Speak No Evil_ A Novel - Allison Brennan [22]
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