Chapter 8: The File Between Them

Daniel came into Northfield with the plea file against his chest, and the Hartwell relatives demanded it before he could sit.

'Put it on the table,' one of them said. 'Where we can all see it.'

I stood beside the table, with Nate near the door and Daniel facing the relatives.

Daniel held the folder tighter.

Nobody offered him a chair.

They had come to hear him answer. Now they wanted the record in their hands.

'You said you brought it,' another relative said. 'So put it down.'

Daniel looked at me.

I did not nod for him.

His fingers loosened around the folder, and he set it on the table.

One of the relatives opened it.

The paper made a small sound against the wood.

A fingertip stopped at a line in the file.

'It says Dale was driving drunk when the crash killed Brynn's parents,' the relative read.

Nobody interrupted her.

Daniel's face stayed still.

The relative turned the page and read the guilty plea aloud.

Someone at the end of the table lowered their eyes.

I watched Daniel hear the words from the people he had kept outside the truth.

He had brought the file, but he hadn't brought permission to decide what the relatives could know.

'Why did you help keep the plea quiet?' a woman asked.

Daniel looked at her instead of the page.

'I thought I was sparing Brynn's family more pain.'

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