Free The Break-In by Tish Cohen Page A

that?”
    Alex’s mom answered for him. “He wants to know what his dad did. For the award.”
    “Took on an armed suspect all by himself during a home invasion. Saved a young mother and her three little ones. Your dad was quite the cop, Alex. He will be sadly missed.”
    The sergeant meant to make him feel better, but Alex only felt worse.
    His mom took the box and held it to her chest. Alex could see she was blinking back tears. “Thank you, Sergeant.”
    “I know who d-d-did i-i-i ... who d-did it.”
    Sergeant Hines smiled sadly. “Who would that be, son?”
    A good cop looks at the clues. The hit-and-run driver who killed Alex’s dad left almost none. Only chips of dark red paint on the door of the car Alex’s dad had pulled over. The guy getting the ticket couldn’t describe the other driver’s car. All he knew was that it was an old red clunker.
    Old Man Morrison, Alex’s one and only suspect, lived across the street. He and Alex were enemies. As the new boy at school, Alex got picked on, of course. Two weeks ago, bullies had stolen his backpack. Alex couldn’t care less about his school books, but in his backpack he’d had a bendablepen from Disneyland. Now he’d never get it back. The day after the bullies took his backpack, Alex saw them again. To get away, he cut through Old Man Morrison’s yard.
    Morrison had trimmed his shrubs into crazy shapes: a swan, a giraffe, a rocket ship. He was nuts about those bushes. He threw a fit when Alex cut through his yard. Alex, he said, had broken some of the lower branches. He demanded that Alex fix them. Which was impossible. How do you put a broken branch back together?
    Alex’s dad went to calm the guy down, even offered to pay him, but Morrison wouldn’t listen. He said he’d get even. That alone didn’t make the old man a suspect. But this did: Morrison drove a very old, very red clunker.
    Alex decided to tell Sergeant Hines the name of his suspect. “M-M-Morr.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “He thinks Mr. Morrison, across the street, did it,” said Alex’s mom. “He drives a red car.”
    “O-o-old red car.”
    The sergeant, like about ten other people that day, tapped Alex under his chin. “Every dark red car is being looked at. If the paint matches, we’ll betalking to Mr. Morrison in the next few days. Don’t you worry.”
    But Morrison could leave town. Every good cop knows the bad guy will try to run. “In the next few days” wasn’t soon enough. Alex shook his head angrily.
    The sergeant leaned close and smiled. “You just leave the policing to the police. You’re the man of the house now, son. It’s up to you to take care of things around here.” He stood up to leave, and a puzzled look crossed his face. “Do I hear a cricket?”

Chapter Two

    The next morning, Marcus sat across from his doctor and rubbed at his new beard. Strange that it took him until age twenty-seven to finally grow a bit of hair on his face. He wondered if stress could do that. Make a person hairier.
    Dr. Ling yawned into her hand. “Excuse me,” she said as she opened his file.
    He leaned back into his chair and tried not to yawn back. He’d had a bad night. Didn’t fall asleep until three or four o’clock. Then he slept through his alarm and raced out the door without even showering. He didn’t want to be late for therapy. It was all that was keeping him sane since Lisa walked out.
    The doctor looked up. “You were starting to tell me about your sadness. How you’re coping with it.”
    Marcus looked down at the photo in his hand. It was taken three years ago, back when he and Lisa were in their last year of art college. God, she was beautiful. Her freckles, her wavy brown hair. It blew across her face and got in her mouth. That drove her nuts. She was so pretty it wasn’t fair. No one could hold on to such a woman. And no one could get over her once she was gone.
    They’d been living together. Planning to get married. To move down to Australia, where he