Chapter 8: Nobody Sees

Lainey's POV

Nico was at the front door twenty minutes later with a laptop under his arm.

He had not shaved, and he smelled like hotel soap.

"Show her," Gabriel said.

Nico opened the laptop on the kitchen table and turned it toward me.

Two photos sat side by side.

In the first, the last row of the stadium was empty, and four seats stood in a clean line.

All four cushions were whole, and the middle one was brand new.

In the second, the same row had the same four seats, and the middle one was split open.

The cut ran straight across it from one armrest to the other.

The timestamps were seventy minutes apart.

"Zoom in," Nico said.

I leaned closer, and he enlarged it.

There were no frayed threads.

There was a fine line of white foam along the edge, flat as a ruler.

"That is a box cutter," he said. "Or a good knife."

"Or a kid with a pocketknife," I said.

"Seventy minutes before kickoff, in a locked section, in a row nobody had reached yet?"

"Maybe it was staff."

"Maybe," he said gently.

I sat back.

My mother had bought those tickets in March and had picked those seats herself.

She had sent me a text about it.

She said they would be the quietest in the stadium, a little private place for the family.

I had thought it was sweet.

"No," I said. "No. She wouldn't."

Neither of them spoke.

"She wouldn't," I said again, louder. "She checks my forehead for a fever. She cried at my graduation. She would not do this."

"I'm not saying she did," Gabriel said quietly.

"You are."

"I'm saying a seat was cut, and I don't know who cut it."

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