Elizabeth was already feeling stretched thin by the time she started her shift at the Sled Dog late Tuesday afternoon. She’d spent three hours with Charlene that morning, then had her very first pre-nursing class—human anatomy—at eleven. She’d been so nervous that Charlene had made her drink two cups of “Relax” tea beforehand, but her prior reading of the course textbook had paid off, and by the end of the hour, Elizabeth could tell she was going to enjoy the class after all.

Then it was back to Charlene’s to make her lunch and set up an afternoon romantic comedy movie, and then the brewery.

At least it’s quiet, she thought, even though it meant fewer tips.

Her first customer came in the form of Clyde Harrison, who waved at her from the doorway and made a beeline for the bar, shedding his substantial-sized red parka and plaid wool newsboy cap in the process. As he settled into his usual spot, he fished in the pocket of his parka for the smoking pipe he never lit and inserted it in his mouth. Elizabeth sometimes teased that it was his pacifier.

“Clyde! You look excited about something.”

She drew him his draft beer.

“Hey, do you think your dad would be willing to talk with me?” Clyde asked. “I’d like to interview him about his experience.”

“Maybe,” Elizabeth said. “But I don’t want him to get set off about anything, you know? I’m hoping he’ll move to Anchorage for a fresh start, but right now he’s talking about staying here and trying to clear his name. I wouldn’t want you to get him worked up about anything that might change his mind about leaving.”

“I can’t promise that,” Clyde said. “I read through his whole case file this week. It took me two days over at the county courthouse, but I got a great story idea out of it. Definitely my next mystery novel. Plus!” He leaned forward on the counter, locking his eyes on hers. “I think your dad might honestly be innocent of stealing the half a million from the evidence room. If it’s true, why should he have to leave his hometown?”

“Oh, please, let’s not go there,” she said. Sometimes Clyde got a little too caught up in the idea of a good story. But in real life, Elizabeth knew that people were almost always as bad as they seemed.

“No, but you see, I’ve looked at all the information, thought about it as a bigger picture, and I found a new suspect I can’t talk myself out of. It’s too perfect—it has to be him.”

Elizabeth sighed and wiped down the countertop.

“Honestly, Clyde, whatever. Obviously, you can do what you want with your fictional story, but my life—and my dad’s case—involves real people, and I just want to move past it. The court found him guilty. He served his time. It’s over.”

“But he insists he’s innocent.”

“Lots of criminals insist they’re innocent.”

“Yet what if he really is?” Clyde’s voice rose. “You want to condemn your father to go through life bearing the shadow of an accusation he doesn’t deserve? I think you need to at least hear my theory, and then see how you feel.”

“Fine,” she said, mostly because she knew he wouldn’t quit. “And then when I shoot it down, I hope you’re willing to move on.”

“You’re not going to shoot it down because it’s right.” Beaming, Clyde reached for his messenger bag. “I’m going to lay out for you exactly how I came to my conclusion. From a writer’s point of view. And you’re going to see it makes perfect sense.”

Elizabeth looked around to make sure Mark, her hard-nosed boss, wasn’t around, then she poured a shot of tequila for herself and braced for Clyde’s pitch. Ordinarily, she loved talking with him about his writing or his gossip column, but that day it was a conversation she wished she could avoid.

“Okay, what are the three things we look for when trying to solve a crime?” Clyde asked.

“Means, motive, and opportunity.”

He nodded with pride. “Right. And let’s start with means. But first, let’s make sure we’re not making the same mistake everyone else around town seems to be making where this case is concerned. Your dad wasn’t convicted of stealing any money. He wasn’t even charged with stealing the money. You know why? Because there was no evidence against him. He was charged with obstructing an investigation, but the crime I’m investigating is the theft of half a million dollars—the crime which, although your dad was neither charged nor convicted, everyone in this damn town thinks he’s guilty of.”

“True. Yes.” Elizabeth’s stomach roiled. Many tears had been shed as a child because of the cruel taunting she’d endured, being called the daughter of a thief. She hadn’t allowed herself ever to defend her father before, but Clyde’s self-righteousness gave her that permission. “What we know for sure is that he bent the rules in an attempt to get an asshole drug distributor off the streets.”

“Right, and what he did was still a crime, but plenty of folks in town wouldn’t have had much of a problem with that. The intimidation of officers, obstruction of justice in a federal case, that’s all internal technicality stuff that wouldn’t have even been brought up if the money hadn’t gone missing in the first place and cast the whole thing as corruption. Right?”

“Right.”

Her voice shook a little, and Clyde gave her a look of sympathy.

“So the obstruction and intimidation happened because the theft occurred, and your dad didn’t want the kingpin back out on the street. If the money hadn’t gone missing, the officer under Nate wouldn’t have felt the need to protect his own ass, and probably would never have said anything about the fact that they busted into the guy’s house without a warrant. Still not cool, what they did, but the fact remains that you, and your dad, and your whole family got screwed because somebody took that money. Your dad lost his job, his pension, his marriage, his freedom—years of his life!—as well as his good standing in the community. And it wasn’t him. He didn’t take it.”

“Says you,” Elizabeth said.

“Says common sense,” Clyde said. “Nate had no motive. He was the arresting officer on the case, which had yet to go to trial. He had to have known the money would be missed eventually and that he’d be the prime suspect. There’s no way around it. That much money doesn’t just up and walk away, and he oversaw the evidence room. It’d be different if someone skimmed the money. If five or ten thousand went missing, and maybe no one would have been the wiser. But half a million dollars? Who’d be so stupid? Or so greedy? Or so desperate?”

Elizabeth had never known her dad to be stupid, or particularly greedy, and they’d been living a solid middle-class life when he’d been arrested. He’d made a decent salary, and her mom did, too, in her administrative job at the university. Both parents had job security. They owned a house, had generous Christmases, and of all the things their parents fought about, money wasn’t one of them.

“Not your dad, right?” Clyde watched her process his argument as he finished off his beer and nodded for another.

“Not my dad,” she acknowledged and got him another beer. “My dad had a pickup truck he loved and enough money for us to play hockey and enough for beer on Friday nights. He had the things that were really important to him.”

“Do you think he had a secret desire to take the money and run? Find a lover down in Mexico and drink margaritas on the beach for the rest of his life?”

She laughed. “No way. His parents were here. We were here. His job was here—he loved his job, loved being a cop. His marriage to my mom might not have lasted, but he wouldn’t have left. He was born here. He’d like to die here.”

Her voice choked on that last part because here she was encouraging him to leave the only place he’d ever called home. If Clyde was right, then she was wrong to try and make him move away, to sell the house out from under him.

“Okay, so we agree he had no motive?” Clyde said.

“I agree with that.”

“So.” Clyde leaned back and laced his fingers together. “Who else had a motive?”

Elizabeth scanned her brain, came up empty, and shrugged. “I was eight years old at the time. All that stuff was beyond me.”

Clyde smiled. “You do know someone who had a motive, and he also had the means and the opportunity. He was in here just the other day when it came on the news about your dad being released. Remember?”

“Bruce Barnes?” Her heart pounded. “He didn’t have a motive.”

“Didn’t he?”

“No, he didn’t. In fact, he’s the one person who’s been decent to my dad all these years.”

“Maybe because of his guilty conscience.”

She shook her head, pressed her lips together. Her head was buzzing. She felt affronted by Clyde’s theory. Not Bruce—not Jack’s dad. He would never. He’s been nothing but kind. It felt almost as if Clyde was accusing Jack, too, by association.

“That’s reaching,” she said to Clyde. “He wouldn’t do that.”

“His beloved wife of twenty-five years and the mother of his five children was dying of cancer. Conventional treatment had failed, and their insurance didn’t cover anything experimental. That must have made him feel pretty helpless. Pretty desperate.”

“Stop.” Why was her heart pounding so hard? “He wasn’t even in town when it happened.”

“He wasn’t in town when it was discovered,” Clyde corrected her. “But the fact is, no one knows exactly when that money was taken. You know where he was when the theft was discovered? On leave, down in Texas, getting his wife that experimental treatment his insurance wouldn’t pay for.”

She looked away from him. A table of college students had sat down, and the waitress hadn’t yet taken their order. “I’m going to go see if they need anything.”

“Stay here and listen to me,” Clyde said. “How do you think he paid for that experimental treatment, Elizabeth?”

“How do you know that’s what it was?”

“I checked the website and followed up with a phone call. That hospital in Houston was the only one in the country offering that particular gene therapy. They didn’t give patient records, of course, but they confirmed the cost might have been well into the multi-six-figure range, depending on the length of treatment.”

“Bruce Barnes didn’t take the money.”

“How’d he pay for the treatment, then?”

“Who knows? Maybe they had investments or sold some property or mortgaged their house. Maybe they have a rich uncle.”

He looked at her curiously. “Why are you resisting what I say about Bruce Barnes?”

“Because I know Bruce, and I know he wouldn’t steal, and he wouldn’t let my dad rot in prison for fifteen years for something he didn’t do.”

“Your dad didn’t rot in prison for fifteen years for something he didn’t do!” Clyde’s frustration came through. “He rotted in prison for something he did do, which was obstruction of justice. He did the crime, did his time. But the actual person who stole the money got away with it, and I’m saying it was Bruce Barnes. Remember how belligerent he got the other day when I said I was going to investigate? That was out of character.”

“He didn’t want you to cause my family any grief.”

“And didn’t you say he was over at your house helping Nate and Emmett make all those repairs so you can sell the house and your dad can move out of town?”

“He’s being a friend.”

“Because the alternative is Nate sticks around and starts looking into what happened, and he’s got a real incentive to keep looking until he finds the truth. Bruce and your dad were the only two captains on the police force at the time. Both of them had a key to the evidence room, as did the chief of police, as did the officer in charge of evidence. So they both had the means and the opportunity, but Bruce had the biggest motive of all. The love of his life was going to die in his arms unless he found the money to pay for her experimental treatment. Now, in the end, it didn’t save her, but not for lack of effort. That was the last hope they had.”

This is all so awful, Elizabeth thought. And it can’t possibly be true.

Except it felt true.

It felt true to the core.

“Thanks for the analysis.” She smiled weakly at Clyde, who was so enthused about his theory and had absolutely no idea how it would ruin her life if true. Which it is, the little voice inside her whispered. You know it is. It explains so much.

An even worse possibility occurred to her. Jack had been a police officer, too, at the time. What if he was an accomplice to the theft?

But he’d just made love to her! What kind of man would do that? A flush of memory overcame her. How whole she’d felt with him, how complete, for the first time in her life. She shuddered, remembering. Was she never to feel that completeness again? Was Jack, the good and decent man she thought she loved, just a figment of her misplaced hope and desire?

Less than a week ago, Jack’s arms had held her as if he’d never let her go. Now, she felt dreadfully alone. Like she was standing on a stage naked with a spotlight on her and people laughing. And here we have the most pathetic human being on earth—a woman who will never find love.  

“Elizabeth?” Clyde studied her closely. “You see it, don’t you? How it has to be true?”

Clyde felt so far away, even though he was just across the bar. He was too far away to prop her up if her knees gave out, which they very well might.

“I’ll have to give it some thought,” she said and tossed the bar rag on the counter. “Excuse me. I need to get some lemons from the walk-in.”

She almost ran to the cooler and let the big door close behind her. Only then did she double over, clutching her stomach, crying out in an agony that was not only emotional but physical, too. She felt like she’d been punched in the gut. Or knifed, or shot. Mortally wounded, in some way, shape, or form.

Jack was her destiny; she’d not wavered from that belief since the first moment she realized it. But how could her destiny have done this to her?

She told herself to hold it together. She couldn’t fall apart right now; she was at work and had to go back out and serve drinks and take orders and—

Screw that, she thought. You need to find out if it’s true.

Doing anything else was a waste of time. She wouldn’t be able to focus. Wouldn’t be able to think. Or smile. Or talk. Or breathe. All the pleasant thoughts she’d had of Bruce all these years—had he been playing her for a fool all this time? Playing her father for a fool?

Anger for her father finally boiled up, anger on his behalf. She was glad for it because she’d felt disloyal for so long, refusing to feel sympathy for Nate. It felt good to experience anger for him rather than at him for a change. How awful for him to know she’d doubted him all these years and believed him to be a thief.

Bruce Barnes was the thief, and something had to be done about it. He couldn’t get away with it for a minute longer.

Then she remembered that at that very moment, Bruce was at her house with Emmett and her dad, helping replace the bathroom faucets. A fresh wave of fury came over her.

She straightened up, took a few deep breaths to center herself, and went to Mark’s tiny office. He looked up at her entrance and gave her what was supposed to be a smile, but still seemed grouchy. “What’s wrong?”

“I need to leave,” she said. “Personal stuff. Do you think you’d be able to cover for me?”

He grunted his disapproval, but she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

“Mark, I’ve never left my shift before. Not in all the years I’ve been working here. You know I wouldn’t ask unless it was an emergency and—”

“Okay, okay. Go ahead. I’ll be out in a minute.”

She went to get her purse and coat from behind the bar.

Clyde watched her. “No lemons?” he asked.

“What?” She’d forgotten all about her excuse ducking away. “Oh, no. I’m actually heading home.”

“Let me guess. You’re on the scent of my very correct theory, and you’re off to find out if it’s true.”

She nodded, knowing it was pointless to keep it from Clyde, who was a bloodhound for information and would undoubtedly find out on his own anyway.

“Good luck,” Clyde said. “And do keep me informed of what happens!”

“I will,” she said, and left before she could talk herself out of it, and because she couldn’t bear to hear any more of Clyde’s theory about what had happened—lest it include Jack.