Chapter 1 - Don’t Move
“Dad… Mom’s boyfriend just hit me with a baseball bat.”
David Mercer stopped walking.
He was halfway across the parking lot outside a hardware store in Beavercreek, Ohio, twenty minutes from his ex-wife’s house, when the words came through his phone.
His seven-year-old son was sobbing so hard David could barely understand him.
“Leo, listen to me. Where are you?”
“My room.”
“Is your mom there?”
“No.”
Another voice sounded in the background.
Male.
Laughing.
David recognized Chad Wilkins immediately.
“Who are you calling, crybaby?”
The line crackled.
Leo whispered, “Dad, please come.”
David was already running toward his truck.
He called 911 through the dashboard, gave Rachel’s address in Kettering, then made one more call.
Owen Hart answered on the first ring.
Owen had served beside David for six years in the Army and now happened to live across the street from Rachel. He was the man who had once dragged David out of an overturned vehicle outside Kandahar while rounds struck the dirt around them.
David did not ask Owen to hurt anyone.
“Leo called me. Chad has a bat. Rachel isn’t there. Police are coming.”
Owen’s voice changed instantly.
“I’m going across.”
“Don’t go looking for a fight.”
“I know.”
“Just get eyes on my son.”
David drove faster than he should have and hated every red light.
Owen stayed on the phone through an earpiece.
“Front door’s unlocked. I can hear yelling upstairs.”
“Where are the cops?”
“Two minutes out.”
Then Owen said, “David, I’m going in.”
The call disconnected.
Seventeen minutes after Leo’s first call, David pulled into Rachel’s driveway.
The front door stood open.
He took the stairs two at a time.
Leo’s bedroom door was cracked.
Chad stood beside the bed dressed in black, a baseball bat clutched in both hands. Leo had backed himself against the headboard.
The blanket lay on the floor.
A fresh dent marked the hardwood inches from where Leo’s feet had been.
Chad ripped the remaining sheet away.
“Quit crying. Your dad raised you soft.”
Leo shielded his head.
David gripped the doorway.
“Put the bat down, Chad.”
Chad turned.
His jaw tightened.
Instead of lowering the bat, he stepped toward David.
“You don’t tell me how to discipline him.”
“Leo isn’t your child.”
“He lives in my house.”
“Put it down.”
Chad raised the bat slightly.
Leo suddenly stopped crying.
His eyes moved past Chad.
“Dad…”
David did not look away from the bat.
“Yeah, buddy?”
“Don’t move.”
Something in Leo’s expression made David obey.
Chad began to turn.
Behind him, almost hidden by the bedroom wall, Owen stood perfectly still with his phone connected to 911.
And beside Owen was Rachel.
Her face was white.
In one hand she held a small overnight bag.
In the other was a folder from a domestic-violence shelter.
May you like
Chad saw it.
For the first time that night, the man holding the bat looked afraid.
