PART 2 — THE REPORT
Kaitlyn wiped her eyes and unfolded a sheriffs report she had clearly kept folded in her purse for a long time.
Last June, she said, I was driving home late and a man started following my car. I was terrified. I pulled into the first lit-up place I could find, a gas station off I-40, and ran inside.
The man behind the counter did not hesitate. He locked the doors, moved me into the back room out of sight, and called the sheriff on the man who had followed me in. He stayed between me and that door until the deputies arrived and took the man away.
The man Brent mocked for selling beef jerky at midnight had locked his own doors and stood guard over a frightened girl until help came, and that girl was Brents own niece.
I was away at college and I never told the family the whole story, Kaitlyn said. But I kept the report, and I kept his name. Then she looked at Ricky. When I got here today and saw you, I knew. You are the man who kept me safe that night.
The pavilion went quiet. Brent, checking his Rolex a moment before, let his arm fall still.
Ricky just refilled his mamas iced tea and said he only did what any decent man would. But Kaitlyn said that night she learned most men drive on past a lit window. He did not.
My son sweeps the parking lot, the dealership owner had joked. One night he locked the doors and guarded your niece with his own body. That is the man behind the glass.