Page 163 of Twisted Knight

Rhett. He wasn’t driving but he sure as shit got back in the car and didn’t help.

“You believe that bullshit?” I ask.

Detective Martin gives me a placating nod. “Like I said, I’m sorry. Accidents happen sometimes and they’re no one’s fault.”

“I think you need to leave,” I say when I finally find my voice again as my body trembles with rage.

He meets my eyes again and then heads back down the sidewalk and toward his car parked near the very spot where Mason died.

The article.

It’s only then that it hits me about the damn article. I’m at my computer in seconds, cursing the shitty internet speed for taking its sweet-ass time to load. Once it does, I forge my way past the Times’ paywall so I can read the article.

The story is short and succinct.

Why waste ink on a poor kid who was killed, right?

No charges have been filed in the hit-and-run death of a twelve-year-old in the Fairmont area last month. Both the chief of police and the circuit solicitor have declined to file charges, citing the accident as just that—an accident. Witnesses who stated the car jumped the curb have since recanted their statements to say the youth rode his skateboard between parked cars, darting out in front of the white Mercedes driven by seventeen-year-old Chadwick Williams of Westmore.

Chadwick Williams.

I know that name.

Even worse, I know the prick. Mr. Polo Shirt and Chinos with the shitty jokes about my mom and entitled everything.

Rhett’s friend was the driver.

Jesus fucking Christ.

I can picture him clearly. His grating laugh. His condescending tone. His arrogant demeanor.

My hands fist as I stare at the words. They blur as anger owns every single cell in my body. It was him? I shake my head, as if to make it sink in that the assholes from the club killed my brother.

Accident. No accident. They didn’t stop. They didn’t help.

They killed him.

And now because of who they are, of where they live and the last names they hold, they won’t be punished.

The teen driver “didn’t even realize he’d hit anyone” until he got home and saw his broken headlight. Investigators were able to place him in the area at the time of the accident, but there is no footage of the actual event happening to refute or support eyewitness claims.

Williams, a senior at Canyon Academy Prep, is deeply troubled by the turn of events. He and his family have requested privacy at this time.

Privacy? Deeply troubled? A sound fills the small apartment—a deep, growling bellow—and I don’t even realize it comes from me.

I reread the article.

There were no fucking cars parked on the street. No place for Mason to dart out between.

And then I read it again.

He hit Mason. Rhett was with him. I saw him get out of the car. I saw him look at Mase. They knew what they did. They knew they had hit him. Then they reversed and fled. That’s what Mr. Bonman from unit 10B said happened. That’s what he said. The same as my story. Why would we lie?

Total bullshit that Chadwick didn’t know he’d hit anything.

On the third time through, I stop and research who the chief of police is. I have every intention of banging down the man’s door and demanding more for my little brother. And as the chief’s picture slowly loads on our shitty internet, as his name beneath it comes clear, it all makes fucking sense. Chief Edwin Williams.

“Chief Edwin Williams, loving husband of Florence Daybell-Williams and father of teenage son Chadwick Williams, was born to protect and serve the town of Westmore, just like his father and his grandfather before him have.” I mutter his website bio, a fury of disbelief rioting through me.