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mug, tapping the saying on the front and taking a sip. With a groan of appreciation, he wrapped his hands around it, soaking up the warmth. “Good stuff. Funny how everything tastes better when you’re sober.”
    The other two glanced at him in surprise and he gave them a half smile. Best to keep things out in the open and dialogue flowing rather than treat the issue like the elephant in the room. He wanted the guys to talk to him, not around him.
    “I’ll bet it does. Which reminds me,” Six-Pack said, giving Sean a meaningful look. “A bunch of us are heading over to the Waterin’ Hole tomorrow night. You want to come?”
    “Eve mentioned it.” He took another sip. “And yeah, that sounds like fun.”
    “Can you handle the booze being everywhere?” Leave it to his best friend to cut through the bull. But that was one of the guy’s finest qualities, among many.
    “I don’t have a choice. It’s coffee, tea, and soda for me now, just like you.” Like Sean, Howard didn’t drink. Except the lieutenant’s choice was due to a horrible childhood at the hands of the drunken, violent stepfather who’d raised him. “Won’t be a picnic, but it’ll help some that I won’t be the only one not drinking.”
    “I’ve got your back.”
    “Me, too,” Clay piped up.
    “Thanks, guys. I’m looking forward to going out again, with my head screwed on straight. Anyway, guess I’d better get on that report from the boating accident, huh?” He made a face. “That bitch is going to take all evening.”
    “Want some help?” Six-Pack asked.
    “Naw, you’ve got dinner. I’ll handle it.”
    He left them in the kitchen, talking in low tones, and wondered uncomfortably if he was the topic of conversation, as he’d no doubt been many times. For sure, he’d be under a microscope for a while, especially off duty, but he had no one to blame but himself. Briefly, he worried what they’d think when he showed up with Eve, then decided he didn’t care. She was his friend, just like one of them.
    But he’d never had the burning desire to kiss any of the others senseless.
    Right. The paperwork. He forced his mind to the task, one of the drawbacks to being captain. Six-Pack had his share as well, but a lot of it fell to himself. Not that he had a right to complain these days—he was simply grateful to have a job.
    Once in a while, he glanced up from the computer to his cell phone resting innocently on his desk. The disturbing call from earlier hadn’t been far from his mind all day. That muffled voice, the malicious intent behind his words.
    Because no matter the meaning of his statement, the intent was to upset Sean.
    If it wasn’t a prank call. Or a wrong number.
    He didn’t believe either of those was the case . . . but he could be wrong. He’d been wrong before, at some extremely crucial points in his life.
    And each of those times, he’d lost everything he loved.
    Cats might have nine lives, but not Sean Tanner.
    You fuck up this time around? Everything is gone. Your career, your life.
    Everything.

3
    1984

    “Why don’t you believe in God, Jess?”
    His friend considered this for a long time. “I believe in things that I can touch, smell, and taste. I believe that men create their own destinies. There is no before or after. What’s here and now is real, and nothing else.”
    “That’s pretty grim.”
    “Life is grim.”
    “And when you find out God is real? What then?”
    “I’d ask him why he let my father beat my big brother to death, why he didn’t let him grow big enough to put a bullet in the fucker’s brain. That’s what.” With that, Jesse rolled over in his bunk and went to sleep.
    Sean never broached the subject again.

    Jesse Rose slid out of the Land Rover and stretched his muscles, popped the kinks out of his neck. Tucking his gun into the waistband of his jeans, he surveyed the old farm that would serve as their base until their mission was complete.
    The money skimmed and funneled to