Stranger Danger

Chapter Twenty Three

Dil
I can't believe what I am reading right now. Bob Pancakes is trying to take my son to court? How is this any of Dabs fault? If anything he probably helped Evan with his problems when he could. I'm guessing a lot of the problems were caused because of Bob himself. I have to show Tabitha. What will she think of it? I walk past my heavily distressed son and go straight to our room. She's sat on our bed playing with a dinosaur. She's a weird one. But that's why I love her.

"I can't believe this. Look at it." I say as I slam the envelope on our bed. She opens the papers and reads them very carefully

"The Pancakes are trying to take our son to court? But why?" She asked angrily

"They're trying to convince people that Dab drove Evan to kill himself." I scoff

"They know damn well it wasn't our sons fault. And that's a fact." She said

"They don't give two shits about their son. They are only in it for the money. They want to sue our family to get money. They don't care that their son died. All the care about is the fame that comes with it." I say. Even the thought of doing that is absolutely disgusting.

"well what are we going to do?" She asked nervously

"We are going to get through this. Let's call Dab in here. We need to go through all of their texts. See if we can find anything that can prove Dab is innocent." I tell her reassuringly. I call Dab into our room. He hesitated, then sat on the bed.

"Dab, we need you to tell us everything that happened between you and Evan. And I mean everything." I told him

"But why? What's going on?" He asks. Tabitha and I exchanged looks

"Dab I'm sure you're aware of what this letter is. It's a court letter." Tabitha says

"Okay, well obviously. But you guys know it wasn't my fault. Can't I just tell them that?" Dab says confused

"I wish it was that easy honey. But it's not." Tabitha says as she puts her hand on his knee

"So then what do we do?" He says

"I need your phone. I need you to tell me every single conversation you had with Evan. I'm not trying to be invasive, I just need it to prove that you had nothing to do with it." I say

"But dad! It's my ph-"

"I don't want to hear it. Give it to me now Dab. I trust you okay? I just need to see it." I say sternly. I stare at him and eventually he gives me his phone. I hug him tightly. "Goodnight Dab. Get some rest. You'll need it." I say as he leaves the room. I open his phone and notice he has a black lock screen. I go to his texts and find Evans contact. I click on the conversation. The last text they shared, was the night of Evans death. I read Evans message over and over again because I'm not sure if I'm reading it right. "Oh my god. Tabitha look at this." I show her the phone. She has the same expression as me.

"So they really loved eachother huh." She said happily.

"Guess so." I sigh. I continue to scroll until I find a text that catches my eye. It's from about 4 weeks ago.

E: hey thanks for listing to me tonight. I just hate my dad. And I can't tell any one because I'm afraid he will hurt me even more.

D: I'll make sure that never happens. I couldn't stand to see you get hurt <3

E: I love you.

D: I love you too. Evan I'm really worried about you. Tell me if anything happens okay? Tell me if he lays a single finger on you.

E: I promise.

I close out of the text and turn off his phone. Evan clearly stated in his text that his dad most likely abused him. I have to talk to dab about this. Why didn't he tell me? Can he not trust me? It's getting late, I'll have to tell him in the morning. The morning of the trial.

My fingers might fall off after writing this chapter -