Chapter 2 - THE SECOND BUTTON
Belle did not lower the bat.
“Then why are you standing on my doorstep alone?”
Renick looked at the baseball bat.
“Because if I came with six cars, whoever is watching would know I know.”
Belle hated that answer because it made sense.
Micah stepped closer behind her.
Renick noticed the stuffed dinosaur first.
Then the bruise on Micah’s knee.
His expression shifted.
Not much.
Enough.
“Can I come in?”
“No.”
Renick blinked.
People probably did not tell him no often.
Belle did not care.
“You can talk from there.”
Rain ran down the side of his face.
“Fair.”
He held up the evidence bag.
“This came from a coat kept in a locked wardrobe at my estate.”
“Whose coat?”
“My brother’s.”
Belle’s fingers tightened around the bat.
“I thought you didn’t have a brother.”
“I don’t talk about him.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
Renick glanced toward the street.
“Declan Kavanaugh has been out of Boston for eight years.”
“Supposedly.”
Belle looked at Micah.
He was listening too hard.
She opened the door wider.
“Five minutes.”
Renick stepped inside.
He looked almost too large for the basement kitchen.
His coat brushed the hanging light fixture.
Micah stared at him.
Renick stared back.
Then Micah reached into his hoodie pocket and placed his button on the table.
Renick’s face changed.
“That’s not the same button.”
Belle frowned.
“It looks identical.”
“The wolf’s eye.”
Renick tapped the plastic bag.
“Black enamel.”
Then Micah’s button.
“Red enamel.”
Belle leaned closer.
He was right.
Tiny difference.
“Meaning?”
Renick sat down without asking.
“The red-eye buttons were made for my father’s inner circle.”
“How many?”
“Seven.”
“How many are alive?”
Renick looked at her.
“Four.”
The pipes knocked overhead.
Micah flinched.
Renick noticed.
Belle hated that too.
He had the habit of noticing things.
“What happened to Brinley’s mother?” Belle asked.
Renick’s jaw locked.
“Car accident.”
Micah looked up.
“No.”
Belle turned.
“What?”
Micah hugged his dinosaur tighter.
“The man on the balcony said something.”
Renick leaned forward.
“What did he say?”
Micah frowned, trying to remember.
“He said…”
He squinted.
“Same as your mom.”
The room went still.
Renick stood so fast the chair scraped backward.
“Are you sure?”
Micah’s face tightened.
“I think.”
“Think or sure?”
Belle stepped between them.
“He’s seven.”
Renick stopped.
Then nodded once.
“Right.”
He rubbed a hand over his face.
“Sorry.”
That apology sounded strange in his mouth.
Like a word he did not use enough.
Belle looked at him.
“What did he mean?”
Renick did not answer immediately.
His wife, Maeve, had died two years earlier when her SUV went through a guardrail outside Providence.
The official report blamed black ice.
Renick had always believed it.
Until three weeks after the funeral.
Someone mailed him a photograph of the damaged brake line.
No message.
No return address.
Only the photograph.
Belle’s stomach turned.
“You knew her brakes were tampered with?”
“I knew somebody wanted me to think that.”
“And you didn’t reopen it?”
“I did.”
“What happened?”
“The state police found nothing conclusive.”
Micah raised his hand.
Neither adult noticed at first.
Then he said.
“Can I ask something?”
Renick looked at him.
“Yes.”
“Why does Brinley call me Bird Boy?”
Renick almost smiled.
“She stopped using most people’s names after her mother died.”
“Why?”
“Doctors call it selective mutism.”
Micah thought.
“She talks.”
“To almost nobody.”
“She talked to me.”
“I noticed.”
There it was again.
That small, almost-smile.
Then a car door slammed outside.
Renick’s expression vanished.
He killed the kitchen light.
Belle’s heart jumped.
“Get down.”
“What?”
“Now.”
A shadow crossed the basement window.
Micah dropped behind the table.
Belle pulled him close.
Three seconds later, glass exploded inward.
A brick hit the wall.
Something was tied around it.
A strip of black fabric.
Renick picked it up.
Gold thread formed a tiny wolf.
Then Belle saw the words written across the brick in white paint.
May you like
BIRD BOY SHOULD HAVE LET GO.
