Chapter 12 - Don't Touch That Kid
Glass glittered across Jax's garage floor. Somebody had sprayed MONSTER across the front of his old motorcycle in red paint. A workbench was overturned, and the front window hung in jagged pieces.
"Did they hurt you?" I asked as he swept glass into a dustpan.
"No. I was at the shop next door."
"You should be furious."
"I am." He poured another pile into the pan. "I'm just not going to let whoever did this choose what I do with my hands."
Two other riders stood nearby, angry enough to shake. One wanted to find the person who'd posted Jax's address. Jax told him to go home.
"We don't frighten anyone for me," he said. "Especially not where that little boy can hear about it."
Then Lena called, breathless. "Nora, the diner is still giving out stars. They're doing it at the school fundraiser."
I drove to the community center with Rachel. Under a blue canopy, a Sunset Mile employee was handing out free meal coupons and little paper packets of plastic charms. Dana Dorsey stood behind her, smiling for photographs.
A toddler reached for a red star. My stomach flipped.
"Please don't give him that," I said to his father. "It's a choking hazard."
Dana stepped in front of me. "Mrs. Bennett, you have already caused enough trouble."
"Those packets say ages eight and up. That boy can't be more than two."
"You aren't a safety inspector," she said through her smile.
The father looked at the packet, read the small print, and handed it back. "Lady's right. Why are you passing these out?"
Other parents began checking their children's hands. One woman pulled a plastic star from her daughter's fist and threw it on the table.
Dana snapped, "Everyone calm down."
May you like
I held up my phone and photographed the age warning still printed on the underside of the packet. The employee had tried to fold it out of sight.
Then Dana caught my wrist and hissed, "Do you want the whole town to know what you did to your own son?"
