Elizabeth stared at the front door of the house she’d been ashamed of for so long. The walkway was clean of snow, the porch light was on, and the front door was painted a fresh, cheerful shade of red to appeal to a new family who wouldn’t have the same baggage as hers. Out with the old, she thought. And out with the lies, too.

As she unlocked the door and turned the knob, the laughter she heard from inside felt like a punch in the gut. How dare Bruce befriend their family after what he’d done?

Maybe he hadn’t done anything. Maybe this was all a form of perverted wishful thinking on her part. She’d never doubted Nate’s guilt before, and just because some well-meaning writer came up with a plot that would fit nicely in one of his mystery novels, that didn’t mean it was true. Now that she was out of range of Clyde’s relentless theorizing, she began to wonder if she was just vulnerable to the idea of her father’s innocence.

Either way, she was going to find out.

She stepped inside and saw Bruce, Nate, and Emmett sitting in the living room, each working through a bottle of Heineken, and there were three empties on the coffee table. As always, her heart squeezed a little to see Bruce, with his resemblance to Jack and the apparent kindness in his eyes. How could he have done it? Nothing fit—the logic of the theory versus the deep instinct that Bruce was a good man, just like Jack. For a moment she stood there, unsure of what to do or say.

“Elizabeth!” Nate called boisterously, and the other two raised their bottles and called a greeting as well.

At first, she was dismayed that the men had been drinking, but then she thought twice. If Bruce was a little tipsy, he might be less guarded. More vulnerable to admitting the truth.

“Hey, guys,” she said, injecting her best happy-bartender tone into her voice. “How did the work go on the house today?”

“It went great.” Nate proudly swept his arm across the breadth of the room. “This place is looking really good. I talked to the realtor, and she thinks it’ll sell a lot faster now that all this work’s been done. She’s coming by later to show us some comps and suggest a good listing price.”

“Yeah, Dad and I were just talking to Bruce about the guy he knows in Anchorage and some of the opportunities there,” Emmett said.

“Huh!” Elizabeth glanced from Bruce to her father. Clearly, Bruce had been working on Nate, encouraging him to move out of town. A fresh start. Now it felt like further evidence of Bruce’s guilt. “Well, I think that calls for another round of drinks to celebrate. I might even be able to rustle up some tequila.”

“Not for me, thank you,” Bruce said. “I’ve still got to drive back home.”

“Aw, now, come on,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll drive you home if need be.”

Without waiting for an answer, she went into the kitchen—noticing the updated cabinets and fixtures, the new recessed ceiling lights, and the overall fresh, bright feeling of it—and gathered a mixture of random souvenir shot glasses, as well as a decent bottle of unopened tequila from the brewery’s employee Christmas party two years previous. She’d managed to keep it hidden from Emmett by sticking it in a dark corner of the pantry behind the cereal containers.

Back in the living room, Elizabeth settled onto the unoccupied armchair and poured the tequila. She raised her glass first. She almost said, To new beginnings, but decided against it. She wanted the conversation to turn to the past, not the future.

“To old friends,” she said instead.

The men raised their glasses, and everyone drank. Elizabeth felt the acrid warmth of the alcohol spread throughout her body.

Nate smiled. “The taste of tequila reminds me. Do you remember that time … it was after what-was-his-name’s retirement party, at that dive bar …”

He and Bruce launched into reminiscing about shared memories from their police department days. As the easygoing conversation continued, Emmett and Elizabeth exchanged a glance. Since his release, they’d yet to hear Nate mention his days on the force. They’d assumed it was a taboo topic, but the alcohol must have loosened Nate’s tongue because he began talking about some of the craziest arrests they’d made when both he and Bruce were young patrol officers.

“So you guys have been friends for a long time, huh?” Elizabeth said.

“Actually,” Nate said, “We weren’t the best of friends. But this guy’s the only one who stuck with me through everything that happened. He’s the only one who believed in me.”

“Why weren’t you friends at the time?” Elizabeth asked.

Bruce shrugged. “Competitiveness, probably.”

“You thought I was a jerk,” Nate said. “And I thought you were a goody-two-shoes.”

Bruce laughed. “Not a jerk. Just a loose cannon.”

“And I was, in the end,” Nate acknowledged.

Heart pounding, Elizabeth asked the burning question. “So Bruce … why didn’t you believe my dad took the money that went missing?”

She couldn’t bring herself to look at her father when she said it. All she could do was watch Bruce as he sat back in his chair and gave what seemed to be genuine consideration to the question.

“I remember when that drug smuggler was arrested. He was part of a multi-state distribution operation, cocaine, and getting him off the streets was Nate’s biggest priority. The DEA was involved, and the state police, but Nate was the one who made the arrest, and it was a big win for us. For the community. The money that went missing—it fell under civil asset forfeiture, so it didn’t really belong to anybody, but I just didn’t think that Nate would mess up his career-making case in that way. I also didn’t think he was a dirty cop, not in that way. I had an issue with the way he pushed the limits of the law sometimes—but I knew him well, and I’d never seen him compromised or heard rumors of that kind. So—that’s it. I knew the case meant too much to him.”

“Well, you weren’t around when it happened,” Nate said. There was a hint of emotion in his voice, perhaps something like gratitude. “You weren’t influenced by being in the heat of everything, looking for the easiest person to accuse.”  

“True,” Bruce said.

“Where were you again?” Elizabeth asked, as if she didn’t know.

“Houston,” Bruce said. “Cancer treatment for my wife.”

She might have imagined it, but Elizabeth sensed a new edge to his voice. A let’s-not-go-there edge. Sorry, Bruce, she thought. We’re going there.

“So you exhausted all your options and needed to go to Houston because your wife could get experimental treatment there?”

“That’s right.” He drank from his bottle of beer. “It didn’t work in the end, unfortunately.”

“Must have been expensive.” She gave him a forthright, challenging look, meant to make him uncomfortable.

He shifted in his chair. “It put a dent in my savings, that’s for sure.”

She turned to Nate. “So, Dad, what’s the timeline between when you made the arrest and when the money was discovered missing?”

“Lizzie, what’s gotten into you?” Nate asked. “What are you getting at?”

Elizabeth glanced at Bruce. He looked like he wanted to bolt. Emmett sat forward on the couch, listening intently. His presence spurred her on. He’d sacrificed so much for her; he was owed the truth.

“I’m just curious,” she said. “I was too young to really remember, you know.”

“Well, let’s see. The arrest was in late June. I remember because there were a bunch of illegal fireworks found in the drug house, and I felt really good on Independence Day that the bastard wasn’t going to get a chance to fire them off. And then Bruce took his leave … when was that, Bruce? I don’t recall. You were gone for a while, though.”

“We went to Houston just before Labor Day.” He shook his head. “I remember because Helena was sorry to miss the kids’ first day back to school. We had a tradition. Big pancake breakfast. Lined them all up by order of age on the front steps for a photo.”

“How old were your kids at the time?” Elizabeth asked, wanting to know about Jack.

“My oldest was nineteen, and my youngest was thirteen. Jack and Josh, oldest and youngest.”

“And Jack was on the police force by then?” she asked.

“In his rookie year,” Bruce said. “He’d just finished at the academy.” He glanced at his watch. “You know, I’d better get going.”

“So you were actually there, though, for two months while the money was there, too,” Elizabeth pressed on. Nate quirked his head as she spoke, finally picking up on the intent behind her questions. “And you had a key to the evidence room.”

Bruce gave her a long look. “I don’t think I like what you’re suggesting.”

“I don’t either.” Nate’s voice was sharp, raised. “This guy was—”

“Dad, stop,” she said, deciding to go for broke. “I know Bruce took the money.”

Bruce immediately reddened. It could have been fury at the accusation or shame at the truth of it.

“Elizabeth!” Nate interjected, slamming his beer on the coffee table a little too hard. “That’s crazy. What are you even talking about?”

“He needed money for his wife’s treatment, and his insurance didn’t cover it,” she said. “Bruce, there’s no way you had the savings for it. Clyde Harrison—the journalist—has been researching the case and he looked it up. The cost was several hundred thousand dollars. There’s no way you had that kind of savings, what with you being a cop and your wife off work because of the cancer, and you raising five kids. No way you had that kind of money.”

“We took out a second mortgage.” His voice was tight. “And my financial affairs are none of your business.”

She smarted a little at that comment because it was true under any other circumstance, but when she looked at the bewildered, suspicious expressions on Nate’s and Emmett’s faces, she gained the courage to continue.

“Clyde looked up the assessor’s records, and your property came in at seventy-five thousand back then. Even if you didn’t already have a mortgage, which is doubtful, the absolute most you could have taken against the house would have been about sixty. I guess that’s something that could be verified with a credit report. How much was that second mortgage for?”

“It—we had other family help us—Helena’s parents—” But Bruce’s lie became obvious at that point.

Elizabeth watched as Nate’s expression turned to one of a cop’s suspicion.

“Don’t tell me,” he said. “Do not tell me …”

“Bruce took the money,” Elizabeth said simply. “Didn’t you, Bruce?”

Bruce sputtered for a moment, but then he clamped his mouth shut. Set his jaw. Looked down at the floor. His face was drawn in lines of pain.

“I don’t think you meant for my dad to take the fall for it,” she said. “Maybe you even intended to pay it back before anyone noticed it was gone, but that’s not how things played out.”

“You bastard.” Nate was up, off the sofa, roaring forward. He grabbed Bruce by the collar and yanked him out of the armchair. “You set me up!”

After a decade-plus in prison, and as a former cop incarcerated with criminals, Nate had been in his fair share of physical fights. And he was strong, damn strong, from lifting weights in the prison gym every day. Elizabeth watched in stunned horror as he threw Bruce across the room.

Bruce crashed onto the small dining room table and slid over it, toppled a chair on his way down, and landed hard on his left shoulder. He cried out in pain.

“Dad, don’t!” Elizabeth cried.

She was aghast, then, of what she’d wrought by her questioning. She could only watch as Nate broke every condition of his parole, the potential ruination cascading through her mind: assault, battery, retired police chief … deadly weapon? She glanced in terror at the beer bottles on the coffee table.

Emmett, too, was on his feet and tried to restrain Nate. But Nate wasn’t done. He shrugged Emmett off and crossed the room. He hauled Bruce back up and threw him again, this time into the heavy buffet, sending the two lamps on it toppling over.

“Seventeen years I rotted in prison!” he yelled. “Seventeen years you stole from me!”

“Listen to me! Just listen!” Bruce gasped.

“Admit it You stole the money!”

Bruce cowered as Nate readied to land a punch on him. “I—she was dying, man! She was dying!” His voice cracked. “I couldn’t let her die, Nate. You understand. I know you do. You remember how we were. She was everything to me. Everything.”

Standing by the couch, Emmett grabbed Elizabeth’s wrist and squeezed. Bruce had admitted it. The bastard just admitted it.  

Nate’s face was black with rage. “Yeah? Well, my kids were everything to me! I rotted in prison while you became police chief. People think you’re honest? Upstanding? You’re nothing more than a fraud and a thief!”

The punch Nate landed on Bruce’s face sent him sprawling across the floor, choking and gasping. Blood sprayed everywhere.

“Dad!” Emmett lunged forward, this time near-tackling their father, dragging him away from Bruce.

Elizabeth stayed where she was, frozen with shock. A part of her felt that Nate was in the right to respond however he wanted.

Bruce lay on the ground, bleeding profusely from the nose and mouth. He pressed his hand against his jaw, and Elizabeth saw he could be badly injured. He could have lost a few teeth or broken his jaw or his nose—or maybe even all three.

Emmett pulled his dad away and kept him at bay while Bruce moaned and bled on their brand new floor. “He needs an ambulance,” Emmett said.

“No,” she said. “I’ll drive him to the hospital. If the cops get involved …”

“I want the cops involved!” Nate pushed past his son and yanked Bruce up from the ground. “You’re going to rot, just like I rotted. You know what they do to cops in prison? I’ll tell you what they do! Hell, I’ll show you!”

Nate hauled Bruce over to the front door and threw it open, intending to toss him outside, but he stopped short at the shocked, terrified face belonging to Misty Rhodes, the realtor, who held a file folder in one hand and her cell phone in the other. Her eyes widened at the sight of Bruce’s injuries, and she locked eyes with Nate.

“What the hell, Nate?” Misty said. “What’s going on here?”

“He stole the money. Bruce stole the money!”

“What are you talking about?”

“He stole it,” Nate said quietly, sounding near tears. “He acted like a friend all this time, but he’s the reason I got sent away.”

Bruce made a noise. It sounded like a muffled apology, but it was impossible to tell.

“I’m calling the cops,” Misty said, shaking her head, not as ruffled as Elizabeth might have expected. Misty turned from the door and a few seconds later could be heard speaking on her phone.

Bruce, meanwhile, slumped back into the armchair.

Elizabeth bent down next to him. His eyes were full of tears, whether from the pain or the guilt or both, she couldn’t tell.

But she had to know.

“Did Jack help you take the money?”

Bruce shook his head, or tried to. His voice was more of a wet wheeze. “Knew … nothing.”

“Jack didn’t know?” Elizabeth asked again, with more urgency.

Bruce shook his head again.

“Elizabeth, if Dad’s here when the cops show up, I don’t know what’s gonna happen to him,” Emmett said.

“Right. Yeah.” She turned to her dad. “Listen, Dad, just get out of here for now. We’ll take care of this.”

“Hell no, they need to know the truth!”

“They will. But for now, please. Just take a walk somewhere, okay?”

Nate lifted his head at the sound of sirens, and that seemed to bring him back to the realization of what had just happened, of the assault he’d just committed while on parole. “Okay. Yeah.” He pointed at Bruce. “But you and me? This isn’t done.”

After her father left out the back door, wearing the new parka she’d bought him, Elizabeth stood in her living room, shaking as she waited for the law to come down on her yet again. She turned to Emmett. “Emmett, you need to leave, too.”

“Not a chance. You’re not doing this alone.”

“You’re drunk. The cops will think you did this.”

Bruce made another noise, but Elizabeth ignored him.

“Lizzie Bean, I’m not letting you—”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I know better than to say anything. If I’m arrested, I’ll call Theresa. Just follow Dad and make sure he doesn’t do anything else stupid, okay?”

Emmett appeared to think about it, then he nodded and followed Nate out the back door.

Elizabeth went to the window and looked out into the dark night, her heart in her throat as the first blue-and-red flashes of police lights flickered off the snow.