1: Blood and Badges

Sarah's pov

The phone rang at three in the morning. Nothing good ever came from calls at that hour, especially when you wore a badge for a living. I rolled over and grabbed my cell phone from the nightstand, squinting at the screen through sleep-crusted eyes.

"Walsh," I answered, my voice rough from sleep.

"Sarah, it's Captain Morrison. I need you to come in."

Something in his tone made my stomach drop. I sat up in bed, suddenly wide awake. "What's going on?"

"It's about your brother."

The words hit me like a physical blow. Tommy had been clean for six months now. Six months since his last relapse, since I'd found him passed out in that crack house downtown. I'd thought he was getting better. I'd hoped he was getting better.

"What happened?" I asked, but I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the answer.

"Sarah, Tommy's dead. His body was found an hour ago."

The phone slipped from my hand and clattered onto the hardwood floor. I stared at the wall, trying to process what Morrison had just told me. Tommy was twenty-five years old. He had his whole life ahead of him. We'd been planning to have dinner next week to celebrate his job interview at the auto shop.

I picked up the phone with shaking hands. "Where?"

"County Road 15, about two miles past the old Miller farm. Sarah, there are some things you need to see. Things that make this more than just another overdose."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes."

I hung up and sat on the edge of my bed for a moment, trying to wrap my head around the news. My little brother was dead. The brother I'd practically raised after our parents died in that car accident when he was fifteen and I was twenty-two. The brother who used to sneak into my room during thunderstorms when we were kids. The brother who'd struggled with addiction but had been trying so hard to get clean.

I got dressed quickly, pulling on jeans and a sweater without really thinking about what I was doing. My hands moved on autopilot while my mind refused to accept what Morrison had told me. This had to be some kind of mistake. Maybe it wasn't really Tommy. Maybe it was someone else and they'd made an error with the identification.

The drive to the crime scene passed in a blur. I kept the radio off because I couldn't handle music or talk right now. The silence in my car felt heavy, but it was better than the alternative. When I reached County Road 15, I could see the flashing lights from half a mile away. Police cars, an ambulance, the coroner's van. All the vehicles that showed up when someone's life ended violently.

Morrison met me at the police tape. He was a big man with gray hair and kind eyes, someone who'd been doing this job long enough to know how to deliver bad news. He'd been the one to tell me about my parents too, seven years ago.

"Sarah, I'm sorry. I know how much Tommy meant to you."

I nodded because I couldn't trust my voice yet. "Can I see him?"

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"I need to see him, Cap. I need to know it's really him."

Morrison led me over to where the medical examiner was working. Tommy lay on his back near a drainage ditch, his face pale in the harsh glare of the crime scene lights. Someone had closed his eyes, which I was grateful for. I'd seen plenty of dead bodies in my five years as a detective, but this was different. This was Tommy.

"What killed him?" I asked.

"Two gunshots to the chest. Close range, probably a .45. But Sarah, that's not the strangest part."

The medical examiner looked up from his work. "Detective Walsh, I'm sorry for your loss. Your brother didn't die from an overdose like we initially thought when the call came in. This was definitely a homicide."

I stared down at Tommy's body, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. He was wearing the same clothes he'd had on when I saw him three days ago. His brown hair was messed up, probably from falling when he was shot. There was dried blood on his shirt, dark stains that looked black under the artificial lighting.

"Who found him?" I asked.

"Jogger came by around two-thirty this morning," Morrison replied. "She called 911 from her cell phone. Responding officers found this next to the body."

He handed me an evidence bag containing a leather vest. I recognized it immediately. It was a Steel Vultures MC vest, the kind worn by members of the notorious motorcycle club that controlled most of the drug trade on the south side of town. The vest had the club's patch on the back, a stylized vulture with its wings spread wide.

"The Steel Vultures," I said. "You think they did this?"

"It's looking that way. We found tire tracks that match motorcycle treads, and there were cigarette butts near the scene with DNA that we're running through the system. But Sarah, you know I can't put you on this case. It's too personal."

I looked at him sharply. "Like hell you can't. Tommy was my brother, Cap. No one's going to work this case harder than me."

"That's exactly why you can't work it. Your judgment will be compromised. You know the rules about family members and active investigations."

"Then who's going to handle it? Rodriguez is on vacation and Jenkins is swamped with that domestic violence case that's going to trial next month."

Morrison sighed. "I'll assign it to Marcus Webb. He's got experience with organized crime, and he knows how to handle the motorcycle clubs."

Marcus Webb was a good detective, someone I'd worked with before on joint cases. He was older than me, probably in his mid-forties, with graying hair and a steady demeanor that made suspects want to confess to him. If anyone could get justice for Tommy, it would be Marcus.

"I want to be kept informed," I said. "Every development, every lead, every piece of evidence. Tommy was all the family I had left."

"I understand, Sarah. But you need to let Marcus do his job without interference from you. Go home, take some time off, let us handle this."

I nodded, but I was already thinking about how I could investigate this on my own time. The Steel Vultures had killed my brother, and I wasn't going to sit around waiting for the bureaucracy of the justice system to maybe give me some answers.

The next few hours passed in a haze of paperwork and phone calls. I had to notify the few relatives we still had contact with, arrange for Tommy's body to be released to a funeral home, and try to figure out how I was going to pay for a burial on a detective's salary. Tommy hadn't had life insurance, and the small amount of money he'd managed to save was barely enough to cover his rent for another month.

By the time I got home, it was nearly noon and I felt like I'd been awake for days. My apartment felt too quiet without the possibility of Tommy calling or stopping by unannounced. He'd had his own place across town, but he came over at least twice a week for dinner or just to hang out and watch movies.

I made myself a sandwich but couldn't eat more than a few bites. Everything tasted like cardboard. I tried watching television but couldn't focus on anything that was happening on the screen. Finally, I decided to drive over to Tommy's apartment. Maybe being in his space would help me feel closer to him, or maybe I'd find some clue about why the Steel Vultures had targeted him.

Tommy lived in a rundown complex on the east side of town, the kind of place where the rent was cheap because the landlord didn't ask too many questions. I'd helped him move in six months ago when he got out of his last rehab program. It wasn't much, but it was his own place and he'd been proud of it.

I used my spare key to let myself in. The apartment was small, just a studio with a kitchenette and a bathroom that barely had room for one person. Tommy had kept it neat, which was something new for him. In the past, his living spaces had always been chaotic, full of dirty clothes and empty food containers. This place was different. He'd been trying to build a better life for himself.

I walked around slowly, looking at his few possessions. He had a small television on a folding table, a mattress on the floor with clean sheets, and a dresser he'd bought at a thrift store. On the dresser was a photo of the two of us from last Christmas, both smiling at the camera outside the diner where we'd had breakfast together.

In the kitchenette, I found a notebook where Tommy had been writing down his thoughts and goals. He'd told me in rehab that his counselor had suggested journaling as a way to process his feelings. I flipped through the pages, seeing his handwriting getting steadier and more confident as the entries progressed. He'd written about wanting to get a steady job, maybe go back to school someday, find a girlfriend who didn't use drugs.

The last entry was from two days ago. He'd written about being excited for his job interview and about how grateful he was to have a sister who never gave up on him. Reading his words made my chest tighten with grief. He'd been getting better. He'd been building something positive for himself, and now he was gone.

I was about to leave when I decided to check his bedroom area one more time. Tommy had never been good at hiding things, but addiction had taught him to be sneaky when he needed to be. I looked under his mattress, in his dresser drawers, behind the few books he owned.

That's when I found it.

Taped to the underside of his dresser drawer was a folded piece of paper. I pulled it free and opened it carefully. The message was written in Tommy's handwriting, but the letters were shaky like he'd been scared or in a hurry when he wrote it.

"Trust no one. They're watching you."

I stared at the note, my heart starting to race. Who was watching him? The Steel Vultures? Someone else? And why had he hidden this message like he wanted someone to find it after something happened to him?

I folded the note and put it in my pocket, then looked around the apartment again with new eyes. What had Tommy gotten himself into? Who had he been afraid of? And most importantly, who had killed my brother and why?

Standing in that tiny apartment, holding that cryptic warning, I made a decision that would change everything. The official investigation would take months, maybe years. The Steel Vultures would have time to cover their tracks, intimidate witnesses, maybe kill other people who knew too much. But if I could get inside their organization somehow, if I could find out what really happened to Tommy, then I could get justice for him myself.

The note in my pocket felt like a message from beyond the grave. Tommy was warning me about something, and I was going to find out what it was. Even if it meant going after the most dangerous motorcycle club in the state. Even if it meant putting my own life at risk.

My little brother deserved justice, and I was going to make sure he got it.