Maybe what I needed first was some more answers.

  I glanced over at him. “How much of the story can you tell me?”

  Brandon shifted in the passenger seat. “Most of it, honestly. Now that I’m out of witsec and the trials are over, there’s really nothing I have to keep hidden.”

  “Oh.” I stared at the road for a few seconds, holding the wheel tighter than I probably needed to. “Can you… Do you want to tell me?”

  “Do you want to know?”

  I very nearly snapped back that I deserved to know, but I gave the question some thought. Did I actually want to know? Because people—whether innocent or criminal—didn’t go into witness protection for kicks. The process of going into witsec itself was traumatic as hell. Whatever drove someone into that had to leave some nasty, nasty scars.

  But if I was going to get to know this man for real, then I needed to know the ugly bits, too. We were in this situation because of lies—justifiable or not—and we were only getting out through honesty.

  I swallowed, adjusting my grip on the wheel before my hands started cramping up. “Yeah. I want to know.”

  “Okay.” He drummed his fingernails on the armrest. I’d driven a solid two miles before he added, “Just, um… I’m trying to figure out where to start. Because it’s a long story.”

  “We’ve got another two hours ahead of us before we get to the cabin.”

  He grunted in acknowledgment. Silence hung between us for another mile or so, making my damn ears ring, before he finally spoke. “So, my partner and I were investigating a murder. As you do when you work in homicide. And a couple of uniformed officers had picked up a suspect who was ready to make a confession.”

  I nodded along as I drove and he spoke.

  “The guy was in the emergency room when we went to talk to him,” Brandon went on. “He was a homeless addict who’d been picked up a few times for minor offenses, but he’d never been violent. He was the kind of addict who’d wander naked into a convenience store and start rambling about Jesus and UFOs, but he never did anything dangerous. Except apparently he and our victim had a dispute over…” Brandon paused. “I can’t even remember now. Anyway, he was at the hospital because he had some injuries himself, and he was jonesing a bit, but he hadn’t gone into withdrawal yet. The officers promised him treatment once he signed his confession. He’d be in custody, but he’d get medical treatment for withdrawal and all until he was stable enough to be arraigned.”

  “Generous,” I said, because God knew I’d worked with plenty of cops who were more than happy to let so-called junkies suffer and even die instead of detoxing safely under medical supervision.

  “It was,” Brandon said. “But it meant we had kind of a ticking clock to interview him, because he was only going to be lucid until that withdrawal kicked in.”

  I grimaced. “Yeah, that’s not good.”

  “Exactly. So we sit down, and he spills it right away. Tells us he and the victim got into a fight because the victim tried to steal something from his campsite. He’s completely cooperative, just kind of edgy. Before we have the suspect sign the confession, though, Rhys—my partner—has me step outside with him. I didn’t like the idea because the longer we kept our guy there, the longer he was going without treatment or a hit of heroin. But I had a weird gut feeling too, so I go out into the hall with Rhys, and he’s like, ‘Does this seem weird to you?’ And… it was. It was really weird.”

  I glanced at Brandon. “How so?”

  He inhaled slowly. “I mean, for starters, the victim was stabbed to death. And I don’t mean he got shanked, nicked an artery, and bled out. I mean he was stabbed over three dozen times, deeply, through muscle and with enough force to damage bones.”

  I whistled. “Somebody was pissed.”

  “Right? But the thing is, our suspect was a heroin addict. His arms were a mess. We asked a nurse to put him through some really basic mobility and strength tests under the pretense of checking his injuries, and I mean, his hands were shaking. He couldn’t hold up his arm for more than a few seconds. Plus his grip strength was pretty much nonexistent. In fact, something caught the nurse’s attention, and she brought in the doctor, who ordered some more tests. Turns out our guy had an undiagnosed abscess in one arm, and he’d developed compartment syndrome in the other. It’s honestly a miracle he didn’t lose either arm.”

  “Holy shit,” I whispered. “And this guy supposedly stabbed someone thirty-some-odd times?”

  “That’s exactly what we were thinking. So Rhys kept working at him while I made some calls. Turns out our victim was a key witness in a case against an officer who’d killed someone during a traffic stop. And Rhys eventually got our suspect to admit that the arresting officers had shown him pictures of his ex-wife and kids and their house, and they threatened to burn it down with them still in it if he didn’t cooperate.”

  I almost choked on my own breath. “Oh my God.”

  “Yeah, and they also told him he’d get medical treatment, plus for someone who’s on the streets with a Midwestern winter closing in, the prospect of going to prison for life isn’t as off-putting as you might think.”

  “I’ve made arrests like that,” I admitted. “You know how winter is in Idaho.”

  “I do. And I remember you mentioning that—people who did shit just to get put on a three-day hold or sent to jail so they’d at least be warm.”

  It was surreal, that reminder that we’d had countless conversations about my job. That this was the man I’d told about my bad days and when I’d second-guessed myself as a cop.

  I glanced at him again. “I always wondered how you seemed to know exactly what I needed to hear when I told you about my job. I didn’t realize you were speaking from experience.”

  He looked at me as if he didn’t know what to say. I had no idea either.

  “Your story.” I cleared my throat. “Go on.”

  “Right. Yeah.” He shifted a little. “So, um… Anyway. We got his family out of there. Then we had him transferred to a hospital in another city once he was stable enough to travel, and we let the state’s witness protection program take it from there.”

  “They went into witsec too?”

  “Not the federal program like I did. It was still state-level at this point, so the marshals weren’t involved. The only thing I heard about this guy and his family later was that he was brought in to testify at some point. Beyond that…” He shook his head.

  I knew how that went. Very few people actually went into full-on permanent witness protection through the U.S. Marshals. It was usually a more temporary situation at the city or state level, which didn’t always end well for people. I hoped wherever that man and his family ended up, he got the help he needed and they were kept safe.

  “So, once he was safe,” Brandon went on, “Rhys and I started digging. The guy had given us a statement of what really happened, and the best we could figure, the real killers had tried to stage a suicide or a drug overdose, but the victim put up a bigger fight than they expected. So things went south, and as near as I can tell, they were going to try to play it off as a random murder or something. But someone saw them.”

  “The homeless guy.”

  Brandon nodded. “So they decided to make him take the fall for it. And they had the resources to do it because they were cops.”

  “They—” My head snapped toward him. “Cops?”

  “Yep.”

  “And you said the victim was a key witness testifying against a cop who’d killed someone.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Shit. I’m starting to see how this eventually landed you in witness protection.”

  Brandon laughed dryly. “Yeah. Well. It probably would’ve put me in the same local program our framed suspect went into, but it got a lot messier. I… It’s a really long story, and I promise I’ll tell you the whole thing at some point, but the punchline is that we started pulling a thread, and that thread led us to a domestic terrorist cell being investigated by the feds. I ultimately testified against some of the big players, and then the feds handed me off to the marshals.”

  I nodded as he spoke. A story that started with some cops murdering a witness and ended with another cop going into witsec… Yeah, that was bound to be long and messy. I chewed my lip. “Did your partner also go into witness protection?”

  As soon as I asked, I was ready to pull back the question. Obviously he couldn’t tell me that.

  Before I could rescind it, though, Brandon spoke in a quiet, haunted voice: “No. It was a, um… A moot point for him.”

  Oh. Fuck. So his partner’s death hadn’t been faked.

  “Sorry to hear it.”

  “Thanks.” He exhaled. “Like I said, I’ll tell you the rest. I promise. It’s just… It’s a lot.” He shifted a little. “Not just for you to hear, but for me to tell.”

  “It can wait.” At the start of this conversation, I’d wanted him to lay it all out, but now… Yeah, it could wait. Especially since I believed him that it was taxing to recount it all.

  “I’ll be as honest as you want me to be,” he whispered. “Anything you want to know. Just… maybe not all at once.”

  “That’s fair.”

  I didn’t want to push him too hard. Didn’t want to re-traumatize him just to fill in my own gaps.

  And admittedly, the more I heard…

  The less sure I was that I wanted to hear it all.

  Chapter 8

  Brandon

  Four weeks ago

  * * *

  “Guess the prosecutors got lucky.” I put my beer down on the table and faced Will Dempsey, my witness inspector, across the dimly lit booth in a dusty old Valecroft tavern. “You sure they didn’t compromise my location just to spook me out of hiding?”

  Will laughed dryly, shaking his head as he turned his own beer between his fingers. “They were as shocked as anyone to find out you were still alive.” He took a sip and rolled it around in his mouth. “I think the D.A. almost had a heart attack when he found out.”

  I managed a chuckle, but I didn’t really feel it. I didn’t feel much of anything, if I was honest. Numb. Hollow. Untethered.

  The last of the verdicts had been read this morning. Guilty across the board. Sentencing wouldn’t be for a few weeks yet, but all the defendants would remain in custody and would likely be in prison for a long time.

  Federal investigators had debriefed me and several others in private this afternoon. The remaining fragments of the Brotherhood had scattered. Some of the former members were seeking counseling and de-radicalizing themselves. Others still believed in the cause, but had gone back to their old lives and didn’t seem to be active threats. Anyone attached to the militia would remain under surveillance for the foreseeable future, even those who weren’t in prison or on probation. If someone so much as made a drunken comment about exacting revenge, they’d have folks with badges knocking on their doors.

  The Brotherhood was gone. The threat was neutralized.

  As much as it could ever be, this was over.

  I should’ve been relieved. Should’ve been ecstatic that my partner hadn’t died in vain and I hadn’t lost half a decade of my life for nothing. It had been a long game, but we’d won.

  Right now, it felt like being the sole survivor of a vicious siege—yeah, I was alive, and yeah, the battle was won, but what did it matter when all that remained was rubble and bones beneath my feet?

  “Hey. Kid.” Will nudged my shoe under the table. “You good?”

  I took a deep swallow of beer, draining the glass, and pushed it away. “Not really, no.”

  He didn’t look all that surprised. “Witsec isn’t easy on anyone. Neither is being the hero in a story like this.” He offered a sympathetic half-shrug. “That’s the part no one ever talks about with political activists and star witnesses—how much it actually costs them in the end.”

  I rubbed my eyes with my thumb and forefinger. “Doesn’t really matter if they talk about it or not.” I dropped my hand to the table and met his gaze. “It wasn’t like I had a choice.”

  He pursed his lips as if he were debating mentioning that, yeah, I’d had one. But he’d been in this business long enough to know that was bullshit. I’d only had one option that resulted in me still being alive today.

  Five years after I’d made that choice, with the dust settling and all the evil fuckers getting what was coming to them, I was glad I’d done what it took to put them all away. I just wasn’t sure where I went from here.

  I gestured at a server with my glass, and God bless her, she brought me another beer.

  “Can I get you boys anything else?” she drawled.

  I flashed her a tired smile. “No. Thank you, though.”

  She returned my smile, then left us to it. I downed half my beer faster than I should have, and then met my old handler’s eyes again. “So what do I do now?”

  He exhaled. “You know what I’m going to suggest.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t do it. You know I can’t.”

  Sighing, Will sat back. “We can’t send you back to where you were before.”

  “You can’t stop me from going back either.” That came out sharper than I’d intended. I didn’t take it back.

  Will’s expression hardened. “Brandon, I’m not pretending any of this is easy. But the smart thing—literally the only smart thing—for you to do is to let us put you someplace else. Going back there? Stupid. Fucking stupid. You aren’t Andrew Keller anymore, kid. You’ve got to let him go.”

  I grabbed my glass again, and my voice shook more than I thought it would as I said, “It’s not Andrew Keller I’m struggling to let go of.”

  Will blinked.

  I took another deep swallow, letting the cold liquid make my teeth ache and distract me from the sudden sting in my eyes. I put the glass down harder than I should have as I gritted out, “I had someone there. A partner.”

  He winced, avoiding my gaze. “I know. And I’m sorry.”

  “How do I move on from that?” There was no keeping my emotions out of my voice, and I couldn’t even blame it on the alcohol at this point, though at least I remembered to speak discreetly. “I was supposed to be Brandon Gaines forever. Then I was supposed to be Andrew Keller forever. How do I move on from being either of those people, and let go of the people you’re asking me to leave behind?” Before he could answer, I took another gulp, finishing the beer. “I can’t do it. Not again.”

  “I get that. I do.” He folded his hands behind his own glass. “But your case is over. There’s no reason to worry about your identity or location being compromised this time. Wherever we send you this time, that’s gonna be it.”

  He couldn’t promise that and we both knew it. It was most likely true, yes, but I shouldn’t have been compromised this time either. Anything was possible.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said unsteadily. “You know how hard it is to adapt to a new identity. You can’t honestly expect me to do it twice.”

  “I don’t expect you to like it,” he admitted. “And I’m not pretending it’s easy. Not at all. But it’s my job to keep you alive and safe.”

  “I know. The thing is, it was hard as hell to get used to never being me again. This time—” I had to pause to collect myself. After I’d cleared my throat, I tried again. “Leaving everyone behind the first time? That was awful. And now I’ve seen the way they all look at me when I’m back, and…” I swallowed, shaking my head. “I can’t do that to them again. But I also can’t stop thinking about the guy I left behind this time. At the very least, he deserves to know who—”

  “Brandon,” Will said sharply. “He can’t know. No one can.”

  “What does it matter?” I threw back. “You said yourself the case is over. Everyone is in prison or being surveilled.” I waved a hand. “Who the fuck cares if I go back and try to settle things with my boyfriend?”

  He pressed his lips together and avoided my gaze, absently rotating his glass between his fingers. His wedding ring glinted in the light.

  “Would you be able to leave your wife behind?” I asked.

  He met my eyes again. “What?”

  I motioned toward his ring. “If you had to go into witsec—I mean, I know they send spouses in too, but what if she didn’t want to go? Or—hell, what if you suddenly found out she’s been in the program this whole time and she isn’t who you thought she was?”

  His lips parted as he stared at me.

  Voice a little gentler, I said, “I understand why I had to go in. And why I had to come out. But he doesn’t. All he knows is that I’m gone, and I can only imagine what he thinks about that.” I swallowed hard. “I just want to try to make things right with him.”

  “And then what, Brandon?” Will shrugged. “Go back to that life? Come back to this one?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered. “I’m so damn confused about who I am and where I belong…” I blew out a breath and shook my head. “Literally the only thing I’m sure of is that I want a chance to tell him the truth.”

  Will eyed me. “Is there any chance of me persuading you to go back into the program after you’ve talked to him?”

  “No.” I swallowed. “I don’t know who the fuck I am anymore, but I know for a fact I can’t go through that again. I’ll take my chances as… Well, Brandon, I guess. Since I assume Andrew’s existence has been nuked from orbit.”

  He didn’t confirm or deny, which I took to mean… yeah, Andrew didn’t exist anymore. I’d asked the marshals not to kill him as they had Brandon, because I’d known from the moment we’d left Idaho that I’d want to go back. Since no one was hunting down Andrew, it wasn’t as critical to tie up his life story in a neat little bow. Or, well, in a messy accident and a closed casket funeral. They’d handled getting me out of my lease and having me “quit” my job, but no one actually believed Andrew was dead.

  “Just be careful out there,” Will said evenly. “We’ve got eyes on everyone left with ties to the group, but…”