Chapter 4 - THE MEMORY OF LICENSE PLATES
I found Ethan in the backyard,
sitting in the dirt under the old oak tree.
He was drawing in the dust with a stick.
A long,
perfect rectangle.
A license plate.
“Ethan,”
I said,
kneeling beside him.
He didn't stop drawing.
“Yellow crane fell,”
he whispered.
“Blue truck was home.”
“Who was in the blue truck,
Ethan?”
He stopped drawing and looked at me.
His gray eyes were wide and clear,
devoid of the fear he showed when Gary was around.
“The man with the toolbox,”
he said.
My heart stopped.
“Gary was at the site five years ago?”
“Gary was the blue truck,”
Ethan said,
nodding.
“He pushed the yellow crane.”
“He pushed it on purpose?”
Ethan went back to his drawing.
“The man in the blue truck didn't see the man in the yellow hat.”
“Dad was the man in the yellow hat.”
I felt a wave of nausea hit me so hard I had to lean against the tree.
Gary Mills had caused the accident.
He had been the foreman on the site.
The one who was supposed to be in charge of safety.
But the reports said he wasn't there that day.
The reports said he was at a different site miles away.
If Ethan saw him,
then the whole investigation was a lie.
Gary wasn't just a boyfriend.
He was a murderer who had come back to finish the job.
He had married the widow to keep the witness quiet.
And my mother had let him in.
Maybe she didn't know at first.
Maybe she found out later.
But now,
she was an accomplice.
“Blue trains come home,”
Ethan whispered,
his stick scratching against the dirt.
He drew a series of numbers and letters.
OH-742-GMX.
“What is that,
Ethan?”
“The blue truck,”
he said.
“I saw it every day before the yellow crane fell.”
I pulled out my phone and took a picture of the drawing.
I had to find out who that truck belonged to.
If it was Gary’s,
then everything changed.
I heard a car pull into the driveway.
Gary was home.
“Brooke!”
his voice boomed from the porch.
“Why aren't you at school?”
I stood up,
shielding Ethan with my body.
May you like
The game was changing.
And I was playing for keeps.
