Page 166 of Past the Broken Bridges

“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.

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