There was a bland comfort to the drive up I-95. Ethan had the highway and the late August day pretty much to himself. He drove with all the windows open because the AC had not worked in years. As the humid air washed over him, he pulled out the central question and let it hang there in the heat.
Ethan’s task was to change the course of time.
He knew at a gut level that simply alerting his brother to a coming threat would not work. Besides, he did not want to warn Adrian. He wanted to rescue him. Keep him alive to enjoy a full life, raise his daughter, become the rising star in the Jacksonville legal world, fulfill the potential Ethan knew his brother possessed.
The question that accompanied him was how.
In his previous existence, Ethan had made this very same drive, only fifteen days from now. That time, he had not quit his job. There was no second-place check to justify such a move. Instead, he worked the final two weeks, received the bonus payment the marina paid every dockhand who stayed through the entire summer, then traveled to Jacksonville to tell Adrian he was quitting school.
Of course, Ethan didn’t put it that way. What he said was he wanted to take a year off, surf some of his dream locations, and come back revived and ready for the real world.
But Adrian, being Adrian, saw straight through to the truth. The reality was, Ethan had no interest in ever returning to his brother’s idea of a life.
Their parents—a community college lecturer and a county librarian—had been far from wealthy. But their pensions and life insurance had been enough to ensure both sons could complete college without debt. What remained of Ethan’s share was in a trust run by his brother. Ethan had made the journey north hoping Adrian would release funds and cover his traveling expenses, at least for a while.
Instead, Adrian blasted him with a barely controlled rage. He accused Ethan of running away.
Ethan was utterly shocked by his brother’s wrath. He had expected to spend hours dickering, laughing, pressing, begging if necessary. Instead, Adrian accused him of being lazy, gutless, and living his life without a shred of direction. And then turned Ethan down flat.
Hurt, still wounded by the contest loss, desperate to escape, Ethan lashed out with a fury of his own, saying that Adrian was blind to everything but his own ambition. That he had no life to speak of. That he had married a woman equally ignorant of life outside their comfort zones.
It was the last time the brothers ever spoke.
Two days later, Adrian was murdered on the courthouse steps.
When a heavy afternoon thunderstorm struck, Ethan took the next exit and stopped for a late lunch. Rain blurred the truck stop’s windows and washed away the outside world. Ethan stared at his reflection in the glass and saw the impossible task ahead of him.
Adrian was a trial attorney. He lived to grapple with facts. He thrived on courtroom combat. He loved nothing more than to hunt below the surface, find the opposition’s hidden weakness, and tear it apart.
Ethan ran through various scenarios of trying to tell his brother what had happened, what would happen, and . . .
His brother would laugh in his face. Accuse him of doing a nosedive into drug culture. And walk away.
Approaching Sonya was a nonstarter. The woman would not give him the time of day.
Which meant . . .
The waitress stopped by his table. “Everything all right, hon?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
She picked up his plate. “You need anything else?”
Ethan started to ask for coffee, his standard reply for years. “Maybe some more water.”
“You got it.”
The longer he sat there, the clearer his only course of action became. The only way for him to save his brother’s life was to do it himself.
Yet this raised any number of dilemmas. Ethan had not been anywhere near Jacksonville when the events happened. He had no idea precisely how they had gone down.
What if the threat was not just an isolated gunman? The authorities had never identified the shooter or given any definite reason for the attack. The police’s public statements alluded to a criminal who was sent to jail and vowed revenge. But why that day? Why in such a public place, in broad daylight?
The questions and doubts hammered at his brain and heart while the storm continued to lash the window. Ethan grew increasingly frightened by everything he did not know.
The waitress returned, set down another glass of water, and laid a copy of Time magazine beside it. “Here you go, hon. A customer just left this. Thought you might like some company.”
“That’s really nice. Thank you.”
The waitress’s scuffed shoes squeaked across the linoleum floor. Ethan picked up the magazine and started leafing through the pages. Anything to escape the thoughts that chased him round and round . . .
Then he realized what he was staring at.
The page coalesced with the same blistering intensity he had known back on the beach.
The waitress passed by his booth and asked, “How about some dessert, hon? We make the best pecan pie in five states.”
“No thank you. Could I have the check? It looks like the weather might be clearing.”
“No problem.”
“Thanks.” Ethan looked back down at the page. Staring up at him were photographs of America’s current tennis greats: Chris Evert Lloyd, Jimmy Connors, and John McEnroe. The article was about the US Open, scheduled to begin the next day.
Ethan rose from his seat, filled with an electric sensation of things coming together. He knew what he was going to do.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Adrian’s firm was located in the Allstate building. The high-rise had been sold after Allstate stopped insuring homes in hurricane-struck Florida. But of course that wouldn’t happen for another twenty years.
Ethan parked in one of the law firm’s guest slots, took the elevator to the fifteenth floor, and exchanged hellos with a receptionist who was clearly disappointed when he did not remember her name. He wore the best clothes he had found in the packing crate he used as a clothes cupboard—unironed chinos, scuffed boat shoes, and an Izod knit shirt so ancient the lizard was frayed around the edges. Ethan ignored the stares shot his way by the Armani brigade clustered to one side. He soon lost himself in the Time magazine article.
His brother stepped into the reception area and announced, “Okay, everybody, can I have your attention? This young stud here is Ethan Barrett, who just won the Florida Pro-Am in killer surf.” Adrian did his version of a television game-show hostess presenting the car of the day. “Beat last year’s runner-up for the world title in the quarters, no less. All hail the conquering hero.”
The shock was worse than he had imagined. There alongside Adrian’s grin was the misery of loss, the pain of seeing his brother’s coffin lowered into the ground.
Ethan barely managed, “I came in second.”
“Don’t pay my modest brother any mind. He was robbed. NBC says so.”
Adrian hauled him back through the arena of researchers and legal aides and secretaries, one arm locked around Ethan’s neck, introducing him to everybody, taking great pleasure in Ethan’s embarrassment. When they arrived in his office, Adrian said, “There’s half a dozen young lovelies out there who’ve semi-volunteered to have your children.”
“Lay off, man.”