Regret is the Punishment novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: The Review
The Port Calder Fire Board met on Thursday night in the town hall, under a flag and a stuffed bass.
I had expected ten people.
There were two hundred.
They filled the folding chairs and lined the walls, and the overflow stood in the hall with phones raised.
I saw the first-grade parents in the third row, side by side.
One of them was the woman who had written that Darla should be homeschooled.
She would not look at me.
Jerome sat at the front in his dress blues, with his hands on his knees.
I sat behind him, three rows back.
He had not asked me to come.
He had not told me to stay home either.
The board chair was a retired schoolteacher with a gavel and a cardigan.
"This is a review of the response to the structure fire on Harbor Lane," she said. "Chief."
The chief read the timeline into the record in a flat, careful voice.
Dispatch at 2:38.
Engine 4 at the mouth of the lane at 2:42.
A vehicle blocking the lane.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of Regret is the Punishment are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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