Chapter 13: Tony Listens

I took my coat off the hook and followed my brother down the stairs.

His SUV was parked under the one working streetlight, with the rideshare sticker in the corner of the windshield.

He opened the passenger door for me, which he had never done in his life.

I got in and looked up.

The camera was a small black dome above the mirror, and its red light was on.

"Marty put a copy on my phone," I said. "At the diner."

"I know. He said."

"You're sure you want this, Tony?"

"No," he said. "Play it."

I found the file and held the phone between us.

I skipped the part I had already heard, the laughing and the kissing and the white stick.

I went to where Marty had stopped me.

Dani's voice came out of the speaker, small and bright.

"Tony's the easy one. I tell him I'm scared, and he'd drive through a wall."

"He's not exactly sharp," Gabe said.

"He's the dumb one, babe. The dumb one is the best one to have. He does the loud part for me, and he never asks why."

Tony didn't move.

I heard his breathing change in the dark.

"Last Easter he put hands on a guy in a parking lot because I cried," Dani said. "A guy I'd never met. I laughed about it for a week."

"Poor Tony," Gabe said, and they both laughed.

I stopped the file.

My brother put both hands over his face.

He made a sound I had only heard once, when our grandmother died, and he was twenty-one years old, sitting on the back step.

"I shoved you," he said into his palms. "I put my hand on your back and pushed you out of the car."

"Yes."

"You were wearing the gray hoodie. You looked at me like you didn't know me, and I said go stand in the line."