Chapter 15 - What June Knew
Everyone called it coincidence.
June did not.
Two days later, she sat at a diner booth across from me with pancakes shaped like a bear.
“Dad picked you.”
I nearly choked on coffee.
Emily said gently, “Honey, Dad didn’t tell you to break Jack’s motorcycle.”
June frowned.
“He told Mom in the letter.”
“You hadn’t seen the letter.”
“No.”
“Then how did you pick me?”
She cut a pancake ear.
“Your vest.”
I looked down.
My old riding vest had a faded patch from a charity ride twelve years earlier.
ROSS COUNTY DEPUTY RELIEF FUND.
Caleb’s department had organized it.
I had forgotten.
June had not known the meaning.
But at school, her mom had once shown her a photograph of Caleb in uniform.
The same county emblem appeared behind him.
June saw a familiar symbol.
Then saw me.
A man large enough to be hard to move.
A motorcycle loud enough to stop a sidewalk.
A coffee shop full of witnesses.
She had built her own emergency system.
“You counted all that?” I asked.
She shrugged.
“Not all.”
“What did you count?”
“Doors.”
Of course.
“People.”
Smart.
“Cars.”
Smarter.
“And you.”
I smiled.
“How many of me?”
“One.”
She grinned.
Emily looked down so we would not see her cry.
The criminal case widened.
Brooks was charged.
Keene faced murder, kidnapping conspiracy, evidence tampering, fraud, and more.
Sarah cooperated and avoided serious charges, though Emily did not forgive her quickly.
That mattered.
Some stories pretend truth fixes relationships.
It doesn’t.
Truth just gives you the correct pieces.
You still have to decide whether to rebuild.
My headlight cost $312.
Emily insisted on paying.
I refused.
June put twenty-seven dollars from her piggy bank on my workbench.
“That’s all I have.”
I took one dollar.
She looked offended.
“Why one?”
“Deposit.”
“For what?”
“You owe me twenty-six years of staying out of trouble.”
“That’s not how deposits work.”
“Talk to my accountant.”
She laughed.
Then my shop phone rang.
A reporter.
Then another.
Then another.
The story had spread.
Seven-year-old girl breaks biker’s Harley to escape stalker.
I hated every headline.
June loved exactly one thing.
“They called you a biker.”
“I am a biker.”
“They didn’t call you old.”
“Best journalists in America.”
Emily laughed.
Then Collins entered the shop.
Her face told me the peace was temporary.
“We found something in Brooks’s house.”
“What?”
She placed a photograph on the counter.
Caleb.
Emily.
Newborn June.
And standing behind them, almost cropped from the frame, was a man none of us recognized.
May you like
Collins said:
“He visited Keene in jail this morning.”
