“How?”
He hesitated, unable to find the words, so I answered for him. “He sold his guitar, sweetie.”
Jillian put a hand over her mouth, a gasp escaping her lips. Elena stared at him like he had handed her the moon. “Why would you do that? You love playing guitar, Alejandro.”
My son shrugged, his favorite move whenever he had done something huge and wanted to pretend it wasn’t. “Because you needed it, Elena.”
FINAL: The Knock at the Door
That should have been the end of it. But it wasn’t.
The next morning, somebody pounded on my front door hard enough to rattle the frame. My mouth went dry as I opened it to find two uniformed police officers filling the doorway.
“Ma’am,” one of them said. “Are you Victoria?”
“Yes, I am,” I whispered, panic rising in my throat.
“We’re Officers Daniels and Cooper. Is your son here?”
Before I could answer, Alejandro came into the hall behind me, turning pale. My hand shot to the doorframe. “What’s going on? What did my son do?”
Officer Daniels looked at him, then back at me. “Ma’am, are you aware of what your son did yesterday? He’s not under arrest, but someone wants to thank him. We need you both to come outside.”
A minute later, we stepped onto the porch. There was a patrol car at the curb, and next to it stood Nathan, Elena‘s father, holding his officer’s hat in his hands. He asked the squad to bring us over to his place.
Ten minutes later, we pulled up outside Nathan’s house. Inside, Elena and Jillian were waiting at the kitchen table with a massive breakfast spread. But what caught Alejandro‘s eye was a brand-new, polished guitar case leaning against the wall.
Alejandro stopped cold.
