SEVEN

NICK THOMAS SAT UNCOMFORTABLY in his wooden desk chair, rubbing his sore knee. He slipped on reading glasses and read the reports stacked precariously high on his desk.

He’d never before let the paperwork get this far out of hand. What a difference a year makes.

He watched the deputies outside his office window as shifts changed. The casual glances in his direction. The concerned look on the faces of some; the wariness on the faces of others. He’d been back on the job seven months, but no one had forgotten what had happened last May. Nick found himself glancing at the calendar more often now, as the anniversary of the Butcher’s last hunt approached.

The Butcher wasn’t the only reason he kept looking at the calendar. Three weeks from tomorrow was the deadline to file for reelection, and he still hadn’t made his decision.

Frankly, he had no right to be sheriff. He should have resigned after he screwed up and lived to talk about it.

He didn’t think he could do it. Not again. He’d screwed up, and his error of judgment had not only almost cost him his life, but the lives of citizens he had been sworn to protect.

At the same time, he’d learned about both himself and the nature of violence in a way that could only benefit him as a sworn officer. He was torn. Though none of his relatives had ever been in law enforcement, being a cop seemed to be ingrained in him. He didn’t know how to do anything else.

Pulling his hand from his aching knee, he picked up a pen and signed reports, barely giving them the attention they deserved. Damn knee. He’d tossed out the painkillers as soon as he’d left the hospital last year, hating the ethereal feeling the medication gave him. He dealt with the pain. To remember? As punishment? Whatever, he preferred the pain to the vagueness that came over him when on medication.

One day at a time.

His phone rang, startling him. It was his private line. Few people called on it. Glancing at the clock, he saw that more than an hour had passed since he’d sat down. Had he really been staring at the same piece of paper for an hour? What was wrong with him?

He grabbed the receiver. “Sheriff Thomas.”

“Nicky, it’s Steve.”

His brother. He hadn’t talked to Steve in months. The last time they had had a real conversation had been just after Nick had been released from the hospital last summer. Nick had swallowed his pride and asked Steve if he had a couple weeks to come up and help. Steve had declined. He was taking summer classes at the university. When he offered to come up for a weekend, Nick said no. He hadn’t wanted to entertain his brother, he had wanted someone to talk to.

He’d ended up dealing with the aftermath of the Bozeman Butcher alone, and maybe that had been for the best.

“Nick? You there?”

“Yeah. What’s up?”

“Well, I need some help.”

Steve? The Desert Storm war hero and savior of an entire school of Kuwaiti children asking for help? Steve, his brother who never asked for anything since he could do everything himself?

“You need my help?”

“The police have been here. They think I killed someone.”

Nick didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything. Steve? A murderer? Impossible.

“Nick?”

“What happened?” Nick asked.

“My ex-girlfriend was murdered. The police talked to me twice already, and they’re coming tomorrow to take my computer and search my apartment.”

“Do they have a warrant?”

“I didn’t do it! I told them to take anything they want. If it helps them to find Angie’s killer-”

“What did your attorney say?”

“Didn’t you hear me? I said I’m innocent. I don’t have an attorney. I don’t need an attorney.”

Nick closed his eyes. “Steve, call an attorney. Have someone present when the police arrive tomorrow to take possession of your computer. It’s your right.”

“I did call someone. I called you.”

“I’m not a lawyer, Steve.”

“I need your help. Please. The cops think I did it. They haven’t arrested me, they don’t have anything on me, but I can tell by the way they look at me that they think I killed Angie.”

Nick rested his forehead on his palm, unsuccessfully trying to squeeze the tension from his growing headache. If the police thought Steve was guilty, there had to be some evidence to back it up.

Dammit, Steve, what have you gotten yourself into?

“Where are you now?”

“My apartment.”

“Get an attorney.”

“If I get an attorney, they’ll think I’m guilty.”

Nick said slowly, “They think you’re guilty now.”

Silence. Then, “Nicky, I really need your help.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Steve didn’t say anything for a long minute, then: “Angie had a restraining order against me. It didn’t mean anything,” Steve continued quickly. “Really, she was just mad at me because I told her to be careful because she was hanging out with the wrong people, putting too much personal information online.”

“I don’t understand. People don’t get restraining orders for no reason.”

“Look, I just need you, okay? If you can’t help me, I don’t know who to go to. Please come. I don’t have anyone else.”

Nick found himself listening to a dial tone.

Slowly, he replaced the receiver. Steve suspected of murder. It didn’t make sense. Nick couldn’t see Steve killing a woman because she jilted him.

Nothing that Steve had said made much sense to Nick. His ex-girlfriend got a restraining order against him, then ends up dead. Yeah, if he were investigating the case, Steve would be at the top of the list of suspects. Maybe that’s all this was, the detectives looking at the most likely suspect-ex-boyfriend. As soon as they cleared him, they could track down other ex-boyfriends, friends, colleagues.

Still, Nick really had no choice but to go to San Diego and do everything he could to help Steve. Isn’t that what brothers do? Stand by each other?

These last few years they’d grown apart, living more than a thousand miles from each other, but now Steve had asked for help, and Nick would do anything he could.

He called in Deputy Lance Booker. Last year, during the Butcher investigation, Booker had been an overeager rookie. Today he was a solid cop. Violence and murder did that to you. Proved what you were made of. Or proved what you lacked.

“I have a family emergency,” he told Booker. “I’m authorizing you to take over as acting sheriff until I return.”

Booker looked surprised, but didn’t say anything. Nick was breaking protocol, though he hardly cared at this point.

“If Sam Harris gives you shit, don’t take it. I’m telling everyone you’re in charge. You have my cell phone and pager if you need me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Though as undersheriff, Sam Harris was second in command, the sheriff had the authority to appoint any deputy as acting sheriff in his absence. Harris had taken over when Nick disappeared last year and had played the press and the politicians into thinking that he’d single-handedly stopped the Butcher instead of jeopardizing the investigation.

Nick wasn’t about to give him that control again.

Nine months ago he’d faced a serial killer and lived, no thanks to Sam Harris.

For thirteen years, a killer had terrorized the college town of Bozeman, Montana. The Bozeman Butcher-as the press had dubbed him-kidnapped, raped, and tortured college women. But if that wasn’t enough, he released them naked in the woods to hunt them down like animals. Twenty-two women, dead.

Last year after the Butcher struck again, Nick called in the FBI and together they worked the case, getting closer to identifying the Butcher. But Nick couldn’t claim credit for ending the Butcher’s reign of terror. Instead, he’d made a huge error in judgment and ended up being held captive. He’d needed to be rescued instead of doing the rescuing.