We fall silent, watching Wilson bring his rope bone back to me so I can throw it for him to chase again. Neither of us has brought up last year, how I upended Ethan’s life and how he saved me from jumping off a bridge, then later from being killed by our parents’ murderer. We don’t tend to talk about that kind of stuff. We lived through a dark, dark time, and we survived. That should be good enough. Still, there’s always an underlying tension between us, a dark thread that ties us together. It’s more than sibling rivalry. If I had a gun to my head, I’d say it’s because of how we reacted so differently to being orphaned. Ethan became a teacher, like our mother, and I became a hunter seeking vengeance. And we resent each other—Ethan for having to look out for me because that’s the last thing our father told him to do before he died, and me for feeling guilty about that.

And if our parents hadn’t died? Would I resent my brother? Would I have gone to college and then chosen a career, gotten married, raised children of my own? Would I not be the person I am now, prowling through the dark underside of the world, trying to do something good?

I think about all this in the time it takes me to retrieve Wilson’s rope bone and toss it and watch the dog scramble to retrieve it. I think about all this pretty often, actually.

I glance at Ethan and see that he looks exhausted, dark circles like soot smudged beneath his eyes. He stares at the television screen, which is blank and dark, as if he is watching a show only he can see. Wilson trots back with his rope bone in his mouth, then drops to the floor and starts to gnaw on it.

“I still can’t believe Alex Trebek died,” Ethan says, still staring at the television screen. “I turned on the television the other day and saw an ad for Jeopardy! and I thought, how will Suzie and I play Jeopardy! again?”

“Ethan,” I say.

“I heard they were thinking about LeVar Burton to host, and I knew you’d love that, being a Star Trek geek, but—”

“Ethan, why did Caesar fly halfway across the country to find me and bring me home?”

Ethan only grunts and continues staring at the television.

I forge ahead. “Caesar said it has something to do with Dad.”

At this Ethan shoots me a look that is so bleak and despairing something inside of me cries out even as it shrivels like an orchid in blazing sunlight. Then he raises a hand and rubs his eyes. “This guy came to the house last week,” he says. “Tall, crew-cut, looked like he stepped out of Soldier of Fortune. Says his name’s Finn.”

“Finn? That his first name or his last?”