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died.

 
    They were easily the most devastating words Bryan Somers had ever heard.
    Not even the sentences informing him of the deaths of his parents had that kind of impact. They had each been ill, and he had time to prepare for what had become the inevitable.
    This came out of left field, and left him reeling.
    And left him looking for his brother.
    He didn’t call Luke, and it was not because he had forgotten his cell phone at home when he left … almost staggered, out of the house. On a gut level he knew that he had to speak to his brother in person, to see his face when they spoke, even though he had no real idea what he would say.
    It was a twenty-five-minute drive from his house in Englewood Cliffs to Luke’s house in Paterson. He didn’t even notice the time as he drove, but it wasn’t because he was lost in thought. He had lost the ability to think clearly in those moments, probably the first time that had ever happened to him.
    He arrived at Luke’s house on East Thirty-Ninth Street and parked in front. It was a well-kept residential neighborhood, but economic light-years apart from Bryan’s own home. The houses were on small plots of land, with less than twenty feet separating them on each side. Bryan’s pool probably could fit on Luke’s property, but only if the house were removed first.
    There was a car parked in front of Luke’s darkened house, unusual in that there was an ordinance prohibiting parking on the street at night. Bryan might have wondered why it was parked in that particular spot, since the street was otherwise empty and Luke did not appear to be home. Bryan might have noticed this, if he was in a mental state to notice anything.
    Even though it seemed as if no one was home, Bryan got out and went to the front door anyway. He did so basically because he had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. And no matter what happened, he was going to talk to Luke that night.
    The doorbell went unanswered, so without a cell phone to call Luke and ask him to come home, Bryan stayed on the porch, sitting on the steps and occasionally getting up to pace. After a half hour, he wondered whether Luke might already know that he was there and, more important, why. Perhaps Julie had called him. Either way, there was nothing to do but wait, and he would wait as long as it took.
    Bryan didn’t notice Chris Gallagher sitting in the driver’s seat of the car parked out front. There were no street lamps nearby, and the interior of the car was too dark to make anything out. But Chris had not taken his eyes off Bryan since his arrival.
    Chris had spent that time formulating a plan. He knew from his online research that the man on the porch was Luke’s brother, Bryan. He seemed agitated, but that was not Chris’s concern, since it was highly unlikely that his distress had anything to do with Chris’s situation, or Steven’s death.
    As he was trained to do, he weighed the merits of the plan in his mind, careful to keep it untainted by emotion. It seemed to Chris to be more than workable; it could provide cold justice to the cop who had killed Steven while, more important, giving Steven a posthumous exoneration.
    He made one phone call, keeping the phone turned in such a way that Bryan could not see the light. The call was to a marine buddy, to ask for the favor that could make the plan workable.
    It was a large favor, but it was granted, no questions asked, as Chris knew it would be.
    Chris got out of his car, closing the door softly behind him, so that it was still ajar, but the light would not stay on. He approached the porch, and did it all so quietly that Bryan did not even realize he was there until he heard his voice.
    “What time do you expect your brother?” Chris asked, though he knew that it was a question for which Bryan did not have an answer. Bryan would not have arrived when he did if he knew when Luke would get there. And he certainly would not have rung the doorbell, checking to see if