Free The Best American Mystery Stories 2015 by James Patterson, Otto Penzler Page B

say what he was about to, had been mulling it over all evening, waiting for the right moment.
    “That lawman ain’t gonna do a goddamn thing,” he said.
    “Nope.” Jack put another log on the fire without looking at David. The wood caught immediately, and the flames rose. The night was chilly—it was summer, but they were in the mountains—and Jack’s back was cold while his knees, close to the fire, were hot.
    “He might as well have said, ‘He’s just some drug dealer; it ain’t like he was somebody who mattered.’” David spat onto the log. The tobacco juice sizzled like hot grease. “Like they got better things to do. This is Carson City. How many murders they got here?”
    “I don’t know,” Jack said, taking his hat off, setting it on a log.
    He put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, running his fingers back and forth through his hair. He closed his eyes but could still see flashes of orange on the inside of his black lids. The fire was dry against his face and hands. All he could think about was what he should have done differently. He’d seen something was wrong with Jamie when he was home for Christmas, and he suspected it was drugs. But he never guessed how far Jamie must have been involved in that world. He’d wanted to say something, take him aside and give him a good talking-to. Instead, though, when he drove him to the airport, they were silent most of the way, and as he shook his hand and said goodbye, all he’d said was, “If you ever need anything, let me know, okay?” Jamie nodded and that was it. The last time he saw his brother alive.
    “Well, if the law ain’t gonna do nothing,” David said, “I think we should.”
    Jack looked into the fire again and not at David. He’d been thinking the same thing, speculating on how realistic it would be for him to ask around town and track down who Jamie had been hanging around with. Then, if he could figure it out, could he go through with killing those who’d done in his brother? Jack’s four years in the army fell between the two Gulf wars; he’d never been in combat but felt confident he’d be able to handle himself.
    “I say we go home, get some shit—guns—and come back and start asking questions.” David spat. “What do you think?”
    “I been thinking the same thing.” Jack paused for a long time and then, still looking into the fire, said, “Only just me, not you.”
    “He was my brother too,” David said.
    He was right. Even at sixteen, David was old enough to want his brother’s murderers brought to justice.
    “I know,” Jack said. “Still.”
    “I ain’t a kid no more. I can shoot as well as you. I—”
    “Just shut up and let me think,” Jack said.
    Jack thought about going home, telling his ma and pa what happened, and trying to put the whole thing behind him like a bad memory. But he already had memories in his mind that he couldn’t push away, things he wished he’d done to help Jamie before it got this far. He hadn’t said anything when Jamie failed out of the University of Nevada and moved to Carson City with friends. He just figured it was his brother’s life to do what he wanted with. And then at Christmas, with Jamie looking so pale and as thin as a post, Jack hadn’t done anything. Jamie had smiled just like always, like nothing bothered him. His grin had always been infectious, but in December all Jack could think about was how yellow his teeth seemed to look. And yet he still didn’t say anything.
    So, he thought, staring into the fire, you gonna fail your brother again?
    “Okay,” he said. “We’ll come back and ask some questions, see what happens.”
    “And kill them that killed Jamie?”
    He looked up from the flames at David. “If we can.”
    David smiled. His face was stained with shadows cast upward from the fire. His eye sockets were dark holes; his forehead was in darkness. Only his grin was aglow from the orange flames. Jack shuddered, wondering if he’d