Chapter 17: Broken Hand

Nolan drove, and he ran two yellow lights, and neither of us said anything about it.

County General's emergency room was bright and half empty at one in the morning.

Dane sat on an exam bed behind a curtain with his right hand wrapped in gauze and propped on a pillow.

There was dried blood on his dress shirt, and his tie was gone.

"I'm fine," he said, before I could speak.

"You put your hand through a window," I said.

"It was a car window. It deserved it."

Nolan lifted the chart from the foot of the bed and read it.

"Fourth and fifth metacarpals," he said. "Boxer's fracture. You'll need a splint for six weeks and a surgeon who can set it."

"You're not my surgeon."

"I'm the one standing here."

Dane almost smiled, and then looked at me.

"I didn't hit him," he said. "Derrick. I want you to know that. I stood in his driveway and I wanted to, and I hit the glass instead."

"Why were you there?"

"I went to the house after the dinner to make his mother say it. Out loud, to my face."

"Say what?"

"That she knew." He swallowed. "The detective found me bleeding on the lawn."

"And?"

"I gave her everything from Tuesday, in her car. She wrote it all down."

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Was the Unwanted Fifth in Their Life and Death Pact from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.