“Early in his hockey career. He and Freya were newlyweds. A woman sued Max for child support. She said her baby was his after a one-night stand at a hotel in Calgary.”

“Max has a child?”

“No.” Thompson looked triumphant. “He said it wasn’t his, because he’s sterile. His lawyer submitted test results.”

“But he can’t be sterile. Freya is pregnant.”

“I guess he lied.” Thompson took a bite of pizza and then continued through the mouthful. “Or else Freya’s baby is a miracle.”

But it wasn’t a miracle.

And it clearly wasn’t Max’s.

“How did you find this out?

“It’s all online,” Thompson said, slurping some Coke. “It’s buried under all the stuff about the Ryan Klassen incident. But if you go back far enough, it’s there.”

“Thank you, Thompson,” I said sincerely. “I needed this.”

He beamed at me. “I’ll buy you pizza any time, Low.”

But Thompson had given me more than pizza. He’d given me power.

Chapter 44

44

I couldn’t take Thompson’s word for it. Even though he was the most earnest person I’d ever encountered, I needed proof. The library was open until six, so I left the pizza place and drove directly there. The librarian shot me a look of annoyance as I hurried toward the computer section. She’d probably hoped to close early, but too bad. I was on a mission.

The Ryan Klassen incident would dominate the results if I didn’t tailor my search, so I typed:

Maxime Beausoleil, paternity suit, Calgary

Up popped an article from the Calgary Herald. Leaning in, I devoured the content. A young woman named Paula Elphin claimed she’d had sex with Max while his team, the LA Kings, was in town to play the Flames. There was a photo of her leaving court: attractive in a busty, bottle-blond kind of way. But she was no Freya. Would Max have cheated on his wife with a random puck bunny? Would Freya have cared if he had? This Paula woman had found herself pregnant shortly after their encounter and had contacted Max for child support. When he refused, she sued.

It wasn’t a big news story; Max was barely famous then. But Calgary was a hockey-loving town, and local interest was piqued. To add to the drama, Max had refused to provide a blood sample, which could have cleared up the paternity in utero. Instead, his lawyer had submitted a doctor’s letter attesting that Max had contracted a severe case of mumps at seventeen, which had rendered him infertile.