I had two weeks. Two weeks to get the money that would pay for Josh’s lifesaving treatment.

I’d lost enough in my life. I couldn’t lose my son too.

I swallowed hard, dousing emotion with cold, hard practicality. I grasped the sliding door handle and slammed it shut, closing the girls inside. I faced my brother, jaw set.

“The end justifies the means.”

CHAPTER 24

THE ALARM CLOCK BLARED into the dark bedroom, waking Nate abruptly. He rolled over to Emma, who was just stirring.

Nate propped himself on his elbow and brushed a tendril of dark hair from his wife’s forehead. The strands were silk in his hands. He dropped a kiss onto each of her eyelids. Her body was lush and he yearned for her in a way they hadn’t had time for lately.

“Morning, you,” he said, his voice husky.

Emma opened her eyes, blinking sleepily. “Josh didn’t come in last night?”

“Guess not.”

Emma stretched and yawned. “I hope he’s okay. I should check.” She threw the covers back. “Brrr! It’s cold!”

She slid a thick wool cardigan on, her dark hair tumbling over her shoulders, a glossy sheet stark against her pale skin.

Nate tugged her back down, pressed his mouth to hers. “It’s cold. Josh is still asleep. What do you say?”

Emma wiggled away. “Babe, seriously. I need to check on Josh. He’s been so sick… and we both need to get ready for work.”

He watched her walk away, feeling like he was drowning in the ocean expanding between them. Nate wanted to shout at her, Stop shutting me out! But Emma was doing that thing she did, turning inward.

It was normal for couples to grow apart when dealing with a child’s cancer diagnosis. He and Emma were both riddled with anxiety, guilt, and fear over Josh’s illness. But he worried there was something else going on.

Or someone.

“Sure,” he called after her, trying to save a shred of his dignity. “I have that meeting with Chief O’Neill and Mayor Walker this morning anyway.”

He didn’t relish the idea of standing up in front of the chief or the mayor and admitting he didn’t have a solid lead in one of the town’s biggest cases in years, a case that was directly linked to the flow of oxy to his community. He could feel his hopes of a promotion to lieutenant slipping away, and with them any chance of providing for Josh.

Black thoughts whirled through his head like crows: horror stories of medical bills making people go bankrupt; Josh dying because he couldn’t get the right help; Emma leaving him for another man, a better man.

I can handle this, he told himself. That’s what cops do, we fix things. I will fix this.