I sat down.
Officer Patel was watching me.
So I explained.
Derek had not attended Ryan’s funeral.
Ryan did not want him there.
In fact, during the last months of his life, Ryan had made me promise something.
“Keep Derek away from Ethan.”
He was weak then.
Barely strong enough to talk.
But he made me promise.
I did.
The brothers had stopped speaking roughly a year before Ryan became sick.
Whenever I asked why, Ryan dismissed it as family financial trouble.
He refused to drag me into it.
Then he got sick.
The feud seemed unimportant compared with everything else.
I assumed Ryan simply held a grudge.
Now Derek was standing near Ethan’s school.
Manipulating him.
Convincing him his own mother could not be trusted.
A few minutes later, Officer Patel’s partner asked her to step outside.
Then she returned.
“Can you come onto the porch?”
