“New to Investigations,” Hudson clarified. And it was eleven years. His mom shook her head, disapproving of it all.

“Listen.” Tobias sat in a chair next to him. “I know we’re supposed to be making merry and all, but … I’m sorry about your friend.”

Hudson paused. His fork quivered three inches above his plate. “You can’t be hangin’ around, Tobias. People saw you at the funeral.”

“No one saw me.”

“I saw you.”

“You’re my brother. I wanted you to see me. To know I cared. It ain’t always cops against criminals. Some of us are more alike than we think … or want to believe.”

Hudson didn’t like the way Tobias was looking at him. So sure, like he knew something Hudson didn’t. They might have the same blood, but they were nothing alike. Tobias didn’t have one good-intentioned nerve in his body. And Hudson, well, he had at least one. But there was another core difference between them that Hudson wasn’t proud of: he lied, and Tobias didn’t. It wasn’t out of malevolence on his part, or reverence on Tobias’s; rather, it was a matter of necessity and non-necessity, of having shame and not, of having everything to lose versus nothing.

Hudson had lied on his background check. He’d done everything he could to distance himself from Tobias, from changing his last name to making sure he graduated at the top of his high school class, and later the police academy. He volunteered at the animal rescue once a week, gave a percentage of his salary to support cancer research, and took three names off the Charity Tree for Christmas, buying gifts for anonymous children aged zero to twelve. He gave and he gave and he gave, for everything his brother stole.

Hudson lied because he had to. Tobias, on the other hand, never felt the need. Not even when they were kids and he left Hudson to drown by the pier. Afterward, when a cop brought Hudson home, wet and shivering and wrapped in a blanket, their mother asked Tobias why he’d walked away, to which he’d simply answered, “Because you love him more than me.”

If that had ever been the case—loving Ryan more than Tobias—it ended that day for Phoebe Shannon. She made sure to shower Tobias with love—packing extra snacks in his lunch at school while Hudson got what was left. Stale Pop-Tarts torn in half. Popcorn, chewy from the night before. Once, he sneaked into the cupboard after school and bit into a processed Honey Bun. It was sickly and deliciously sweet, but when his mother found the wrapper in the garbage hours later, she scolded him for eating Tobias’s food and made him fork over fifty cents to replace what he had eaten. “Stealing is a sin, Ryan,” she told him. “You’ll steal your way into Hell, you keep up this behavior.”

Now, Tobias stole TVs, jewelry, and Hudson was pretty sure the Mercedes parked in the driveway was stolen and replated.