“Son…” His voice cracks.
“I just saw her. She was fine.”
He walks in, grabbing my arm when I nearly trip backing up. “I think you need to sit down.”
“No” is all I can say as he guides me to the couch anyway.
When I’m finally sitting and looking up at him, he takes a deep breath, his eyes a level of sad I’ve never seen on a grown man before, before saying only one thing. “Yes.”
And there, in the middle of my apartment, I break down in front of a father who is not my own, and he comforts me in ways mine never could.
“I just saw her,” I repeat.
Her father is white, silent, nodding absently.
“I just…” I choke on the words.
He puts a hand on my shoulder, clenching it once. “They caught the person who did it. He was identified this afternoon by a witness.”
I stare at him.
“Marco Hastings.”
I sit straighter.
“Does the name mean anything to you?”
It’s hard to swallow.
She wouldn’t.
“Son,” her father says. “Talk to me.”
I blink.
Blink again.
Processing.
Understanding.
You have your future to lose.
She already wrote hers off.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I know Marco.”
And I tell him everything.
Chapter Forty-Three
Banks
The viewing is held in Louisiana because it was her favorite place, at a funeral home near the house she lived in when she was eight years old.
She would have loved it.
It’s close to the water.