Sacrifice Read Online Free

investigations.
    “Now, Jamal,” he said. “I need to take a quick look at your leg. I won’t touch it.”
    The boy looked scared. His eyes darted around the room to make sure no one else was there. Then he turned and lifted his shorts to show Dave the top of his thigh and revealed several red, raised, concentric circles.
    Dave knew the mirror impression of a stove burner when he saw one. Jamal’s damaged right leg brought a special wave of sympathy from Dave. He snapped a few pictures with his phone. He turned Jamal back around.
    “Looks like that hurt,” he said. “What happened to your leg?”
    Jamal looked at his shoes, then gave a quick glance up through his eyebrows at Dave. His lips pursed and relaxed a few times.
    “You can tell me, and I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Dave said.
    “It was Daddy,” Jamal said. His eyes never left the floor. “I was bad so I had to sit on the stove.”
    Dave held his rage in check. “How were you bad?”
    “I dropped my spoon. On the floor.”
    A marginally motor-skilled four-year-old dropped something. What an offense. Dave’s blood boiled. “Stay right here.”
    Using his cane as support, Dave pivoted and headed to the kitchen. A few stray fingers of pain did the usual drumming along his right leg. He shifted some of his weight to his left side without even thinking about it.
    He hobbled into the kitchen. Jamal’s mother sat at the yellow Formica table. Her right eye was swollen shut. Tears streamed down her face, leaving trails of black mascara on her round cheeks. Her hair was wrapped in a blue kerchief, and there were drops of dried blood on her T-shirt.
    “So have your reached the bottom, Latoya?” Dave asked. “Is it time to tell the truth and get out of this hell?”
    She nodded. “Before, I couldn’t say nothing. He was standing right here. He’d kill me before the words got out of my mouth. I thought he’d change, but…”
    Dave snapped open his phone and punched speed dial number two. A police sergeant answered on the first ring.
    “You can pick up Dewayne at work,” Dave said. “I’ll have the complaint filed and a motion for a restraining order in front of a judge in an hour.”
     
    It was several hours later when Dave finally made it back home. His wife was out attending to several of the weekly chores that backed up and had to be attended to on the weekend. She was great at understanding when he had to pick up a Saturday call for DCF. She was a Special Ed teacher, so she shared the call to help children.
    He rolled the rubber band from his hair and shook it free. He pulled the heating pad out of the hall closet and plopped down on the living room couch. He plugged it in and wrapped his right leg.
    “Now what’s your problem today, darling?” he asked his leg. “It isn’t cold and it isn’t raining.”
    The answering machine next to the couch flashed at him. He hit the retrieve button.
    “Well, Dave, bite me sideways. This is Bob Armstrong. We’ve got a Dirty Half Dozen reunion coming up. Give a call when you get home.” His phone number followed.
    Dave’s leg delivered another twinge of pain. This time Dave knew exactly why.
    He hadn’t talked to Bob since before the ambulance whisked him to the hospital with a shattered leg three decades ago. He hadn’t spoken to any of them since that night. Or more accurately, they hadn’t spoken to him since then. Through his summer of convalescence, none of them had contacted him. Bob had a reasonable excuse, but the rest of them could have overcome their guilt and provided some encouragement during his excruciating physical therapy.
    He banked the fires his resentment stoked. After all, they were all seventeen back then. They had been through hell, and who was prepared for that at that age? There were more years to their friendship than that one night. However it all ended, he’d still never been closer for longer to anyone than he had been to those five friends from