Page 128 of Sterling Stone

“I arrested Sebastian.”

The instant I confess my greatest regret, Taxi tenses beneath my arm. Her back straightens, her hand stills on my chest. I swear she even inches a little away from my side, and I immediately realize that telling her this story might be disastrous.

Given her history with law enforcement, she isn’t going to like my tale.

She presses up, balancing on her outstretched arm. Her body distinctly no longer touching mine. She pulls the sheet with her, covering herself breasts, holding her hand against her chest.

“As in, your brother?” She blinks several times, her voice incredulous.

“My brother.” I reach for her lower back, my arm having fallen off her when she shifted upright. When my fingers tickle the base of her spine, she flinches, and I drop my touch. Instead, I fist the sheet behind her and stare up at the ceiling.

“Why?” The question cracks in her throat, disbelief still ringing high.

“When I was still young and only a deputy, there was a small-time drug circuit happening in the woods behind the original Wallace Farmhouse.”

Taxi continues to stare at me, but I don’t look at her. Her distance, while only inches, suddenly feels like a great divide.

“Where Sebastian lives now?”

“Same place.” The ransacked farmhouse outside of town was purchased a few years back and renovated into a gorgeous modern home.

“He’d been dealing drugs, getting deeper involved in the use of them, and I’d turned a blind eye.” My throat is thick again, shame and regret clogging it.

The signs I’d seen but ignored. The disbelief. He was too young, right? He couldn’t really be involved in drugs. Where was he getting them? What was he doing with them? All things I should have asked.

But I was going to be up for sheriff soon. Beau Wilson was backing my election.

“We’d needed the money,” I confess again, shamefully. I hadn’t known for certain that Sebastian’s money came from drugs. I only had an inkling. Still, I dismissed the niggling in my gut that said my brother was in trouble.

When he paid for Vale’s dance lessons.

When he bought Ford new sports equipment.

When he gave me an expensive pair of Aviator glasses when I graduated from training.

“So you’ll look like a bad ass sheriff.”

The glasses cost more money than he could possibly have made as a young kid working at the Seed & Soil, getting paid on the family discount of pennies. The gift was my first hint he was doing something he shouldn’t be doing, but I didn’t question him.

“When he beat a man to death, I had to arrest him.”

Taxi gasps, her hand moving to cover her mouth.

I’m tainting her image of my brother. The now local business owner, devoted husband, loving father of two. But I’ve already started this story.

I’ll never forget the call, arriving on the scene. The man was black and blue, and red from Sebastian’s blood. The victim looked like he’d been strung out. There was no saving him.

The last thing I wanted to believe was my youngest brother could kill a man. Then again, our father displayed the ultimate crimes against his children, and that bitterness, that hatred, could have built up in Sebastian, waiting for a moment to strike.

I just didn’t know.

“He was charged with manslaughter and sentenced to seven years.” The sentence was relatively light, and a relief considering the circumstances. He needed help. Help I hadn’t given him.

Guilt sucker punches me in the gut again.

“I thought going to jail might have been the best thing for him.”

“Don’t say that,” Taxi whispers.