Chapter 2 - The Man in the Last Row
I stepped between the stranger and Owen before he reached the altar.
"Back up," I said.
Colin Saye stopped with one shoe on the white runner. His shaved head and thin smile made him hard to forget. "The boy recorded a private conversation. Give me the phone."
"Who are you?"
"A friend of the family." He glanced at Brielle. "I'm trying to keep this from getting uglier."
A photographer's camera clicked. Brielle pressed a hand to her collapsing stomach and began to cry in perfect, soundless little bursts.
"My stepson stabbed me in front of everyone," she said. "He needs help. Daniel, tell them."
"He used a pin," I answered, "and he was wrong to do that. But the padding is real. The recording is real. Nobody is touching his phone."
The officiant quietly closed his book.
Colin reached into his jacket. I caught his wrist before he could pull anything out. It was only a folded business card, but he had forced my son to shrink behind me.
"You don't understand what you heard," Colin said.
"Then explain it."
"Not here."
Owen tugged my sleeve. "That's the man from the greenhouse. He told her to change the locks."
"What locks?" I asked.
Brielle's tears stopped. She looked straight at him. "You were spying on me?"
"I went back for my science notebook. I heard you telling somebody he had to keep quiet."
"Who?" I asked again.
Owen swallowed. "Eli. The guy who worked on the doors at Pine Hollow. She said if he talked to you, everything would fall apart."
Pine Hollow Family Center was the children's center my engineering firm had spent six months helping renovate. Its grand reopening was scheduled for ten the next morning.
Brielle grabbed my arm. "Daniel, please. This is not what it sounds like."
I shook her off and looked at Colin. He was no longer watching me. He was watching the exit.
May you like
"Owen," I said, "tell me exactly what happened to Eli."
My son looked at the stranger and whispered, "I don't think he went home."
