No matter what they thought about people who worked with the terra indigene, no police officer saw the Dead Cops Club as a harmless prank. This time, the HFL had crossed too many lines.

Because he was tired, Monty read the note from his mother twice before he understood what she was saying. Because he was tired, his temper, usually so slow to rise, ignited.

Tossing the letter aside, he picked up the phone and called his sister’s apartment.

“Sissy?” Monty said, struggling for control. “It’s CJ. I want to talk to Mama.”

“Mama wrote to you? When she heard about the phone call, she got a mad on and said she would write. It’s just that, Jimmy called to see how we were doing...”

“He called to squeeze some money out of you.” Monty sincerely hoped she hadn’t had a penny left to give.

He’d been twelve when his parents adopted Sierra. The toddler had needed a home; his parents could give her one. For him, there was nothing to discuss.

But for nine-year-old Cyrus James, known in the family as Jimmy, Sierra’s arrival meant a smaller piece of the pie. Money for clothes, for toys, for anything he coveted—and he coveted almost everything—had to be split among three children now instead of two. Jimmy never let Sissy forget that he never had enough because of her. If they each got a cookie, Jimmy ate his and half of hers because, he said, he would have gotten both if she hadn’t been there. Every time she saved up her spending money for something she wanted, he’d find something he wanted that cost more money than he had and she would make up the difference, and have to wait and save some more to buy something for herself.

Monty had stood as a buffer for as long as he’d lived at home—and he’d breathed a sigh of relief when Jimmy left home too, to make his own way.

In many ways, Sierra was a strong young woman, and she was smart. But Jimmy could twist her up so much she never stood a chance when she had to deal with him.

“No, he didn’t,” Sissy began. “Not really. He asked what we were doing, and I said Mama and I and the girls were going to Lakeside to visit with you for a bit. And he said a visit sounded like a fine idea, but if I didn’t have any money, how were we going to get there.”

Monty did not want to hear this. “Let me talk to Mama.”

“And he said how maybe he should come and visit you too, seeing as it’s been a while.”

More than a while. Jimmy liked booze and drugs, and he preferred having money without working for it. Having a cop for a brother didn’t make his friends feel easy.