Page 170 of Brutal

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I can’t. I can’t tell him. Because I don’t have an answer that doesn’t change everything. And I know it.

I’ve always known it.

That’s the problem.

That’s always been the problem.

I look away, above the car, just for a second.

That’s all it takes.

The memory comes back.

The door.

Always the door.

Him standing outside it.

Never stepping in.

My mother’s voice, angry in a way she never was with anyone else.

Don’t come here.

Don’t ask questions.

“You knew him,” Samson says.

I shake my head. “No.”

That part is true.

“I didn’t know him.”

“Then why?—”

“Stop.”

I close my eyes. No. Not now. I can’t slip up now.

Halstead is a name. A case. A man.

Nothing else.

That’s how I made it work.

If I thought about him as anything else, I wouldn’t have been able to do this. Wouldn’t have been able to look at files. At photos. At the way he died. At the way?—

My stomach turns.

I swallow hard.

I open my eyes and look at him.

Really look at him.

The man who stood on that dock.

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