, with that godawful sense of comedic timing that made him every journalist’s favorite player, Roenick let it go midway between them, forcing them into a tug of war over the stupid thing, their fingers both slipping dangerously over the slick glass. 

The audience cracked up. Because of course, two six-foot-tall, beefy guys fighting over a tiny little glass plaque was fucking hilarious. But thank god, before it could get really messy, the Vanna White-type model who’d been ferrying the awards back and forth all night came running up from backstage with a second, matching piece of engraved crystal. 

Which, of course, meant that they’d had two the whole time, and had just chosen to bring them out one at a time because they thought it would be funny, and Shane knew this thing couldn’t be fixed or anything like that, but the League was clearly intent on milking every possible last ounce of entertainment value out of it. Which, admittedly, was par for the course—hockey was in the business of entertainment, after all—but right at this very moment, Shane was not feeling quite as reasonable and understanding about it as usual. 

And Rozanov was not letting go of the damn award. 

Shane could hear his mother in his mind, telling him to be the bigger man, to show some sportsmanship and take the second one. And he very much did want to be the bigger man. He just… didn’t want it quite as much as he wanted to make sure that Rozanov wasn’t going to be able to use this as a chirp for the rest of their lives. He could hear him in his mind’s ear right now, too, drowning out his mother’s voice—wow, Hollander, second trophy, second in draft, second gold in Juniors—you like staring at my ass that much?

Rozanov must have been able to read Shane’s renewed determination in his eyes, because after another tense second, their fingers now overlapping over the increasingly slippery crystal, he smirked at Shane, and then let it go—abruptly enough that the sudden loss of counterweight impacted Shane’s balance. A fresh surge of laughter rippled through the audience as he staggered backward, and then Rozanov was stepping away, smoothing a hand coolly over his hair, and looking like a perfect goddamn gentleman as he accepted the second award from Stromboulopoulos. 

Fuck, but Shane hated him. And was chubbing up in his tightly-tailored trousers, goddamnit. He took a deep breath in through his nose, pulling himself together. He looked down at the award and noted, absently, that the plaque was inscribed with both his name and Rozanov’s, as well as the title of the trophy and the year; he wasn’t ever going to be able to forget that they’d shared the win. 

The cheering—and laughing—from the audience was dying down, and Shane, recalled to his media duties, stepped up to the mic stand as Roenick and Stromboulopoulos clapped them on the shoulders and left them alone on the stage. 

“Well,” he said into the mic. “I, uh, know everyone says they weren’t expecting to win, but I really wasn’t expecting it to go like this…” 

The audience laughed again—but this time it was at least somewhat with him rather than at him, and with the relief of that surging through him, Shane managed a wan smile. 

“But, uh, anyway, you know, it’s an amazing honor to win this award—um, obviously Rozanov is an amazing player and he had a great season, but Lemaire, you also had a great season, so, it really means a lot to be up here,” Shane said, fumbling a bit over this part of his prepared speech. He’d been supposed to mention both of his fellow finalists in the same breath. And no matter how much more sense it made for Lemaire to be more of an afterthought, the way Shane had managed to put it must have been like salt rubbed into a wound for poor Vinny. But it also hadn’t made sense to treat them equally when Rozanov was up there with him.

Which reminded him of the other player’s presence, and Shane glanced aside at Rozanov, unsure if he wanted to step in—did it make more sense for them to go back and forth, or take turns doing their whole speeches? Rozanov just nodded slightly, the same subtle go-ahead he’d given him in Nashville, and Shane turned back to the mic feeling a little lighter. 

“I also want to thank all my teammates in Montreal, and the Club management, and Coach Theriault, for having my back, and helping me be my best. And all the guys on the 67s, the coaching and training staff there, especially Ezra Larzdik and Timber Swett, and, oh, Gunn O’Rea from Hockey Canada, for giving me the opportunity to play with the best of the best in the Prospect Cup. Cal Midea, my personal trainer before I hit the Juniors—you really helped me figure out how to hit those edges and find my inner skater, I owe a ton to you. And my parents, of course—you two did so much, giving up time and sleep and normal lives, to get me here. Thank you, Mom and Dad.” 

Shane stepped back, satisfied that he’d at least gotten through the whole thing, hopefully without forgetting anyone. He turned expectantly to Rozanov, who stepped up to the mic, took a deep breath, and said—

“What he said.” 

Laughter broke out around the auditorium. Shane just barely managed to keep from jerking around to stare at Rozanov, incensed. What did he think he was doing? This wasn’t some stupid presser no one would remember—this was the Calder, the first major trophy of their professional careers, on a national stage in front of all the most important people in hockey, you were supposed to use the opportunity to pay it back to the people who’d supported your career, Rozanov was going to look like an asshole, and not the fun kind anymore—

Rozanov had leaned backward after his one-liner, as if he was done, but before the sound guy could start playing the transition music, he swayed forward again and added something short and completely unintelligible—well, it was probably perfectly clear if you spoke Russian, but Shane didn’t, so as far he knew, “dilla teebya mama” was some kind of devastating Russian insult. 

And then Rozanov turned on his heel and stalked toward the far steps, leaving Shane to awkwardly scuttle off the stage and back toward his parents, annoyance surging through him. Rozanov could at least pretend to take this seriously…!

Shane still felt dazed and confused as he sat down, but he started coming back to himself as the night went on—award following award, punctuated by predictable speeches and poorly written intros and transition skits, kept from being stultifying solely by his mother’s whispered biting commentary. Spirk took the Vezina, even though everyone knew he was getting kinda over the hill these days—but hey, he’d pioneered a whole new form of goaltending and he could still steal a game when he really needed to. Cherik took his seventh Norris, which he hadn’t really earned this year, but, you know, it was Cherik, so no one was going to complain. McShep won the Selke, which had kind of been a tossup, but might as well go to him as anyone else. Hunter won the Masterton, which was absurd—hadn’t he already won it his rookie year, when he’d been out for a quarter of the season with an injury and they’d felt bad that he hadn’t been a real contender for the Calder? Had he somehow been through even more trauma this year, or were they just going to keep giving it to him every time they remembered that his parents were dead? And finally, Barbedouce won the Hart—the first non-white player to ever do so, and when he got really choked up in his speech and couldn’t keep going, Shane found himself on his feet, stomping and applauding, along with most of the rest of the audience. Even if a bunch of them were clearly doing it just because they didn’t want to be caught on camera sitting down at such a moment, it still felt important. 

And so by the time they finally opened the doors and let everyone go free, Shane was feeling almost normal again. He’d have years—hopefully decades—to prove that he was better than Rozanov. Some day, he’d probably look back at this moment and laugh. 

Although he definitely wasn’t going to get there today, he decided, as the League PR folks—who were absolutely giddy with the marketing opportunities—took what felt like a thousand pictures of him and Rozanov posing with the real Calder Trophy, finding ever-more-creative ways to stage the two of them with it. If they ever actually used the one where the two of them had actually wrestled for it—with Shane on the floor on his back, the trophy held above his head, and Rozanov on top of him, straddling him and grabbing for it—then Shane would never have to worry about the damn Calder Curse, because he was going to die of acute embarrassment, instead. 

(Not that Shane believed in the Curse, of course.) 

Finally, they figured they’d gotten enough photos and set them free. The two of them walked down the hall and toward the stairs down to where the reception was already going full swing. 

“Wil you disappoint them?” Rozanov asked, his eyes glinting teasingly, when Shane paused at the top of the stairs. 

Shane grinned at the memory of their first major league game against each other. “Nope,” he replied, just as he had then. “Will you?” 

Rozanov’s expression shuttered. “No one here for me to disappoint,” he said shortly. 

Before Shane could figure out what to say to respond to that, Rozanov started down the stairs, and Shane had to hurry to catch up so he didn’t end up running behind him, like fucking always. When they reached the bottom, they were quickly separated by the press of the crowd—it seemed like every single person present wanted to have the chance to shake Shane’s hand and then make some joke about how excruciating it must be to share this with Rozanov, too. Every time he managed to get a glimpse of Rozanov, his golden curls poking up above even this crowd, he was just as sought after, so the attendees must have been just as eager to poke fun at him. It was good to know that everyone in the hockey world was just delighted by their discomfiture… 

After Shane managed to keep from snapping at the owner of the Flappers—who’d implied both that Shane had only gotten even half of the award because the League wanted to make a diversity statement and that sharing it with Rozanov had to be the most embarrassing thing to ever happen to him (as if they hadn’t both scored sixty-seven goals this season, tying for second on the all-time rookie scoring record list!)—Shane figured he’d earned a break. For once, they actually had ginger ale, and he leaned against the bar and sipped slowly, enjoying his treat. 

“That better just be ginger ale, Rook,” Hunter said, coming up beside him. 

“Uh,” Shane said, feeling himself blush. He’d mostly gotten used to bumping elbows with the League’s superstars, after a whole season of having them check him into the boards and chirp him on the bench, but Hunter had been one of his role models when he’d been an up-and-coming junior player—even playing him four times over the course of the last year and being drafted to his team at All Stars hadn’t rubbed off his heroic aura in Shane’s eyes entirely. Shane had even had his poster up on his wall during high school, which felt excruciatingly embarrassing to remember now. “It is, Mr. Hunter. I wouldn’t indulge in front of you.” 

Hunter chuckled. “Oh, just cause of me? Not worried about the Curse, then?”

Shane scoffed. “I’m not a kid. I don’t believe in curses.” 

“Oh yeah?” Hunter challenged. “So if I had the Stanley Cup here, you’d go up and touch it, no problem?” 

“No, of course not,” Shane admitted. “But that’s not superstition, that’s just science!” 

“Ahh, good point,” Hunter said, grinning.  He slapped Shane lightly on the shoulder. “Far it be it from me to argue with science. No, but seriously, congratulations, man. You had an amazing season.” 

“Thank you,” Shane said, shaking Hunter’s hand when the older player offered it. The touch sent an odd electric shock through him, not entirely unpleasant.

“If you’re not worried about the curse, though, me and some of the other old fucks wanted to do some shots with our Calder winners. Would you be into that?” 

“Fuck yes, I would,” Shane said, grinning up at him with exhilaration. 

Playing on Hunter’s team during All Stars had been amazing enough, but this! Hunter had been very much the All Star captain, then, taking the whole team out to dinner, asking after everyone’s families, reminding them that they needed to keep a clear head for the main event the next day. Now he was treating Shane like an equal, which was a far headier drink than any alcohol. 

“Okay, then where’s your boy Rozanov?”

Shane was a little proud that he managed to keep from choking at that question—but then, people had been making stupid references to him and Rozanov being a pair all night. “I’m not sure,” he said evenly, “I haven’t seen him since we got finished with photos.” 

“Well, I’m sure someone else grabbed him,” Hunter said, and turned to signal to the bartender. “More for us, right?” 

Before he could actually order Shane a shot, though, someone else approached them—a tall, statuesque black woman, dressed in a snappy-looking skirt suit rather than an evening gown. 

“Mr. Hollander?” she asked, offering her hand. As he shook it, she added, “Aida Gueye, I’m on Commissioner Crowell’s staff. Mr. Hunter, would you mind if we stole him from you for a moment?” 

“No, of course not,” Hunter said, slapping Shane companionably on the shoulder again. “I’ll catch you later, Rook.” 

“Uh, thank you, Mr. Hunter,” Shane said, trying to hide his disappointment as his hero walked away. He’d have much preferred getting a drink with Hunter than getting condescended to by yet another League official; especially Crowell, who’d never even played. But it wasn’t like he could just say no. This was the guy who ran the entire League.  

He didn’t suspect that anything else was going on until Ms. Gueye steered him out of the reception area altogether, leading him down a nondescript hallway. 

“Uh,” Shane said. “Are we… Is this supposed to be some kind of official meeting? Because I should probably have, uh, my manager with me, if so—” 

Because he definitely couldn’t say “my mom said I shouldn’t talk to anyone official about serious stuff without her present,” but… His mom had made it very clear that he shouldn’t talk to anyone official about serious stuff without her present. 

“Your parents have already been asked to join us,” Ms. Gueye said, which just made Shane feel more confused about what the hell was going on. 

Granted, it wasn’t that late, but his parents had gone back to their room almost an hour ago—they were still on East Coast time, and they’d said they  wanted him to have a good time celebrating his win without them hovering over him. What on earth could be so important that the League was pulling them all into a meeting at (he checked his watch) ten o’clock at night?

Unless… They’d found out about Shane and Rozanov hooking up at All Stars… 

Shane’s breath sped up. 

Ms. Gueye opened a door about halfway down the hallway and gestured to Shane to precede her through the entryway; his dread grew as he walked in and found his parents sitting at a large boardroom table across from Rozanov. Several other men were seated around the table, each with a neat, stapled quire of papers in front of them—the only one Shane recognized was Roger Crowell, who’d been the commissioner of Major League Hockey since the mid-nineties. No, wait—he also knew Boston’s head coach, who was one of the men sitting next to Rozanov; Shane just wasn’t used to seeing him off the ice, and looking normal, instead of being brick-red and sweating from yelling. Fuck. Fuck. 

Shane’s parents were dressed down in simple button-ups and slacks, their traveling clothes, so they had gone back to their room for a while, at least. Shane scuttled over, sliding into the chair they’d clearly saved for him between them. The wide-eyed, eyebrows-raised, and stiff-lipped look his mom threw at him at least made it clear that she had no more idea of why they were there than he did—and that she was not at all pleased about it. If the League had dragged her out of bed just to anvil-drop them with the revelation that Shane had slept with his biggest rival—possibly violating his contract in the process—and blown up his entire fucking career almost before it could even begin… The career that they’d spent the last decade or more sacrificing for… 

I’m going to have to die, that’s all, Shane thought morosely, leaning into the arm his dad had slung around the back of his chair. I won’t even have to do it myself, I’ll just keel over right here, the second they say it. Death by humiliation at age twenty, what a fucking tragedy. 

A moment later, another two men walked into the room, and Shane’s heart sank even further as he instantly recognized his own head coach, Richard Desjardins, and the Metros’ general manager, Francis Bergeron. He was so fucked. 

“Alright, I think that’s everyone we were waiting for. Thanks for joining us,” the commissioner said, nodding impartially around the table as the two latest arrivals sat down, right next to Shane’s dad. “We’ll try not to keep you all from the festivities too long.” 

His eyes slid over Shane with no particular change in expression, which meant that… maybe this wasn’t about him and Rozanov? That gave Shane the courage to look across the table at Rozanov. His fellow rookie just gave a little tiny shrug of his shoulders, which said exactly nothing. 

Gee thanks, Rozanov. 

“We’re here to receive a briefing from the FBI that concerns our two Calder winners,” Crowell said, wiping all the other thoughts away from Shane’s mind. “We’ve been following their guidance in how we’ve handled things tonight, and expect the rest of you to do likewise. That includes the NDA you’ll find in front of you, which we’ll ask you all to sign before we proceed.”

Shane picked up the pen, then glanced at his mom; she nodded shortly, her expression tense. As he’d half-expected, her copy of the NDA was already sitting open and signed in front of her; she’d undoubtedly speed-read it the minute she’d sat down. With his heart pounding in his chest, Shane flipped to the last page and signed, passing it down the table to where Ms. Gueye was collecting them. Pretty much everyone else around the table was as fast to sign as he’d been—Rozanov had a short conversation in Russian with one of the men sitting next to him, but then they both signed. 

“Alright,” Crowell said again, nodding as the last NDA was signed and collected. “I’ll hand things over to the FBI, now. Again, thank you all in advance for your cooperation.” 

“Thank you, Commissioner Crowell.” Another man got up and crossed around to the head of the table, tugging briefly at his cuffs. He was a tall black man: younger than Crowell or Shane’s parents, Shane thought, but not by too much; broad-shouldered with a beefy torso, the kind of body that most hockey players got once they’d retired and their seasonal fight to pack pounds on turned into a long, losing battle to keep them off. “I’m Jack Crawford, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. I’m here to brief you about an operation we’ve been running for the past few months.” 

“A few months,” Shane’s mom interjected, her voice tight. “Since Punainen Paita died?” 

Agent Crawford glanced over at her, raising his eyebrows. “That is, in fact, precisely when our investigation started. That’s a very insightful remark, Ms… Hollander, I take it?” 

“Yes, Yuna Hollander. Given the FBI’s interest and the specific people you called in for this discussion, it wasn’t a very difficult conclusion to reach.”  

It really wasn’t, but it still took Shane an embarrassingly long time to follow his mom’s logic. Punainen Paita had been the rookie who’d won the Calder last year. He’d died running his car off the road while driving drunk early that spring, the latest victim of the Calder Cur—

Oh. Well, fuck. 

But hey, this doesn’t have anything to do with me and Rozanov hooking up, after all!

It was possible that Shane didn’t have particularly healthy priorities, but the revelation that he’d just become the target of some kind of crazed hockey assassin was a welcome alternative to what he’d feared. 

“On the contrary, I think it was an excellent deduction,” Agent Crawford said to Shane’s mom. “Have you ever thought about going into criminal justice work? I could arrange an internship.” 

Yuna blinked back at him. “Ah… no. I’m happy with my current professional prospects, thank you.” 

“Ah, too bad. Well, to bring the rest of the room up to speed—yes. Certain details of the autopsy conducted after Paita’s death raised red flags. Well, that and the sheer improbability of five different winners of one particular award dying tragically in as many years… All this led my office to take a much closer look at the series of incidents that have become popularly known as the Calder Curse. As a result of that investigation, I can now tell you all, in strict confidence, that we believe there is a serial killer at large who has been deliberately targeting winners of the Calder Trophy for the last several years.” 

Shane had already pretty much figured it out, but hearing the word “serial killer” said out loud still sent a shiver down his spine. His dad’s arm moved from the back of his chair, tightening protectively around his shoulder. 

“My colleague, Agent Grady, is going to be running our counteroperation, and so I’ll hand this over to him now.” 

Crawford nodded firmly to his silent audience and went back to his seat, passing his colleague on the way. Grady was surprisingly young—early thirties at most, maybe even mid-twenties?—and startlingly handsome, with a lightly scruffed, well-cut jaw, square face, and strong brows under a head of curly dark brown hair.

“Hi everyone,” he said, with incongruous informality. “I’m mostly a profiler, and my students are always complaining about my boring lectures, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m not the most riveting presenter.” 

No one laughed at this particular piece of self-deprecatory humor, and after a moment, Grady cleared his throat and went on. “That said, please stop me if anything doesn’t make sense. Okay, so, first of all, because of the geographic spread and timing of the murders in this case, we strongly believe that the killer is a hockey player. Possibly a college student was passed over for the draft—all the murders took place in a location with a high-profile university team—but more likely it was a professional player. And if he’s a professional player, it’s almost certainly for a major league team.” 

This revelation did spark a few mutters around the table—Shane, at least, felt like he’d been smacked in the face with a rainbow trout, just like on his tenth birthday camping trip. Another player? He’d assumed it had to be some kind of deranged fan, like all the ones he’d gotten kidnapping and death threats from. How the hell did a professional hockey player find the time to also be a serial killer? Shane had only played one year, and the schedule was fucking exhausting… 

Although I guess if he’s only doing one murder a year, maybe it wouldn’t take that much time? Still, making it look like an accident has to require a lot of preparation. 

“This is obviously a huge advantage for us,” Grady went on, with an enthusiasm that Shane felt was a little out of place. From the frown on his mother’s face, she felt the same way. “It makes the suspect pool much smaller than we can normally count on. However—although this is a good thing overall, of course—we also don’t really have that many deaths, yet, and that makes it much more difficult to identify the killer’s signature, and so predict what he’ll do next. Obviously, alcohol has been the one commonality, but other than that, the methodologies of the murders seem to vary more than is usually the case.” 

“Seem to?” Reilly—Boston’s head coach—asked. “Shouldn’t it be pretty cut and dry? I mean, they were all pretty high profile news stories!” 

Shane refrained from a snort at the understatement. Oh, the first death had only been a weeklong story or so—it wasn’t unusual for young men to have mishaps with alcohol, after all, even incredibly high-achieving ones in high-profile athletic positions. But when the second Calder winner had died in basically the same way almost exactly a year later, it had caused a sensation, and every death since then had just added to the frenzy. 

“They were all news stories as accidental deaths,” Grady retorted. “And as the cause of death was cut and dried in every case, no autopsies were performed—that makes it impossible to tell whether the killer was drugging people the entire time, or if that was something new with the Paita case—” 

“Drugging them?” Shane’s mother asked sharply. 

“Oh—yes,” Agent Grady looked momentarily discomfited, then shrugged. “Sorry, I thought we’d already covered that. It was the GHB in Paita’s tox screen that first raised red flags—his family insisted that he didn’t use recreational drugs. At their request, the local investigation team looked more closely at the site of the accident and the car, and were able to determine that Paita was in the passenger’s seat, and likely unconscious, when his car went off the road.” 

“Sorry—so sorry,” Rozanov interrupted. “My English is not always good. You are saying killer drugged Finnish rookie and then drove his car into tree? And then moved him to driver’s seat afterward?” 

“Yes, exactly!” Grady said, as if he was praising a favorite student. “After disabling the passenger side airbag; its failure to go off was what kept the initial crash team from realizing that there were two people involved in the accident. We believe that Paita was also placed in the car without a seat belt—that, plus the airbag failure, would have resulted in his injuries being far more severe than the driver would have incurred, but the autopsy also indicated that blunt force trauma was employed after the accident to ensure Paita’s death. This may represent a drastic change in the killer’s methods, if those deaths employed alcohol alone, but we can’t prove that conclusively.” 

“Well, and there was the roof, for Košela,” Desjardins pointed out. 

“Yes—but we don’t know if the killer actually pushed Košela off, or if that was a genuine coincidence, due to Košela’s altered state,” Grady said. “We’ve tried to do what we can to go back and interview witnesses, but there’s only so much we can do without potentially tipping the killer off on the investigation, which—”

“Agent Grady, can we return to the point, please,” Agent Crawford called from his seat halfway down the table, sounding a little tired. 

“Oh. Yes, my apologies," Grady said, again a little embarrassed and awkward. “Well. The difficulty in gathering evidence after the fact, plus the possible escalation in methods with Paita, makes our job more difficult, as we can’t extend the signature from that murder back to the previous deaths, as we can with many serial killers. However, we do have another key advantage, along with the limited suspect pool; that is, of course, that we know exactly who his next targets will be.” 

Everyone in the room turned to look at either Shane or Rozanov. Shane’s dad squeezed his shoulder quickly, then moved his arm away. Shane stifled an absurd urge to wave at them, like he did when fans called his name at games or other events. 

“And what are you and the League going to be doing to guarantee our boys’ safety?” Shane’s mom asked icily. “Given that apparently, suspending the Calder Trophy was not considered an option.” 

“Refusing to award the Trophy would mean the League was knuckling under to a maniac,” Crowell said. 

“It would mean the League was being sensible and refusing to put their best prospects in unnecessary danger,” Yuna fired back. 

“That’s a completely logical argument, and it’s natural that it would occur to a layperson,” Crawford said, leaning forward, “but in fact, it’s the worst possible thing we could do.” 

Agent Grady nodded vigorously. “Killers like this have a deep-seated psychological need that their violent acts are satisfying,” he explained. “Limiting the victim pool inevitably escalates the killer’s behavior, driving him to expand his criteria for victim selection. Now, in some situations that can be a good thing—it can force mistakes—but in this case, I honestly can’t predict what form that would take. He might decide to go after every rookie, or winners of previous years from before he started killing, or any player who won an award this year!” 

“Your son might well still end up a target,” Crawford interpreted, “and our resources would be spread across half the League instead of being solely focused on him. Well, and on Rozanov, here, of course. It’s much better for us to be in the position we are, where we can focus on protecting just two targets.” 

“And even better, really,” Grady said, enthusiastic as a puppy, “because he’ll almost certainly try to find an attack window when the two of them—” 

“Grady—” Crawford hissed, but it was much too little, too late if he was trying to stop his subordinate (which clearly Grady was, no matter that he’d been introduced as a colleague, even Shane could read between the lines when they were so wide only two fit on a page)..

“—are together,” Grady finished, “just as they won the award; after seeing them on the stage accepting it together, he won’t be able to stomach the idea of killing them separately.” 

Agent Crawford sighed loudly and put a hand over his eyes; Yuna Hollander looked about half an inch from leaping over the table and strangling Grady with her bare hands; and Rozanov, across the table, looked unholily entertained, as if the idea of being murdered in the same room with Shane was somehow appealing. 

Shane, on the other hand, was connecting things, deep in his head. No one on earth would call Shane an intellectual, given that he’d barely finished high school. But he did have a gift for making connections, for seeing how things related to each other, and—

“Did we actually tie?” he demanded, leaning forward over the table, palms braced on the polished wood. “Or did you just announce that we did so you could catch this guy?” 

“Um,” Agent Grady said. The clear look of guilt on his face made the answer entirely unnecessary. 

“Commissioner Crowell,” Shane’s mom started, with a face to launch a thousand lawsuits.

“At the direct request of the FBI,” Crowell grated, glaring at Crawford, “and with the knowledge and permission of the Executive Director of the NHLPA, we arranged to have the voting for the Calder trophy end in a tie this year, yes.” 

“So then, which of us actually won?” Shane demanded immediately. 

“I would like to know this, too,” Rozanov stated, when no one answered the question immediately. 

“There wasn’t a winner,” Grady said quickly. “Because the vote totals are published—and from what we understand, the members of PHWA do talk to each other quite a bit—we were afraid that any tampering after the fact might be uncovered; especially since everyone said this was going to be an extraordinarily close vote. Which is what gave us the idea in the first place, really.” 

“So… I don’t understand, if you didn’t change the votes—” Shane said, shaking his head.

“We assisted them in recruiting a small group of PHWA members who have been… cooperative with the League in the past,” Crowell said, still looking like he’d bitten into a lemon. “We read in those writers on the need to fix the Calder vote, and once the rest of the votes came back, told them how we needed them to vote to force a tie.” 

“So… you can’t say which one of us would have won, because you don’t know how those guys would have voted if you hadn’t told them to cheat,” Shane said slowly. “Okay, fine. Which of us was winning before you brought those guys in?”

Rozanov started laughing. 

“Fuck off, you want to know, too!” Shane shot back. 

“Shane, language,” his mom hissed. 

“Yes, but not as much as you,” Rozanov said, overlapping her. 

“This is all beside the point,” Crowell said. “We hope that the FBI’s theory will hold out, obviously, but we don’t have any intention of relying on it. We’ll be upping our normal security measures, and in addition, we’ve agreed to partner with the Marshals Service for individual protection for Hollander and Rozanov.” 

“The United States Marshals Service?” Yuna asked, immediately. “Do they even have jurisdiction to operate in Canada?” 

“The relevant authorities have been notified, and will be fully supporting our efforts,” another man put in, from down the table. He was an older man, very short and balding. “Ah, sorry—I’m Stan McQueen, Chief Inspector with the US Marshals Service. I’ll be running point on the protection details for the boys. And I have to say, in fact, that we’ve never received such immediate and enthusiastic agreement to a request for cross-border cooperation.” 

Shane’s mother snorted softly.

“Yes, I am sure you told them that Canada’s golden hockey boy is in danger and the—what are they called, Mounteds?—I bet they all jumped on their meese and went galloping straight to help,” Rozanov said drily. 

“Meese?” one of the other men in the room repeated, in a soft, confused tone.

“The plural of moose is moose,” Shane corrected, keeping his face straight by a supreme effort of will. “And the mounties ride horses, actually.” 

“Boring,” Rozanov said. 

The man next to him leaned down and said something peremptory and harsh—or at least, that was the way it sounded—in his ear, but loud enough for the table to hear. 

“Ah, yes,” Rozanov agreed. “I am leaving for Russia in three days. Will not be coming back to Boston until training camp in September. What is plan for this?” 

The two FBI agents exchanged glances. 

“We’re happy to share information on the situation with Russian authorities,” Crawford said, his voice significantly more hesitant than it had been so far, “but I don’t believe we’ll get permission to send any kind of official presence with you—” 

“We absolutely won’t,” McQueen put in. “We’d have better luck reading in the FSB and suggesting that they do the protection—” 

Rozanov and his agent exchanged glances, then words; it threatened to turn into an outright argument, in fact, incomprehensible to the rest of the room—

(Or, at least, Shane didn’t think anyone else in the room spoke Russian)

—until Rozanov cut it off with a final barked command. “No,” he said after, to the whole table. “Russia will say, fine, you are in danger in America, solution is not go back, ever, play for KHL, we will protect you there. Is fine, I do not need protection while I am home; I am not afraid that American hockey player will come to Russia and kill me.” 

“Do we know that the killer is American?” Boston’s head coach—Reilly—asked. 

“My profile says that the killer is a white male hockey player, twenty-five to thirty, and speaks English as a first language,” Agent Grady said, his eyes unfocusing. “Almost certainly American or Canadian. I think that Mr. Rozanov is very unlikely to be in danger while he’s in Russia. None of the murders so far have occurred outside the regular hockey season; all but one have happened between December and February, and in cities that the killer would likely be intimately familiar with, from playing in them. And while I understand the League has plenty of Eastern Europeans, they’re still enough of a minority that I think it would have been noticed if any of them had been in the vicinity of each of the previous murders.”

McQueen nodded. “With his family’s permission, then, we’ll provide basic protection for Mr. Hollander over the summer, and then step up the intensity as soon as he returns to Montreal in September. Mr. Rozanov, if you can at least return early from Russia, perhaps a couple of weeks before training season starts, so that we can integrate your team into your life?” 

Rozanov frowned, then said, “I will try.” 

“That’s all we can ask,” McQueen said. “Obviously, we don’t intend to drop our guard at any time, but based on Agent Grady’s profile, I believe that our biggest threat windows will be the games Montreal plays in Boston on December 19th and January 12th, the All Star Game on January 29th in Ottawa, and the game in Montreal on February 15th. With the most dangerous of those—if we haven’t caught him beforehand, that is—being the All Star Game.” 

Shane nodded, following the reasoning. “Because there will be lots of other hockey players there already, without needing any kind of excuse for someone to show up,” he said. 

“Yes, and in addition, one of the previous murders took place during the All Star Weekend—” Grady started.

“Of course, Roth Oberhemd,” Shane said, the details immediately bursting into his mind. “He drowned in the hotel pool during the All Star weekend in Atlanta in 2008.” 

Everyone in the room turned to look at him, and Shane found himself flushing. “I mean, I’ve paid attention to the Calder Curse,” he said, shrugging. 

“Of course you have, darling,” Yuna said. “I’m sure everyone in hockey has. The tragic deaths of so many young men… I honestly can’t believe that we didn’t all realize that something out of the ordinary had to be going on earlier.” 

“Well,” one of the men sitting near Crowell shifted uncomfortably in his seat, “young men do tend to do reckless things that get themselves killed. The killer was clearly very good at making those deaths look like accidents.” 

“Which is also very unusual for a serial killer,” Agent Grady put in—again, with rather more enthusiasm than Shane thought was really tasteful. “I think it’s likely because of his celebrity, at least in part; as a hockey player, he’s far more prominent than most murderers of this type, and used to living under scrutiny.” 

“But how are you going to protect them without anyone knowing that you’re doing so?” Yuna asked. “Or at least—from what you’ve said, it doesn’t seem like you’re wanting anyone to know.” 

“No, that’s entirely correct,” Agent Crawford said, nodding approvingly at her again. “The fact that the killer thinks he’s operating entirely undetected is another huge advantage for us. This is why we’ve involved franchise management from both the Metros and Raiders; McQueen here will be embedding his marshals within the team infrastructure, allowing us to run a full protection team both when the boys are playing at home and on the road.” 

“That’s fine for when Shane is with the team,” Yuna said dismissively, “but when he goes home—” 

“Yes,” McQueen said, cutting in. “To that end, we plan to recruit two female marshals, who will be able to pass as social acquaintances, and accompany their principals whenever they leave the protection of their teammates.” 

“What if the killer is on one of their teams?” Shane’s dad put in. “Even if you have four or five guys in there, they’ll have to be staff members, equipment guys, cleaners; it’s not like you could replace one of the players, and sometimes, in the locker rooms or on the ice, it’s only players close by.” 

“We’ve run thorough background checks on all the Metros and Raiders players, and none are on our primary suspect list at this time,” Crawford said. “But again, this emphasizes the need to ensure that the killer doesn’t find out that we’re on to him. Right now, he’s trying to arrange an ‘accident’—that takes opportunity, access, and time, which we won’t be giving him.” 

This counterpoint temporarily stymied Shane’s parents, which allowed him to interject his own question. “Uh. So, by social acquaintance, you mean. Like. A bodyguard posing as a girlfriend. Right?” 

The two senior law enforcement officials exchanged glances. 

“We can discuss the exact details of your protection details with you and your families—or your agents,” McQueen added, nodding at Rozanov, so Shane guessed that answered the question of who the guy next to him was. “We’d like our agent to have an excuse to be in your residence and accompany you when you go out. That said, we also understand that you may not, ah, wish to give up all chance at a normal social life for the duration, and our agent can adjust to a variety of narratives.” 

There was another, even longer pause as everyone digested that. Shane had to replay the words several times before he figured out what the hell the guy was saying. So… What, the marshal or mountie or whatever would pretend to be some puck bunny, who went out to bars with Shane’s team and slept at his house with him while he brought other girls home?

Yeah. He could just imagine what his mom would have to say about that. He still remembered the hair-raising lecture she’d given him before he’d left for his Juniors billet, and he hadn’t even done anything. He’d asked Jessica to be his girlfriend within a month of starting at the new high school, just to ensure he had an excuse to give his teammates for why he wasn’t being gross about girls that wasn’t ‘my mother would murder me and make sure my body was never found.’

On the other hand, the idea of having a girlfriend to bring around to show the guys now wasn’t a horrible idea, either. They weren’t nearly as bad as his Juniors team, but there were still a decent amount of older guys on the team who figured that they should do their part in mentoring the rookie by getting him laid. Shane had taken a couple girls back to his place last season just to put a stop to the ‘Virgin Hollander’ chirps cycling around the locker room, and it would be a relief to not have that to worry about. 

Of course, he’d have to find the right girl one day, but it was definitely never going to be in a loud, crowded club, with his teammates watching his every move.

The rest of the meeting passed in a blur of Shane’s parents hounding the men in control of the meeting for more information, more input, more investment, until they’d finally worn themselves out hammering against the granite wall of Major League Hockey and US law enforcement and called it a night. Shane attempted to linger by the table as everyone started trickling out of the room, trying to catch Rozanov’s eye, but his manager wrapped an arm around his shoulders and walked him away while Shane’s parents were still hovering, and Shane gave up on getting in a quiet word with his rival. After a short conversation with his parents, he also gave up on going back to the party and figuring out if Scott Hunter still wanted to buy him a shot—his mother clearly had no intention of letting him out of her sight any time soon. 

“I can’t believe they don’t have a better plan to catch this bastard,” Yuna fumed, as the three of them went into the elevator. “How is their only strategy just waiting for him to try and kill you? There can’t be that many suspects—I mean, if it’s someone who lost the Calder to Holtz in 2006, that could be, who? Phaneuf, Lundqvist, Boyes, and Svatoš? How hard can it be to track them down?” 

“I don’t know, Mom,” Shane muttered, leaning back against the mirrored gold of the elevator and closing his eyes. His head was starting to hurt. Adam Holtz had been a huge talent, a star in the making. Just like him. Before he’d died of alcohol poisoning, out at a bar on a roadie… “I guess they don’t necessarily think it was a top contender—maybe it’s someone the PHWA never really gave a chance to. Or like they said, it could be a college student, or a minor league player, or something. Some guy who’s angry that he never got the kinds of opportunities I did.” 

Shane remembered reading Holtz’s story over and over, trying to figure out why someone he’d looked up to would have been so stupid: he’d been found on his twenty-first birthday, keeled over in an alley behind a bar, and all of his teammates had just thought he’d gone to the bathroom…

Shane said a silent apology to Holtz’s ghost. Still, his mom had a point—surely another hockey player hanging around a bar with an entire team celebrating their star player’s birthday would have been noticeable! Even looking it up several years after the fact, how hard could it be to figure out who might have been there?

“Hmph,” his mom said. “Well, I don’t trust them with your life. I think we should get you a bodyguard in addition to this protection detail they’re providing—” 

“Mom, no!” Shane protested, snapping his head back up. “It’s going to be bad enough with the marshals—” 

“This is your life, Shane,” Yuna said severely, then added, as the doors opened, “David, a little help, here?” 

Shane looked over at his dad hopefully as they began walking toward his parents’ hotel room; but unlike the many previous times when his dad had helped push back against his mother’s overreactions, right now he was nodding emphatically. 

“We aren’t going to take any chances with you, son,” David said. “If your mom thinks hiring a private consultant is a good idea, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.” 

“At least I don’t have to worry that you’ll be sneaking out to try and get a drink or get laid,” Yuna muttered, as she came to a stop in front of her hotel room. 

Shane let himself slump against the opposite wall, the back of his head hitting the ugly wallpaper with an even harder impact than in the elevator. 

Fuck! I didn’t even think, but… 

“Not like Rozanov,” his mom went on, “I can’t imagine being his parents right now—if I were them, I would do everything I could to keep him in Russia, but he seemed sure he’d be coming back.” 

“Well, he is a legal adult, hon,” David said. “They can’t stop him, if he’s determined to come back—” 

Shane closed his eyes, a hot, sour disappointment curdling in his gut. 

… the Calder Killer may not succeed in killing me, but he’s definitely managed to put an end to my sex life.