Mia followed Jackson into the room. Officer Mark Ortiz stood near the bed.
At first, she thought Reggie was asleep. Then his lids lifted. If she hadn’t known it was him, she wouldn’t have recognized the young man lying on the bed. She’d never seen him so still. His dark eyes were heavy with pain, their lids swollen. Because of weeping? She could see recent tears drying on his cheeks.
His dark hair, normally worn long, had been shaved. She saw stitches on his head.
She hadn’t known he’d cut his head. It must have been dry when he arrived at her house. Head wounds tended to bleed profusely when they were fresh. She knew that from experience. She’d once fallen and ended up with a nasty wound when she was fifteen during cheer practice.
When Reggie saw her, fresh tears streamed down his face. Mia hurried to his side and took his hand.
“Are you in pain?” she asked, sympathy squeezing her heart.
“No.” He gulped. “My mom…this cop told me my mom was shot. Someone came looking for the drugs hidden in my room, and they shot my mom.”
Mia closed her lips around a gasp. By his own words, Reggie admitted that he knew there were drugs in his room. She had hoped that maybe the drugs had been planted.
Jackson stepped forward. “Hey, kid,” he said softly. “Can you tell us anything about what happened?”
“You want to know about Dylan, don’t you?” Reggie asked.
Jackson nodded. “I think we all need to know everything. Can you tell us the whole story?”
Reggie gulped again.
Mark nudged him. “Let’s start with this. Where did you get the drugs, son?”
“My football coach, sir.”
Mia’s hand flew to her mouth. “Coach Simmons?”
Reggie nodded. “Yeah. I guess you know him.”
“I do.” She’d thought she had anyway. Phil Simmons had asked her out on a date last year. Mia had said no, and they’d remained casual acquaintances. But she’d never seen anything in him that raised red flags.
“He told me he’d kick me off the team if I didn’t sell for him, and I need to play football—it’s the only way I have a shot at any kind of scholarship to go to college. I have to go to college. I have to get a good job so I can get my mom out of that house and move her to a nicer neighborhood. My mom works really hard. She has two jobs. That’s not right.”
Mark cleared his throat. “Okay. What happened next?”
“Well, we had this summer camp we went to. Miss Turner had this flyer, and it said it was some kind of survival course. Dylan and I talked about it, and we both thought it would be fun. My mom said it was okay. Dylan’s foster mom was hesitant, but Mr. Reese told him he needed to go—almost pushed Dylan to go.”
Mia hadn’t known that. It struck her as odd that he’d be that interested in Dylan going to the camp. But she’d never met Cynthia’s husband.
“One of the guys there was someone I knew from dealing drugs. I—I’m sorry, Miss Turner. I know you had nothing to do with those people, but I really didn’t think it was a good place. But I couldn’t leave. When he saw me there, he threatened me and said he knew where I lived and I better not say anything. I thought he was recruiting more dealers.”
Mark pulled up a photo on his phone. It was the man who’d been shot in the woods. “This him?”
Reggie looked at the picture and then flinched away. “That’s him.”
“He can’t bother you anymore. What happened after that?”
“After I got back from camp, Dylan came into my house one day and saw that I had drugs. He tried to convince me I needed to get out of it.”
“Did you really go camping?” Jackson asked him.
Mia frowned. They’d found the campsite. What was he really asking?
“Yeah, we went camping,” Reggie said. “I wasn’t trying to get Dylan in trouble or nothing. Dylan tried to convince me to give up the drugs. We were only there that one night. Dylan was really upset.”
Mia nodded, her mind working through what she knew. “Jackson, was that the day of the hearing?”
