{"id":23787,"date":"2025-12-12T18:20:51","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T18:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/?p=23787"},"modified":"2025-12-12T18:20:51","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T18:20:51","slug":"23787","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/?p=23787","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Joseph Law<\/span><\/strong>. Physics teacher. My closest friend and the most pragmatic man I knew. He lived ten minutes away.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJoe, I need you to come to my place right now. Bring your camera. The good one.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTom? You sound\u2026 weird. What\u2019s going on?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTrust me. Police are coming. I need a witness.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m on my way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He arrived before the police. Bless him. Joseph was sixty, with hair the color of steel wool and a demeanor as steady as bedrock. I explained quickly, showing him the photos on my phone as we stood by his car.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat evil\u2026\u201d he breathed, the word hanging in the cold air. \u201cYou\u2019re sure it was Bernice?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEmma\u2019s note said \u2018Grandma.\u2019 And think about it, Joe. Kathy doesn\u2019t have the spine to pull something like this. She\u2019s terrified of confrontation. This is a tactical strike. This is Bernice. She\u2019s been trying to get full custody of Emma since the divorce started. She thinks I\u2019m not good enough. Never was. This would eliminate me completely.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/path><\/svg><\/i> \"Loading\"<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joseph Law. Physics teacher. My closest friend and the most pragmatic man I knew. He lived ten minutes away. \u201cJoe, I need you to come to my place right now. Bring your camera. The good one.\u201d \u201cTom? You sound\u2026 weird. What\u2019s going on?\u201d \u201cTrust me. Police are coming. I need a witness.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m on my…<\/p>\n

Read More “”<\/span> »<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/path><\/svg><\/i> \"Loading\"<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"a3_pvc":{"activated":true,"total_views":274,"today_views":0},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23795,"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23787\/revisions\/23795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readmore.cx\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}