Chapter 16 - Broken Glass
By the time I reached Salina, police cars blocked the street. The front porch was buried under glass and broken wood. A pickup truck sat halfway through the living room, its engine dead.
Charlene was sitting on the curb wrapped in a paramedic's blanket. She had a cut over one eyebrow and was furious at everyone. When she saw me, she tried to stand.
"This is what your medal brought us!"
"Are you hurt?"
"Don't pretend you care."
I nodded to the paramedic and stepped back. There are injuries people will not let you treat.
The driver was a nineteen-year-old from two streets over. He told police he'd been drinking, panicked, and hit the wrong pedal while turning. Investigators found no evidence that Mercer had sent him. No grand conspiracy. Just a reckless kid and a ruined house. The truth didn't need every disaster to fit one villain.
Brody came out carrying a framed newspaper article, its glass shattered. The picture showed him smiling beside a hospital bed. In the corner, cropped almost entirely out, was my bandaged hand.
"Mom kept this by the front door," he said.
Charlene reached for it. "That was the best day of my life."
"It was the worst day of mine," Brody replied.
She stared at him as if she hadn't heard.
"I woke up knowing somebody died because we weren't brave enough to stop," he said. "You dressed me up in a hero's story. Every time you bragged, it got harder to tell you I was ashamed."
Her voice went thin. "I only wanted people to see what was good in you."
"You couldn't see me at all."
He set the frame in the debris and walked away. Charlene did not follow.
Later, I sat on the sidewalk beside her while crews boarded the window. We said nothing for a long time.
"Your father knew I loved Brody more," she said at last. "He asked me to hide it better. I never did."
I could have answered a hundred ways. Instead I asked, "Why did Dad stay?"
She looked toward the empty doorway. "Because one night he said he'd rather disappoint you than lose me."
May you like
The sentence split something open in my chest. Before I could speak, my phone lit up with a call from General Haskett.
"Erin," he said, "Mercer has asked to speak with federal investigators. He says he has one condition: he wants you in the room."
