He was bleary-eyed by the time he arrived at Dax’s brother’s place, which was also in Anchorage about twenty minutes from where Dax had lived when he registered the van. Shoving the transmission into Park, Amarok sat in the cab of his truck in a bit of a stupor, trying to summon the energy to climb out. The nerve-racking race against time combined with the lack of sleep was making him punchy. He couldn’t think straight, would have to sleep more at some point.

But as long as he had the strength to overcome the need, that point wasn’t now.

Pushing through his exhaustion, he ordered Makita to stay in the truck and went to the door. The neighborhood wasn’t a bad one. It was blue collar, but there were no burned-out buildings or drug dealers standing on street corners.

Elroy O’Leary’s house was the worst on the block. The paint was peeling from the trim, a broken chair was overturned on the porch and bristling weeds had swallowed the yard. Amarok couldn’t help noticing every sorry detail. But at least he had the right place. A fairly new carpet-cleaning vehicle sat in the drive, leading Amarok to wonder if the O’Leary brothers were in business together—or if Dax owned that van and lived here, too.

Surely he couldn’t get that lucky, not with the way things had been going so far.

It took real effort to rouse someone, but after he banged on the door several times a small man wearing pajama bottoms and a T-shirt peered out at him while putting on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. “Can I help you?”

Amarok flashed his badge. He was also in uniform, although he didn’t always bother with such formalities in Hilltop. There everyone knew who he was, so it didn’t seem necessary. Out on the road, on a desperate quest for information, he had to look authoritative, do anything and everything he could to save time and get people to talk. “Elroy O’Leary?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry if I woke you.”

“It’s early yet. I was just dozing on the couch while watching TV.”

Amarok could hear a sports announcer in the background. “Watching the game?” He kept his tone casual and friendly.

Visibly relaxing, Elroy opened the door wider. “Yeah. Kinda. When I can keep my eyes open.”

“I know what you mean,” Amarok said with a smile. “Listen, I just want to talk to your brother, Dax. He around?”

Elroy yawned and scratched his stomach. “No.”

“Can you tell me where he lives?”

“Not off the top of my head. But I hope this means you’ve found the van I gave him.”

That answer was unexpected. “You gave him the van?”

“The mileage on it was getting up there, so I was planning to replace it, anyway. And he didn’t have a vehicle.” He rolled his eyes. “You know how that goes.”

Amarok had a brother—an identical twin—but he didn’t know how that went. He’d never had to sacrifice for or help his brother; he hadn’t even known he had one until he received a call from Jason on his eighteenth birthday. He and his brother had been only two when their parents split. When his mother moved to Seattle, she took Jason with her and left him with his father. After that, no one bothered to mention that he had a sibling. He grew up believing he was an only child.