Page 28 of Jury Woman, Part 4 of 6

"Worried how?"

She glanced toward the back door, then lowered her voice. "He thinks one of Scott's friends followed him. Like, Saturday afternoon. He was skateboarding over by the park, and he said there was a car that kept showing up. It drove past him, then it was parked at the end of the street when he came back around. Somebody was just sitting in it. Watching him."

The kitchen on my screen seemed to tilt.

I was back in the courtroom in August, listening to a voice warped through a modulator, the witness they called Witness C. The slashed tires. The dog. And the man who'd followed her daughter as she walked home from school.

"Did he describe the car?" My voice came out steadier than I felt.

"Yeah. He asked if I recognized it. He said it was dark. Maybe a four-door." Lily frowned. "But that's weird, because none of Scott's friends drive anything like that. Tyler has a Jeep. Brandon's got his brother's old truck. The rest of them don't even have their licenses yet."

My fingers had found the edge of the conference table and were gripping it.

Dark. Four-door. Gloria Tillman had said a dark sedan sat outside her house every morning for a whole winter.

Stop it, I told myself. Half the cars in Alpharetta were dark four-doors. Warren sold them by the dozen. And a fourteen-year-old who'd just broken a boy's nose had every reason to see enemies in every parked car.

Still.

"Lily, listen to me. If it happens again, if Josh sees that car again, tell him to take a picture of it. The license plate, if he can get it. Just a quick photo. He doesn't have to do anything else. Don't let him go up to it."

"Okay." She eyed me. "You're being kind of intense, Mom."

"I know. Humor me."

"Okay, okay. I'll tell him." She slid off her stool. "I've gotta go study. I have a chem test Friday."

I stared at her. "You're going to study?"

"Don't make it a thing." But she was almost smiling. "Bye, Mom."

"Bye, sweetheart. I love you."

The call ended, and I sat with my hands flat on the table, feeling my heart knock against my ribs.

When I turned around, Deputy Wells was watching me from his post by the door. He'd heard every word. I could see it in the stillness of his face.

"Should I be worried?" I asked.

He took a moment before answering. He always did, and I'd come to trust that more than I'd ever trusted a quick reassurance.

"Probably not," he said. "Teenage boys, bad blood with another kid. It's most likely exactly what it looks like." He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small notebook. "But I'm going to look into it anyway. What's the name of the park?"

I told him. He wrote it down. Then the street, the day, the time, the description of the car. His pen moved in small, precise strokes.

When he closed the notebook and tucked it back into his jacket, something in my chest unclenched.

I didn't know what he'd find. Maybe nothing. Probably nothing.

But a problem in my family was in someone else's hands. Capable ones.

And I didn't feel the need to rush in to save the situation.

October 29, Thursday

MY JOURNAL wasn't on the desk.

I'd left it there last night. I was almost sure of it, beside the lamp, under the pen from the hotel gift shop. Now the desk held only the lamp, the pen, and a room-service menu I rarely ordered from.