“Are you just now noticing these?” I ask in astonishment, looking up at him as I tear open the tiny envelope.

“I never come in here,” he defends.

“Wow, some detective you turned out to be,” I mumble teasingly.

It’s the first time in days I’ve felt like talking to anyone, much less teasing.

“Watch it, smart ass,” he says taking the card from my fingers. I lunge for it, but he holds it high above his head. Much too high for me to reach.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I was just playing, Dad. Now give me the card.”

“No. I want to know what’s going on. You’re like a damn vampire, sleeping all day. You won’t eat, you won’t talk to anybody and you keep getting flowers.”

“It’s nothing, Dad. Nothing I can’t handle.” I’m still fighting being the protected little girl, even though sometimes I’d give anything for my father to pull me into his arms and tell me everything will be fine.

“I’m not stupid, Sloane. I know there was more between you two than just friendship. And I know a betrayal like that is hard, if not damn near impossible to get over. But you should try to put yourself in his shoes. Think about what lengths you’d go to in order to protect one of your brothers. And God forbid something happen to one. You act like you’re not a Locke in some ways, like you don’t understand why we treat you the way that we do, but if someone hurt one of us, you’d be a damn bear to deal with.” I say nothing as I listen to him. He knows just enough of the situation to know Hemi’s roll in looking for a dirty cop. Beyond that, I gave him very few details, other than that some things he’d discovered pointed to Steven. “Well,” he continues when I say nothing, “I know I’ve always been hard on you, but I hope you know you can talk to me. I’m still your father and I love you more than anything.”

“I know, Dad. And I love you, too,” I reassure him. “And I’m fine. Really.”

“Slo-ane,” he warns.

“Da-ad.”

“Are you still worried about Steven?” he asks, making me sigh.

“Maybe a little.”

“You did what you had to do, what you thought was best in coming to me. He’ll see that one day. Especially when I tell him what I found out today.”

My ears perk up. “What? What did you find out today?”

As I wait for him to tell me, I notice the deep lines of worry etched into his forehead, the unhappy way his mouth is pulled at the corners. Whatever it is, it’s not good news.

“There were a few kilos of bad coke confiscated by homicide during one of their investigations. It was a joint Narcotics/Homicide kind of thing. It was around that time, so I started looking into the impounded drugs. Turns out there are a couple of kilos missing. From the very back of the shelf, where no one would notice unless they were specifically looking. I checked into the log to see who all came and went during the six months after that evidence was logged in.” He pauses, spreading the fingers of one hand over his forehead. “It shows Steven using his access card to go in. Half a dozen times.”

I gasp. “What?” My heart is pounding so hard, it feels like it might explode.

“Don’t get too excited now. This is your brother we’re talking about. I checked the physical log to see what was signed in or out. Someone signed Steven’s name as checking out an evidence file on a cold case he’d worked the year before. The thing is, it’s not Steven’s signature. I’ve kept this on the down low up until now, and I’m gonna try and keep it that way. I made a copy of the log sheet and I’m going to take it to one of the handwriting analysts the city uses for court cases. When I take this to Internal Affairs, I want the record to already show that the handwriting is forged. And then I’ll be on this thing like stink on shit until I find the bastard who framed my son.”

I can see fury emanating from him like steam. “Who would do this to him, Dad? And why?”

“Well, I have my suspicions.” He looks at me meaningfully and, after a few seconds, I realize why he is dreading telling Steven what, at first, seemed like only good news.

The timing—when Steven lived with Duncan on Tumblin Street. The coincidence—Duncan leaving late at night on what Steven thought were trysts. The facts—someone was able to get Steven’s access card, just long enough to use it to check out evidence from the lockers. And it would have to be a cop.

All things point to one person. My brother’s best friend. His most trusted ally. His partner.

“Oh frick,” I breathe. “Duncan.” I raise my eyes to my father’s and I see the sadness in them. I’m sure he feels betrayed by him, too. He loved Duncan like a son. He’s worked with Duncan’s father for years. Duncan’s father who works in Narcotics.

Finally, he gives me one curt nod. “But I have to have proof. And I’m going to need your brother’s help. And you know he’s not going to like it.”

“No, he won’t like it, but he’ll do it. Because it’s the right thing. It’s the Locke way,” I say, handing back to my father with a smile words I’ve heard all my life.

“Yeah, it’s the Locke way. We protect our own. At all costs.”

For some reason—for the millionth time—I think of Hemi.

CHAPTER FORTY - Hemi

Sloane still won’t answer my calls. I don’t know how else to reach her, how else to convince her to talk to me. To hear me out. Just one more time.

There are things I need to tell her, things I’ve just realized myself. Things that I can’t say on a voice mail or in a card, or with flowers.

Important things.

Truthful things.

Like I promised her.

One more time, I try her number. It rings and rings and rings. Finally, I hear her familiar voice click on with her familiar message. My gut twists up just listening to it, fearing that I really won’t ever be able to make this right, that she’ll never forgive me and I won’t ever be able to tell her what I need to say.

“Sloane, it’s me. There’s something I have to tell you. It’s important. Please, just give me five more minutes. Please.”

With a sigh, I hang up.

Again.

Now I just have to wait.

Again.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE - Sloane

I thought maybe a night out with Sarah would make me feel better. Not only do I not feel better, I actually feel a little queasy as I navigate the road back to the house. I’m not surprised really. I haven’t been eating well or getting much sleep since everything happened with Hemi. I reason with myself that I’m probably just run down.

When I get home, Dad is sitting at the dining room table, looking through the cards that are still lying there. Most of the flowers are dead and have already been thrown out. But for some reason, I couldn’t quite bring myself to throw out the cards. Not just yet.

“What are you doing, Dad?” I ask, stopping beside the chair he’s sitting in.

Before he answers, Dad neatly stacks all the flower cards together and hands them to me. “Have you read them all?”

“Yes.”

He nods slowly, folding my fingers around the little rectangles. “No change?”

I don’t really know how to answer that. I’m less upset than what I was, yes, but I don’t know why yet. I don’t know if I’m working my way toward forgiving Hemi or if time is just healing the wound.

Finally, I shrug my answer.

“He came by here tonight. Looking for you.” My father watches me, carefully gauging my reaction. He says no more, which prompts me to speak.

“What did he want?”

“To talk to you.”

Duh.

“Did he say why?”

“Not really. But I think you need to at least listen to him, Sloane.”

“That’s easy for you to say, Dad. You don’t know the whole story.”

“It’s not easy for me to say. I don’t like the thought of anyone hurting you. For any reason. In any fight, I’ll always take your side. Part of me wants to wring this guy’s neck for putting you through the hell you’ve been in the last couple of weeks.

“It’s hard for me to think about my little girl growing up and possibly falling in love, Sloane. It’s hard for me to think of having to give her up to some cocky jerk and hope he takes care of her. But I know that I have to do it. Eventually. And something tells me that this one means a lot to you. More than what I gave him credit for. I knew there was something going on, but I don’t think I knew how important it was to you, how important he was to you.”

Dad scoots his chair back and stands to face me, bending a pinch so he can see into my face. “Life is short, Sloane. When I wanted to forget just how short, you reminded me. Every day for a couple of years now, you’ve reminded me. But you know what? You were right. Life is short and you need to live it, as much as you can for as long as you can. If I could go back and add a few more years or days or even hours with your mother, I would. In a heartbeat. And I would never want to do anything to cheat you out of times like that. Moments like that. So you think long and hard about these, Sloane,” he says, touching my hand that’s holding the cards. “And if there’s a way to forgive him, if you think he might be worth it, then go talk to him. Give him that chance. Don’t live with regret like that for the rest of your life. When you’ve got a lot of regret to look back on, a short life can seem like an eternity in hell.”

With a fatherly pat to my arm, Dad steps past me. He looks back at me before he leaves the room. “You okay? Your face is red.”

I touch my cheek. It’s warm and I’m still not feeling up to par, but I give my dad a comforting smile. “I’m fine, Dad.”

With an answering smile, he walks away. I hear him start to whistle when he gets to the kitchen and I smile bigger. He used to whistle all the time when Mom was alive. Now, it’s rare. And considering all the trouble our family has seen lately, it’s even more special. I know it’s thoughts of Mom—the good, happy kinds of thoughts—that put the song in his heart. Just remembering a love like that can turn everything around. It can turn life to shit for a while, but in the end, it makes everything worth it. I just have to decide if, with Hemi, it’s worth it.

********

The next day, a loud pounding wakes me from my nap. It’s difficult to fight my way out of sleep, to separate reality from the dream world I was so happy inside. But reality is much more persistent, especially when it comes in the form of my brother.

“Sloane, answer the door. I mean it,” Steven blusters from outside my locked bedroom door.

“Whatever it is can wait, Steven. I’m sleeping.”

“It’s not even eight o’clock. Why are you in bed already?”

That’s an excellent question, one I have no answer for. I thought around three thirty that a Sunday afternoon nap sounded great. I think nearly five hours is a touch more than a nap. But I’m just exhausted!

“I’m getting up. Just give me a minute.”

I stir myself as best I can and make my way to the door, turning the lock on the knob and stepping back so my brother can bluster on this side of it.

“Did you know about this?”

He wastes no time in jumping down my throat when he steps inside.

“Know about what?”

“About that as**ole Hemi investigating me? About how he targeted our family?”

“Not at first. Why do you think I don’t see him anymore?”

I slump down on the end of the bed and watch Steven pace back and forth. He’s furious for sure, but behind that, I can see that he’s hurt. And betrayed. Not by Hemi, but he makes an effective scapegoat.

“I knew I didn’t like that prick. I knew it!”

“Steven, like him or not, Hemi was just doing what he had to for his family. And he might’ve even saved your life.”

“How the hell has he done anything good for me?”

“This is about Duncan, isn’t it?”

Steven says nothing, but I can see the muscle along his jaw flex in anger.

“Duncan isn’t the one who was using—”

“Yes, he was, Steven. Duncan was wrong in so many ways. I know he was your best friend and your partner, and I know you feel betrayed, but you can’t make excuses for him. He stole your security pass while you slept, Steven! That’s a pretty shitty thing for a decent friend to do. Do you know how much trouble he could’ve gotten you into?”

“At least he didn’t get our house shot up,” he spits.

“Yes, he did. It was his associations, his illegal activities that even led people to think it was you to begin with. Why do you think he used your pass? This is every single bit Duncan’s fault. The only thing Hemi did was stumble upon it.”

Steven stops pacing and stares daggers at me. “He used you to investigate our family.”

His words sting. Because they’re true. And I’m still struggling with it.

“I know that, Steven, but put yourself in his position. If I were killed in the same way, at the hands of a dirty cop no less, what wouldn’t you do to bring my killer to justice? What wouldn’t you do to make people pay for their deeds?” I get up from the bed, crossing to my brother where he’s standing like a huge, stiff Hulk in the doorway. “Steven, you would’ve done the same thing. Maybe even worse. There are no limits to what we’d do for the people we love.”

“I can never forgive him. You realize that, right?”

“Hemi isn’t the one who needs your forgiveness, Steven. The only thing he’s guilty of is granting my request for him to teach me how to tattoo. He may have had an ulterior motive, but he did nothing wrong. He gave what little information he had to a trusted legal official. Yet he’s apologized for it anyway. But he doesn’t deserve your anger. Put your outrage where it belongs. Duncan betrayed you in the worst possible way, and an innocent man died because of it. Let’s not forget who the real villain is here.”