Nick wasn’t certain he fully believed Steve, but why would he lie?

“Is there anything you’re not telling me?”

Steve clenched his fists. “Do you think I did that to Angie?”

“No.” But Nick had waited a beat before answering, and Steve seized on it, his jaw tight but his eyes filled with hurt.

“You think I’m capable of that type of cruelty? That I could rape a woman? You think that of me? You really don’t know me.” Steve stared at the ocean, his eyes watery. “You don’t know me at all.”

“That’s not what I said-” Nick began, but Steve cut him off.

“I thought you were here to help me, Nick. I was wrong. I didn’t think I had to prove to my own brother that I’m innocent. Maybe you’re right, maybe I do need a lawyer. Because if my own flesh and blood believes me capable of murder, it’s no wonder the fucking police are trying to hang me.”

“That’s not how it works-”

Steve shook his head, waved his arm toward his apartment building up the beach. “Why don’t you go join your buddies who turned my apartment upside down? Skewer me because I’m the easiest to blame. And let Angie’s killer walk the streets free. Because the truth doesn’t mean anything, does it? As long as you guys have someone to throw in jail, the truth doesn’t matter.”

Steve turned and walked up the beach, back toward the apartment. Nick watched him, perplexed. What was that about? He replayed the conversation and didn’t see what he’d said to set off his brother. But the pressure of a police investigation, the stress of being a suspect, of having the police in your home, asking personal, embarrassing questions…maybe it had just gotten to Steve.

Steve had asked Nick for help and the only way Nick could do that was if he knew all the facts.

Nick understood why the police suspected his brother. Older man, much younger woman dumps him. Restraining order. There was more to that story than Steve let on. And Nick had to see Angie’s website to know exactly what the police had on his brother. And hope that Steve trusted him enough to be completely honest once his temper cooled down.

Steve jumped into a small, sporty car and drove off. Nick started back up the beach, noticed that the police vehicles were gone. He hoped the apartment door was unlocked. If not, he knew a few tricks. Hunger and weariness ate at him. It had been a long day and he needed to get off his feet. Or rather his knees. Walking on the beach had not been a wise move. He wanted his pain pills, but refused to give in to the need.

Nick slowly crossed the beach and opened the rental car, unzipped his shaving kit, and poured two prescription-strength Motrin into his hand. He swallowed them with the now cold coffee he’d picked up at the airport after he’d flown in, hours before, wincing at the foul taste.

Grabbing his bag, he started toward Steve’s apartment again. Grinding pain in his knees and ankles forced him to walk slowly.

He counted twenty-four stairs. There were twenty-two stairs in his house in Bozeman. He could have moved his bedroom downstairs to the guest room, but he had refused. It would have meant he’d been defeated by the pain, defeated by his mistakes, defeated by a killer.

He could do this.

One.

He put his right foot on the first stair, and pulled his left foot to stair two. Okay. The pain was minimal, but he had known it would be. His right knee hadn’t been as damaged as his left.

Bracing for the electric jolt he knew would come, he pulled his right leg up to the second stair.

His vision blurred and he took a deep breath.

He did four more stairs in the same fashion, trying to pick up the pace, until it became obvious that he wouldn’t make it, not like this. He swung the bag in his right hand to build momentum, then tossed it up the stairs, praying it would make it to the landing and not roll all the way down. It made it, barely.

He grabbed both railings and used them as crutches, putting more pressure on his right knee than he should, but relieving his left leg. He reached the top and sank down on the landing to catch his breath and wonder again what he was doing. Could he even catch the bad guys anymore?

Inevitably when he was in pain, self-pity took hold.

That’s it, Sheriff. Get off your ass.

Nick hauled himself up and shuffled across the balcony to Steve’s apartment. The door was locked, but not bolted, and Nick easily popped the old lock.

When Nick opened the door, he was surrounded by a bright, orange glow. It took a moment to realize the light came from the setting sun shining through the large, sliding-glass windows that made up the back wall of the apartment. The sun rested on the ocean in front of him, bleeding into the sea, the water sparkling like bursts of firecrackers.

Spectacular.

For a brief moment Nick forgot everything that troubled him. Before him the vast ocean unrolled endlessly, the sun illuminating everything in sight. The orange turned red as the sun rapidly sank lower, with finally just the tip visible on the calm water.

For a minute, a far too short time, Nick felt as peaceful as the glassy sea.

The sun disappeared. And while the colors were still vibrant, Nick saw that the ocean wasn’t as calm as he’d thought. Its waves crashed on the shore, the night claiming its time.

The mess of the police investigation brought home the reason he was here in the first place. He reluctantly turned from the view and dropped his bag by the door.

On the wall next to the door was a framed photograph of a former president of the United States handing a much younger Steve a commendation. Nick remembered that day nearly fifteen years ago. It had been before their parents died, shortly after he’d joined the police academy. Nick was idealistic and eager, and still thought he could convince his dad that he was just as heroic as Steve. That he, too, would have risked his life and saved those kids.

But Paul Thomas had only had faith in one of his sons, something Nick had never understood, and with his father ten years in the grave, he would never get the answers.

The one thing Nick could figure was that Steve had followed in their father’s footsteps. That he joined the army and moved up in the ranks. That he, too, had earned a Purple Heart. They had war stories to share, political discussions, a love of history.

Nick simply had a driving urge to right wrongs, and becoming a lawyer had seemed the perfect answer, until that day he knew he was destined to be a cop.

Some cops became cops because of tragedy, but Nick became a cop because of hope. He’d been at the police academy for a workshop on juvenile crime and gangs. One of the speakers was a kid, Jesse Souter, who’d grown up with a drug-addict mother and a petty thief of a father. Jesse’s time spent in and out of foster homes coincided with his parents’ prison stints. It was no wonder the kid had turned to crime.

But one day a Missoula beat cop had arrested Jesse for shoplifting a six-pack of beer and beef jerky. The five-dollar crime was a turning point. The cop befriended and guided Jesse, and showed him his own potential. Jesse grew up and became a cop himself.

He could have so easily gone the other way.

It was the hope that these kids could be helped, that all they needed was guidance and an example, that changed Nick’s career choice. He enrolled in the police academy the next day and never looked back, never doubted his decision. He couldn’t point to a Jesse during his tenure as a cop, but he knew he’d helped a few lost sheep find the right path. And that had been enough.

Looking around Steve’s apartment and the general mess left by the police, he thought that maybe he should have become a lawyer instead. Right now Steve needed a lawyer more than another cop.

Steve’s natural tidiness was still evident through the disturbance. Steve used the dining area as his office, and the empty place where his computer had sat looked particularly barren.