I was holding a chicken casserole when I saw my son’s car.
I’d made it that morning. His favorite. The one with the crushed potato chips on top that he used to eat straight out of the pan when he was a teenager, standing up at the counter, while I pretended to be annoyed.
I’d driven forty minutes with it on the passenger seat, wrapped in a dish towel to keep it warm.
I got out of my car in his driveway, holding the casserole in both hands.
And I almost dropped it.
Daniel’s car was destroyed.
Deep scratches ran along both doors. Long, jagged lines, gouged into the paint, like someone had dragged a key from the front bumper to the back. Bright pink spray paint covered the hood in big swirling loops. One of the side mirrors was hanging off by its wires, swinging a little in the wind.
And sticking out of the cracked windshield, wedged right in the center of a spiderweb of broken glass, was a shoe.
An enormous black high-heeled shoe.
With a silver buckle.
A woman was standing on the sidewalk with a little white dog on a leash. She was taking pictures of the car with her phone.
She saw me and lowered it.
“Is this your car?” she asked.
“My son’s,” I said.
She looked at the shoe in the windshield. Then back at me.
“Somebody was angry,” she said.
I stood in the driveway and stared at the damage.
“First Lily breaks his heart,” I muttered. “And now this.”
I balanced the casserole on the hood of my own car. I reached into my pocket for my phone. I was going to call the police.
Then I saw it.
A piece of paper. Folded in half. Tucked under the windshield wiper on the driver’s side, right next to the shoe.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
TAP ” READ MORE ” 👇
