Page 80 of Breathe Me In

Interesting.

Bree stepped in. “You mentioned you have a son. Would you happen to have a picture of the boys? Maybe one of Reddy?”

“I do, actually.” She started to flip through the photo book, and Bree threw a knowing glance at me; we both could feel there was something there. “Ah yes.” Her eyes went glossy as she pulled out the photo and pointed to a dark-haired boy. “That’s Reddy standing next to Johnny, and that’s my son on the far right.”

Bree held the photo between us, and something odd nagged at me. He looked familiar.

“And you have no idea what his real name was? Or maybe where he is now?”

“His family moved soon after as well. I think the other kids in town isolated him after that.” She shrugged, then dipped her head to look at something. “I guess I do have his name. I see I wrote it on the back of the photo.”

Bree flipped it over, and we both went cold. What the hell?

I drove Bree back home as she admitted that her head hurt. I really wished she’d rest and let herself fully heal.

“You rest, and I’ll fill Cap in on what we found.” I watched as she slipped her belt off.

“I wonder when he ditched the cane,” she thought out loud.

“Yeah, I have many questions if we’re right.”

She hesitated as she reached for the door. “You’ll update me?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. I watched her leave and heard a text pop up.

Adam: I worked on the footage from Sophia’s camera the night she died, I was able to recover more footage.

Stone: Send me what you have. Great work.

I quickly called Cap.

“You find something?”

“I did.” I hated where this was leading. “Cap, you won’t believe this.”

“Okay.” He paused. “Let’s hear it.” I filled him in on everything as I drove to the station. Once I was there, Cap and I got together and came up with a plan. We texted Savage from Gumbo’s phone.

“Now we wait.” Cap smacked my shoulder, and I headed back to my car.

Later that night I paced the floor as I waited to hear back from Cap. When he called to say we had a response to our text to Savage, I had to sit down. Savage had thrown a wrench in our plan. We hammered out a new idea. I only hoped it would work. Feeling mildly better, I headed to bed.

The next morning, while I was in the kitchen, my phone rang again, and I saw it was Sherry. My mood plummeted, but I answered.

“Hi, Bradley. I know you’re up and probably having your coffee.”

“What is it, Sherry? I’m just about to leave for the office.” I reached over and poured my coffee down the sink.

“I wanted to remind you about the fair.”

Oh, trust me, I remembered. We had attended the fair every year of our marriage. Even at the worst of times, she had dragged me there.

“Seriously, Sherry, what’s your angle here?” I was tired of her mind games.

“Angle? There’s no angle. It’s just that this is our thing, and I thought we were going. Oh please, Bradley, it would be so much fun.”

“It was your thing, not mine,” I reminded her. “Regardless, I have to work.” That was a lie, but she didn’t need to know that. She didn’t need to know anything anymore. I thought of what Cap and I had planned for the fair and exactly how we needed it to happen. The last thing I wanted was Sherry showing up and screwing things up. “I heard it’s going to be dead. I’d skip it and save your money.”

I heard her sigh. “I see. Yeah, maybe I’ll skip it.” Good. “You know, I thought we could at least be friends.”