Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 136743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
Brunson is quiet for a few moments. For too long if the answer is a simple yes. “I’ll let Edward explain,” he finally says.
The doorbell rings, and I pray it’s not a reporter or a “friendly” neighbor just checking on us.
“Someone’s at the door,” I tell him. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Through the glass panes, I see a young woman on the porch with several bags at her feet. I open the door and poke just my head out, peering behind her to check for any sign of the news trucks. Thankfully, they’ve all left.
“Can I help you?” I ask, taking in all the bags.
“You ordered groceries?” she asks.
“Uh, no.”
“You’re not Soledad Barnes?” She hands me a receipt. “This isn’t your stuff?”
I scan the receipt, my mouth dropping open in shock to read every item from my list.
“How… I didn’t…” I glance up to see her looking over her shoulder at the car idling on the curb. “Let me grab my purse.”
“Already tipped.” She jerks her thumb toward the waiting car. “I gotta go for my next delivery. Bye.”
There must be ten bags on the porch.
“Girls,” I call, a real smile breaking out on my face. “Come help me with the groceries.”
Once all the food is put away, I walk back out to Edward’s man cave and check the pool table where I left my pink list.
It’s gone. This had to be Judah. I don’t know if I can trust him or how much of what Edward has said about him might be true, but I know he sent food, and I appreciate it.
Caring father? Villain? Ally? I’m not sure what to make of the enigma that is Judah Cross, but I know in this moment that whatever his motivation, he was kind. I pull my phone out to text.
Me: Thank you for the groceries. You didn’t have to do it.
Judah: I told you I want to help. Try to remember anything that might be connected to the case. That’s how you’ll help yourself.
CHAPTER FIVE
JUDAH
My lungs are on fire and my legs are linguine, but you wouldn’t know that from the even pace I maintain for the last half mile of our morning run. We pass the Skyland fire station, and I nod to a couple of the volunteers I recognize. Tremaine and I took the boys around the community and introduced them to as many first responders as possible. There are too many horror stories of cops unwittingly mistreating a disabled person because they didn’t know or understand. In some cases it’s not ignorance but cruel mistreatment from someone in a position of power. I can’t control everything, but we prepare and equip our boys the best we can. They both wear medical ID bracelets in case of emergencies, but it is especially important for Aaron to be easily identifiable, with so many barriers and limitations on his communication. Add that to the fact that our boys are young Black men in an affluent neighborhood, and I’m not taking chances.
“Great job, guys,” I tell Aaron and Adam, who both bend and place their hands on their knees, chests heaving. “But you let your old man beat you again.”
“Water,” Adam pants. He stumbles up the steps to our house and into the kitchen. After wrenching the refrigerator open, he grabs one of the glass bottles of water we keep stocked and chugs it down in one gulp.
I slide the tray that holds their prescriptions and supplements across the counter. Both of them pop the pills and chase them with a full glass of water without complaint. I take it for granted sometimes now, how easily those pills go down, but it used to be a fight or sleight of hand slipping meds into ice cream or applesauce. It’s taken a lot of work to get them as far as they’ve come, and there is still so much ahead, as their transition into adulthood is closer than I can really wrap my head around.
Aaron slots his bottle into the dishwasher.
“Shower,” he says, and turns to walk upstairs.
Some words are crystal clear, and others are approximations that only those who know him can decipher. He and Adam were developing speech typically until about age two, when they both stopped talking. It was kind of eerie for them to both go quiet like that, and we assumed one was mimicking the other’s behaviors. When we got their autism diagnoses, it made sense. I didn’t hear Adam speak for another two years, and then one day all these words came tumbling out of him. For Aaron it took longer, and when his expressive language did return, it was much less.
“Can we skip tomorrow morning?” Adam asks, hope lighting up his sweaty face.
“Maybe we can skip a day this weekend,” I bargain. “You know you do better when we run.”