Chapter 8 - The Man Everyone Called a Monster
Jax agreed to meet me at a public park, not at my home. I appreciated that more than I knew how to say.
He arrived on a battered motorcycle and removed his helmet carefully, as if an old injury still pulled at his shoulder. In daylight, the scars across his face looked less frightening than painful. White seams ran from his temple into his beard. A faded tattoo on his wrist read KEEP THE LIGHTS ON.
"Leo asked about you," I told him.
Jax looked at the ground. "He doing okay?"
"He's recovering. He asked where the big man went." I held out a paper bag. "Rachel baked cookies. She insisted."
He laughed once, surprised. "I don't deserve a parade for noticing what anybody could've noticed."
"I didn't notice."
"You were tired."
"I was cruel." My throat tightened. "Please don't make me less responsible than I was."
He studied me, then nodded. "Fair."
We sat on a bench while he told me about his years as an emergency medical technician. He hadn't worked an ambulance since a bus collided with a fuel truck twelve years earlier. He'd pulled four people out of a burning cabin. A little boy died before Jax reached the fifth seat. Fire and shattered glass left the scars people stared at.
"I kept thinking if I'd been ten seconds faster," he said. "So now when I see someone in trouble, I don't spend ten seconds deciding how I'll look."
"The video makes you look dangerous."
"Maybe I do look dangerous. Doesn't mean I had the wrong idea."
I showed him the original recording Walter had sent. He watched without moving until Leo's first full breath.
"Could you send that to the detective?" he asked. "The diner owner filed a statement saying I deliberately assaulted Leo."
"But you saved him."
"I know. The question is whether the footage they're using shows that."
May you like
He handed me a copy of a legal notice. Dorsey was demanding damages for a destroyed booth and alleging Jax had injured a customer.
At the bottom was a line I hadn't expected: WITNESS - NORA BENNETT.
