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Luke had been home.
    Bryan felt a twinge of fear. He couldn’t make out Chris’s features in the darkness, but the voice was not familiar. Yet this man somehow knew that Luke was Bryan’s brother.
    “Any minute,” Bryan said, annoyed with himself for using Luke for protection in that way. At that moment, with his anger at Luke so intense, he did not want to have to depend on him for anything.
    “Really,” Chris said. It was not a question, but rather a statement that revealed, with some amusement, his certainty that Bryan was lying.
    “Do I know you?” Bryan asked.
    “You’re about to,” Chris said, and in one incredibly quick and silent movement glided forward and rammed an elbow into the side of Bryan’s head.
    Bryan slumped to the ground, or would have had Chris not been there to catch him. He lifted Bryan as if he were a toy, put him over his shoulder, and carried him to his car. He looked around to see if he had been seen, though it wouldn’t have mattered much either way.
    Chris drove away, with Bryan unconscious in the backseat. He took no particular satisfaction in what he had done. He and Luke were not yet even, not even close.
    But they would be.

 
    The phone woke me at five o’clock in the morning.
    Cops are not like normal people when it comes to middle of the night phone calls. Most people experience a moment of panic, fearful that the hour of the call means that something bad has happened to someone they care about. And very often their fears are justified.
    We cops are different in that we’re positive that something bad has happened; nobody calls a cop when they have good news. For example, I’ve never gotten a radio transmission or call urging me to head to a place where someone has reported reading a good book, or listening to pleasing music.
    The other difference is that we don’t worry so much about the call when it comes, because it’s almost never about someone we care about, or even know. There’s no personal attachment to it; we care, and we’re sworn to protect, but it’s a job.
    But caller ID this time told me that this was something different, and I instantly became just like every other person in this situation. It was my brother calling from home, so something had to be wrong with either him or Julie.
    “Bryan?” I said when I picked up the phone.
    “It’s not Bryan,” Julie said.
    Even in just those three words I could hear the anxiety in her voice.
    “Julie, what’s wrong?”
    “Bryan’s gone, Luke. He left last night, and he hasn’t come back.”
    “Where did he go?”
    “I don’t know. We talked about our marriage. I said things I’ve needed to say … I’ve wanted to say … for a long time. I told him I needed time to think about our marriage.”
    “Think about your marriage?” I asked. “What does that mean?”
    “Thinking about whether I wanted to stay in it,” she said. “God, Lucas … what the hell is the matter with me?”
    “Take it easy, Julie.” What she had said opened up all kinds of questions, none of which I was willing to ask. Instead I focused on Bryan. “So he just stormed off?” I asked. “Did you try and call him?”
    “He slammed the door so hard it broke the handle. He left his cell phone here, so I have no way to reach him. He didn’t go to your house?”
    “No, I haven’t heard from him. He’s probably at a hotel, maybe in the city.” In a way I was actually a little relieved. The worry of the late night phone call was at least removed; wherever Bryan was, he and Julie were physically fine.
    “Luke, I also told him some things I didn’t mean to say.” She paused while I cringed. “Things I shouldn’t have said.”
    “Oh, shit. Julie.…” Alarm bells were going off in my head.
    “I’m sorry, Luke. I know I promised.”
    Julie and I had a brief affair, if you could call it that. I prefer to think of it as a moment of sexual weakness, even though that isn’t technically an accurate description, either. It