He’d slipped down that path before, and sometimes he just let it happen, knowing he couldn’t always stop it.
But not tonight. Tonight, Larry ran alongside him, residing in his memory, his easy laughter still audible in Duke’s mind.
He’d never hear that laugh again. He’d never again listen to his brother’s laboring breaths as he tried to keep up with Duke’s pace. They’d never again share a few beers and shoot the breeze for hours.
Never.
He hit an upslope, and his calves reacted as if they were glad to meet it. Power surged through him, sweeping him upward. The flashlight he carried gave him just enough light to see the ground ahead of him, to avoid obstacles.
Cars were few and far between, however. He’d expected more traffic, but maybe he wasn’t on the state highway. He had no idea and didn’t care.
He heard Larry as clearly as if his brother were running beside him. “Think about it, Dan.”
Think about what exactly? That Larry hadn’t been working on a novel? As far as Duke was concerned, that was a given.
That maybe someone had been afraid of what Larry was writing, or afraid of something Larry knew?
Likely. Larry had never made a big deal out of it, but Duke was aware that his brother had received death threats. How many or over what, Duke didn’t know. Larry had mentioned them a few times but had always laughed them off.
“They just show me that I’m doing it right,” Larry had said.
Well, yeah. Duke’s career had been shredded by Larry doing the right thing. He was sure Larry hadn’t intended that, but his brother was like a bloodhound on a scent trail. He wouldn’t be diverted.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have laughed them off, Larry,” Duke muttered, keeping his breathing as even as he could. Deep, deep breaths, but regular. No oxygen deprivation allowed.
Duke was thinking as he ran uphill. Okay. That thing that Matt had said about maybe someone had been afraid of Larry... That could put a different spin on all this.
He’d seen Cat stiffen when that came out and was sure she’d had the same thought. Why would anyone here even consider the possibility? No one here, evidently, had the least idea of the kind of stories Larry had worked on.
Like all the time he’d spent on domestic terrorism, revealing links between some of the groups. Larry had mentioned he was still receiving threats a few years after the article was published.
What about other things? Duke tried to remember all the articles his brother had written, but the simple fact was he hadn’t heard about any number of them because he’d been overseas for long periods. Impossible to really keep up, and Larry almost never mentioned his work on postcards or in the occasional telemeeting they had.
Not that Larry would reveal anything until his story was published, and even then he kept a lot close to his vest.
Duke was sure there were more kernels of information in Larry’s brain than he could ever use in his published articles. Tips, clues, people, things he couldn’t substantiate well enough to write about. But they’d all remain in the stew pot, because Larry never knew when one of his gleanings might prove useful at a later date.
Damn, Duke wished he had even a remote idea what Larry had been writing about. Maybe something had come together in a way that needed more than six or eight pages of newsprint. Something big enough to make it worth a few hundred pages.
It wouldn’t surprise Duke to learn that.
He shouldn’t be surprised if Larry’s investigations had gotten him killed. The warnings had been there. But the idea was useless unless he could discover what his brother had been doing.
Crap.
Duke turned at the top of a long slope and began to run back down. Not as fast, because downhill was always tougher to negotiate without falling. But fast enough.
Larry. Damn it, Larry.
Duke had known his own job was dangerous, but he truthfully hadn’t believed Larry’s could be this dangerous. If it was.
That was the next thing he needed to figure out. He’d go talk to this other guy at lunch tomorrow, but he expected to hear pretty much what he’d heard from Matt.
Stupid idea, questioning his poker buddies. Except for one thing: that someone might be afraid of Larry.
After his own experience, Duke figured that wasn’t a far reach. Larry had exposed a terrible crime, murder for hire, but Larry had walked away alive, and for all that Duke’s career had gone into free fall, he was still here. Still wearing the uniform.
Apparently no one had wanted to stir that hornet’s nest up any more.
Unless maybe they had?
He was still wondering when he reached the truck stop diner.
CAT SAT ON her small front porch. A molded plastic chair cradled her, and she put her feet up on the porch railing. A jacket protected her, holding the cool night air at bay.
She was thinking about the conversation with Matt. About Duke, who couldn’t wait to leave once Matt was gone. He’d even refused her offer to drive him to the motel.
The man was upset. Understandably so. Cat wondered if he’d yet felt the full impact of grief, or if he’d been so furious and determined to find Larry’s killer that there’d been no room left in him for sorrow.
It might be that there was now.
Despite all her attempts to keep Duke at arm’s length, partly because of her job and partly because she didn’t trust that expression she’d initially seen in his eyes, she had begun to care.
“Oh, cool,” she whispered. Yeah. Just what she needed: to become personally involved.
She was personally involved enough with Larry that Gage Dalton hadn’t wanted her on the case. A murder investigation, something she’d done for her previous
