Chapter 6 Noah
NOAH
Iwatched as Everett’s taillights disappeared down the street.
Good. He needs to get home to Lottie and the kids. Make sure they’re okay. Make sure Lottie’s not still shaking from nearly losing control of a vehicle with three babies strapped inside because some punk thought throwing rocks at moving cars would make a great social media moment.
Lottie.
My chest tightens just thinking about what could’ve happened.
That windshield crack—dead center, driver’s side—could’ve been so much worse.
Glass could have exploded in her face. She could have lost control.
Lost her life. The minivan could have easily flipped.
I’ve worked enough accident scenes to know exactly how fast things can go from a stupid prank to a triple homicide.
And she’s not just anyone. She’s Lottie. She’s Everett’s wife now. But somewhere in the back of my mind, she’ll always be mine.
Which is why I’m not leaving.
Everett is moved to kill—I saw it in his face, the way his jaw locked when he saw that windshield.
He’s got the self-control of a monk when he needs it, but underneath, he was ready to tear this place apart brick by brick.
I don’t blame him. I feel the same way. But I already have one homicide to deal with tonight, and I’d rather not add Everett to my suspect list for murdering a deadbeat dad in sweatpants.
But right now, I’m not satisfied just walking away and letting these punks think they got away with something.
Not happening.
I turn back toward the house. The music is still thumping, boys are still visible through windows, darting around and laughing like they’ve just gotten away with the crime of the century.
The front lawn looks like a frat party threw up—crushed soda cans, red plastic cups, someone’s shoe inexplicably sitting in the middle of the driveway.
Parenting at its finest.
I mount the steps and pound on the door. Three hard slams that rattle the frame.
“Detective Fox! Open up!”
The response is immediate—screams, laughter, the sound of feet scrambling. The door swings open, and I catch a glimpse of a kid’s face, eyes wide, before he bolts deeper into the house like I’m the Grim Reaper who’s come to collect.
“Daryl!” I call into the house, letting my voice carry over the bass currently testing the infrastructure of the walls. “We need to talk!”
More scuffling. More laughter. A crash that sounds like someone just knocked over a crystal vase.
Daryl appears in the doorway, and this time he’s upgraded his props. Pizza slice in one hand—pepperoni, grease dripping onto his already stained sweatpants—beer in the other, and an expression that could curdle milk.
The smell hits me as soon as he opens the door wider.
Stale beer, old pizza, teenage boy funk, and something else—weed, maybe, or just the general odor of a house where no one has bothered to open a window in three days.
The living room behind him is a disaster zone.
Empty pizza boxes stacked on the coffee table, crushed cans everywhere, a gaming console still running on the TV with some first-person shooter frozen mid-explosion.
This is what supervision looks like in the Pickens household.
“What now?” Daryl’s voice has lost any pretense of civility. He’s glaring at me like I’m the problem here. Like I’m the one who just endangered two women and three children.
“I need the names of all the kids in this house.”
He takes a bite of pizza. Chews slowly. Swallows. Takes a pull from his beer. The whole time he’s staring at me like I just asked him to solve a differential equation.
“I don’t know any of these kids’ names.”
I let that hang in the air for a second.
He doesn’t know their names.
There are at least two dozen teenage boys currently occupying his house—his house that he’s supposedly supervising—and he doesn’t know a single one of their names.
Not one. He can’t point to a kid and say, “that’s Simon from down the street” or “that’s my son’s friend from school. ” Nothing. I’m not buying it.
I’ve seen some questionable parenting in my years on the force, but this might take the cake. And judging by the pizza boxes, he takes the pizza, too.
“You don’t know their names,” I repeat, just to make sure I heard him right.
“Nope.” He says it with the kind of pride that suggests he thinks this is a reasonable answer. “They’re my kid’s friends. Not mine.”
Right. Because when you’re watching kids—sorry, being physically present in the same building as kids—learning their names is optional.
I wonder what Tammy would think about this. I wonder if she knows her husband’s idea of childcare is sitting on the couch playing video games while a dozen strangers throw rocks at passing cars. Somehow, I doubt it.
“Then I’ll get the names myself.” I step inside before he can block me. “Kids! Line up!”
The reaction is immediate. Boys pop out from behind furniture, peek around corners, materialize from rooms I didn’t even know existed. They’re all staring at me with varying degrees of fear, amusement, and teenage bravado.
Daryl’s face goes purple. “Dude. You are embarrassing me and my kid.”
Dude?
“You just called a law enforcement officer dude while that officer is conducting an investigation in your home.”
The look he gives me is pure venom. A look that says you’re going to pay for this.
Like he’s already planning how to make my life difficult.
Maybe file a complaint. Maybe call his cousin, who knows a guy who knows a guy.
Whatever revenge fantasy he’s cooking up in that beer-soaked brain of his has already taken flight.
I don’t care.
“Line up,” I repeat, pulling out my badge and holding it up so every kid in the room can see it. “Now.”
They shuffle into something resembling a line.
It’s less than two dozen boys, ages ranging from maybe fourteen to seventeen, all dressed in variations of hoodies and joggers and sneakers that probably cost more than Lottie’s diaper budget, and that’s really saying something.
A few of them are still holding their phones, still recording as if they need it as evidence to protect themselves.
“Name,” I say to the first kid. He’s tall with an athletic build, probably a basketball player.
“Joey Morrison.” He rattles off his phone number without being asked. Smart kid.
I pull out my notebook and write it down. “ID.”
He produces a student ID from Honey Hollow High. The photo matches. I move on.
The next few go smoothly. Names, numbers, IDs. Most of them are telling the truth—I can tell from their body language, the way they make eye contact, the lack of hesitation.
Then I get to a shorter kid with a baseball cap pulled low. He’s grinning before I even ask.
“Name?”
“Hugh Jass.”
The room explodes.
Boys are literally doubled over, slapping each other, howling with laughter like this is the funniest thing they’ve heard all year. One kid falls off the couch. Another one is laughing so hard, no sound is coming out, and I’m half afraid he’s going to have a medical episode.
Hugh Jass.
I don’t even blink. “Providing false information to law enforcement is a class B misdemeanor. That’s up to ninety days in jail and a thousand-dollar fine.” I look directly at Baseball Cap. “So, I’ll ask again. Name?”
His grin falters. “Jake. Jake Patterson.”
“Phone number.”
He gives it. I write it down.
I work my way through the rest of the line. More names, more numbers, more student IDs. The small kid with the long dark hair who opened the door earlier is Daryl’s son, Tyler. He looks miserable, embarrassed, like he wants the floor to swallow him whole.
Good. Maybe there’s hope for him yet.
When I’m done, I survey the room as twenty faces stare back at me. Some defiant, some scared, most trying to figure out if they’re actually in trouble or if this is still just a story they’ll tell at school tomorrow.
“All right.” I close my notebook. “Let’s make this easy on everyone and save a lot of time. Who threw the rock?”
Silence.
Complete, total silence.
Well, not complete. There’s still music playing from somewhere—some rap song with a bass line that could crack foundations, the lyrics something about cooking in the kitchen with the pots and pans or some nonsense. But none of the boys are talking.
They’re all looking at each other. Waiting to see who breaks first. Some unspoken teenage code of silence that says snitches get stitches or whatever they’re calling it these days.
I wait. Let the silence stretch. It’s an old interrogation technique—people hate silence, they’ll fill it eventually.
But these aren’t seasoned criminals. These are teenage boys who think loyalty means protecting the idiot who nearly killed someone.
“Nobody?” I look at each face individually. “Nobody wants to tell me who thought throwing a rock at a moving vehicle was a good idea?”
More silence.
“You all understand that’s assault, right? Potentially reckless endangerment. There were three children in that vehicle. A toddler and infant twins.”
A few of them shift uncomfortably. Good. Let that sink in.
“If something had happened—if that driver had lost control, if those kids had been hurt—every single person in this room could be charged as an accessory.”
That gets their attention. Eyes widen. A few mouths drop open. They hadn’t thought about that. Of course, they hadn’t. They’d thought about the video going viral, about the likes and comments, about looking cool in front of their friends.
They hadn’t thought about the consequences.
“Last chance,” I say. “Who threw it?”
Nothing.
Fine. I’ve got all their names now. Their phone numbers. Their addresses from the school IDs. I’ll follow up with each one individually, see who cracks under pressure when their parents are standing next to them.
“All right.” I pocket my notebook. “I’ll be in touch.”
I head for the door where Daryl is standing with his pizza and beer, and as I pass him, his face shifts as he tries to arrange it into something pleasant or quasi-neighborly.
“Hey, Detective,” he says with an oily tone. “No hard feelings, right? Just boys being boys.”
I’m already through the door, and it slam comes before I hit the bottom step.
“Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya!” Daryl’s voice carries through the wood, followed immediately by an explosion of laughter from inside.
The boys are losing it. Absolutely losing it. I can hear them through the walls and through the windows, that manic teenage laughter that says they think they won something tonight.
I walk to my car with my jaw clenched so tight I might crack a molar.
They think they won.
They think this is over.
They have no idea that I just got everything I need to make their lives very uncomfortable for the next few weeks.
Twenty names. Twenty phone numbers. Twenty sets of parents who are about to get a very interesting phone call from the Honey Hollow Sheriff’s Department about their children’s extracurricular activities.
And one of them threw that rock. One of them nearly killed Lottie.
I’ll find out which one.
And when I do, I’ll make sure he understands exactly what kind of mistake he made tonight.
I drive away from that house with my hands tight on the wheel, the sound of their laughter still echoing in my ears, and all I can think about is Lottie’s face when she saw that cracked windshield.
My Lottie.
They could’ve killed her.
They might be laughing now.
But they won’t be laughing for long.