Page 102 of Little Bitter Truths
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The front door closed behind Whitlock, Foley, and Bryan, leaving a silence that settled over the house like a storm waiting to break.
For a moment, no one moved.
Renee, who’d just rushed into the room as her husband was being escorted outside, looked at the front door and then at me, confused by what had just taken place.
“Why was my husband just taken out of your house in handcuffs?”she asked.
Before I had a chance to respond, Mia stepped forward.“I’d like it to come from me, if that’s okay.”
“Of course,” I said.“Why don’t we all sit down?”
Giovanni excused himself to attend to a business matter, and the three of us went to the den.Renee and Mia sat on the couch, and I took a seat across from them.
“Mia, what’s going on?”Renee asked.
“Bryan lost his job six weeks ago.”
“What?”
“He wasn’t fired,” Mia continued.“The company needed to make some cuts, and he was one of the people they had to let go.”
“That can’t be right.”
“Mia’s telling the truth,” I said.“I confirmed it with his boss today.”
Renee looked at me.
Then at Mia.
Then back at me again.
“I don’t understand,” Renee said.“He’s been going to work every day.”
“Not every day,” Mia said.“His boss admitted to giving him some work here and there while Bryan looked for a new job, but most of the time when he told you he was going to work, he wasn’t.”
Renee’s eyes filled with tears.“Why wouldn’t he tell me?”
I could think of several reasons.
Pride.
Fear.
Shame.
All the things people carried when they believed they had failed.
“There’s more,” Mia said.“When the police first talked to Bryan after Wren died, he claimed he was working that night.We now know that isn’t true.And there’s something else.One of Mia’s neighbors reported seeing a truck in the neighborhood around the time Wren was killed.”
“What does that have to do with Bryan?”
“The description matches the truck he drives.”
“I need to ask you a question, Renee,” I said.“Several weeks ago, did you happen to see any scratches on Bryan’s arms or legs?”
She tucked one foot beneath the other.“I didn’tseeanything, no.But one morning he was putting a shirt on, and he had a bandage on his arm.I asked him what happened, and he acted like it was no big deal.He said he tripped and fell at work.”
