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  Daly pursed her lips. “That reminds me, Nick. I’ve been meaning to ask you something about your brother. Sam’s behind that biotech start-up, isn’t he? Matrix Zarcon, right? He and that fellow from Harvard—Blake Werner—started the company a couple of years ago.”

  “That’s right.”

  “There’s a rumor going around town the company’s knee-deep in Hamlin’s money—about to go public. You might want to ask your brother for details. With all the stem cell research floating around, there’s bound to be a controversy there. I bet it’s something we’re going to want to cover.” Daly smiled. “You might even ask Sara about it tonight. Maybe she’s heard something we can use.”

  “No problem, Laura,” Nick said sarcastically. “I’ll work it into the conversation in between where were you born and what’s your favorite color.”

  Laura Daly rapped her knuckles lightly on Nick’s desk before moving on. “Atta boy, Nick,” she said. “It gets into your bones, the newspaper, doesn’t it?” She was two or three steps beyond Nick’s desk when she turned back around. “Just don’t forget the spill on Elliott Bay,” she said, referring to the assignment she had given Nick earlier. “The EPA’s saying over fifty thousand gallons of toxic sludge spilled into the bay before Hanzin Shipping caught the leak. I want to see photographs on my desk—front-page stuff for Sunday—within the week.”

  Nick waited until Daly had taken another few steps, then turned his attention back to the screen in front of him.

  chapter 5

  At four o’clock, sitting in his apartment on the edge of a threadbare sofa he had bought as a student, his cell phone in his hands, Nick was lost in a daydream. He lived north of the University of Washington, in the same cheap studio he rented during his last year in graduate school. The apartment was shabby and small, but it was all he could afford. Unaware of his surroundings, he let his eyes wander out the window, down to the parking lot three stories below. He couldn’t stop thinking about Sara. Not since he had first seen her that morning. About her eyes and the ivory color of her skin and how long and delicate her fingers were. About the way her hips had swayed as she crossed the café.

  Rousing himself, he glanced at the clock next to his bed, then brought up the number Sara had keyed into the phone’s memory. It took a few seconds to find the courage to press the call button. Waiting through three long rings before she picked up, he almost lost his nerve. He hadn’t been sleeping well for the past week, and it had been an early morning. He felt dizzy, fatigued almost. He couldn’t find his voice when she answered.

  “Hello?” Sara said a second time.

  “Sara? It’s me, Nick.” He steadied himself. He didn’t want to blow his chance. “From the coffee shop. From the table in front of the fireplace.”

  “I remember you, Nick. Even without the fireplace.”

  Relieved to find her receptive, Nick felt himself relax. He had been picking absently at the leather bracelet on his right wrist, and he let it go and straightened up. “I was just wondering whether you still thought dinner would be a good idea.”

  “I’m glad you called,” Sara said. “I was hoping you would. I’ve been thinking about you today, too.”

  A wave of adrenaline passed through him without warning, upsetting his balance. He attributed it to his nerves. It took a couple beats to regain his composure.

  “That’s a yes, Nick,” Sara said into the silence.

  “I kind of figured that.”

  There was a beep on the line, and Nick took the phone from his ear to look at its LCD display. Sam was trying to call through. Nick brought the phone back to his ear, ignoring the interruption. He would call him back.

  “So what are you thinking for dinner? ” Sara was asking him.

  “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I can afford the dinner you expect.”

  “What makes you think I expect something specific?” she asked, teasing.

  “I don’t know.” Nick didn’t want to admit that he had spent the afternoon at the paper researching Sara and her family.

  “Maybe I just want to spend a little time with you, Nick—wherever we end up. And maybe I’m thinking about more than just the dinner anyway.”

  “You give her an inch and she takes a yard,” Nick said in response to the innuendo.

  Sara laughed. “Touché.”

  “I have something unusual in mind.”

  “Sounds interesting.”

  “I wouldn’t get your hopes up.” Nick laughed, realizing that his attack of nerves had passed. “I’ve got this assignment.”

  “From the paper?”

  “What would you say about a trip on the ferry over to Bainbridge Island? I’m supposed to take photographs to complement this story the Telegraph is doing. If we go quickly enough, we could catch the five-thirty ferry, and maybe we’ll get lucky and I can get a dramatic shot or two of the crossing at sunset.”

  “Will you pick me up?” Sara asked.

  “Just tell me where you are, and I’ll be there.”

  Nick forgot that Sam had tried to call him, and he was on his way down the concrete staircase to the parking lot when the phone rang again. “Hey, Sam,” he said, raising the cell phone to his ear without slowing his step. “What’s up?” His voice echoed hollowly in the stairwell.

  “Nothing much,” Sam said. “You sound happy.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yeah. It sounds like you’re running. Where are you?”

  “I’m at home. On my way out.”

  “I thought maybe we could get together.”

  “I can’t right now. Maybe tomorrow?”

  “Just for a minute,” Sam insisted.

  Nick had reached the ground floor, and he pushed the door open and stepped outside onto the small gravel lot where his old, rusty Corolla was parked. Huge cumulus clouds had gathered in the sky, hovering just beyond the Olympic Mountains. The afternoon was fading, and the clouds were darkening at their base, like cotton balls dipped in black ink. “I really can’t right now,” he said. “Sorry. I’m getting into my car. I’ve got to go.”

  “I’m just around the corner,” Sam said. “Wait for me. There’s something I want to show you.” He hung up the phone before Nick could object.

  Nick was standing, restive, at the side of his old Toyota when Sam pulled into the lot in a car Nick didn’t recognize. The tinted, smoky driver’s-side window slid down.

  “So what do you think, bro’?”

  Nick wasn’t sure what his brother was referring to.

  “About the car,” Sam explained, smiling and lifting his Ray-Bans. “Didn’t you even notice?”

  Nick took a step backward to take in the Arctic silver BMW. He could smell the scent of its rich new leather through the open window. He knew that Sam was doing well at Matrix Zarcon. He had started the company two years ago with an old friend of his, Blake Werner, and Nick knew that Sam was integral to the development of a new drug to treat schizophrenia. Sam was even talking of taking the company public if the drug was approved for testing by the FDA. If the company was being funded by someone like Jason Hamlin, as Daly had told him, Sam stood to make serious money. Still, Nick hadn’t appreciated that his brother had cash to spend on such an expensive car.

  “Would you ever have imagined me in a ride like this back in Madison?” Sam asked, content with his brother’s reaction.

  Nick shook his head. “It’s a beautiful car, Sam. Things must be going pretty well for you and Werner.”

  A shadow briefly darkened his brother’s face. “Didn’t I tell you, bro’? Blake and I parted ways months ago.”

  “What?” The news surprised Nick. Blake Werner and Sam had been friends for years, and as far as he knew, the company belonged just as much to Werner as Sam. “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened.” Sam glossed over his unease with a smile and a shrug. “Blake didn’t have faith. He wanted to move on. Anyway, it’s his loss. Things keep getting better and better. With any luck, I’ll be parking t
his in front of my own house in another few months.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Why don’t you hop on in?” Sam suggested. “I’ll let you drive if you want. There’s actually a house for sale just north of here I’d like you to see.”

  Nick smiled. “Tomorrow, okay? I’ve got to run.”

  “Not even ten minutes? You should feel the way this thing handles. And I’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nick said. “I’m busy now.”

  Sam looked at his brother carefully for the first time since pulling into the lot. “What’s up?” he asked. “You look like shit.”

  “Do I?”

  “You’ve got black circles around your eyes.”

  “I haven’t been sleeping well,” Nick admitted.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. It’s been a long day.”

  Sam turned the key in the ignition, smothering the purr of the BMW’s powerful engine. “It’s not money you’re worrying about, is it?”

  “No.” Nick was impatient. “It’s nothing. Really. And I do have to go, Sam.”

  Ignoring Nick’s anxiety, Sam stood up out of his new car. He gave his brother a quick hug, then leaned back on the hood. He glanced down at his watch—the same stainless-steel Citizen quartz that his parents had bought him as a high school graduation gift. “Take a minute, Nick. Tell me what’s going on. If you need a loan, just tell me. I’m doing okay now, and you know I’d do anything for you.”

  Nick was overcome with a welter of emotions. Stress from being kept against his will, when Sara was waiting for him. Gratitude at Sam’s generosity. And then a sudden resentment he didn’t understand. “It’s always money with you,” he muttered. “That’s your answer for everything. So long as you’ve got it, you’re good. Without it, your life’s a mess.”

  “What the hell would you say something like that for?”

  It took Nick a few seconds to realize that Sam was simply looking at him. He had to battle the sense that his brother was in his face, grabbing him by the wrists, pinning him backward against something hard and sharp. The sensation seemed to fly away from him with the same frustrating elusiveness that a dream will escape upon waking.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, trying to calm himself. The words tripped off his tongue. “I didn’t mean that. I know how generous you are.”

  Nick did know precisely how generous Sam was. He knew that he was forever in his older brother’s debt. After their parents died—in a car accident, when Nick was seventeen years old—the two brothers had sold the house in Wisconsin and liquidated most of the family’s assets. The entire fortune hadn’t amounted to much—less than $55,000 each. Sam had saved his half of the inheritance. He had consulted a financial advisor, but opted just to bank it conservatively into a savings account bearing a few percent interest. After finishing his last year of high school with barely a C average, Nick, on the other hand, had blazed through his share.

  Looking back, Nick wasn’t sure where the money had gone. He had disappeared for nearly eighteen months. Most of that time, Nick spent backpacking in Asia and then South America. Finally, he ended up on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica, shacked up with a Dutch girl, surfing, smoking pot, sleeping until noon—paying for both their expenses when he could barely afford his own.

  Nick woke up one day by himself, flat broke, not a thing to his name except his digital camera and a silver chain he had worn as a talisman since he was a kid. He didn’t have two dimes to scratch together. He knew, though, that his brother had decided to attend the University of Washington a couple of years before, and, hitchhiking and working where he could for his meals, he began heading north to Seattle to find him.

  One of things Nick had learned was how to get around without money. The roadways were buzzing with people in motion. He hitched rides in the back of trucks, often with migrant workers heading north looking for work. On one long stretch of highway, he even tied himself to the undercarriage of a big rig. He walked when there was no other alternative. Once back across the border in the United States, he jumped trains like the original hobos.

  Nick traversed Central America on the Pan-American Highway, all the way from Nicaragua through Mexico, without incident. Then, walking down a side street in downtown El Paso, Texas, after midnight, looking for a hostel, he was jumped by two men. Nick knew that he was being followed. The streets were so empty, however, that he had nowhere to run. He ignored the first man when he called out after him. The second man, though, caught up to him before Nick understood the danger.

  Nick didn’t have much the two men could steal, only a couple of dollars in his pocket. The two men took what they could. They tore the chain from his neck and pried the camera from his fingers. Then—though there was nothing to be gained by it—they beat him up pretty badly. Nick spent the next few nights on the street, forced for the first time in his life to beg. By the time he found himself on Sam’s doorstep, his hair was so long that Sam barely recognized him, and his lips were so cracked he couldn’t speak.

  In the year and a half that he had been gone, Nick hadn’t contacted Sam once. Not knowing whether his brother was dead or alive, Sam had grieved for a time, then made his peace. Nevertheless, without once asking his brother what had happened to him or to his share of their parents’ small bequest, Sam had spent what remained of his savings to put Nick through college.

  “I know you’re only thinking about me,” Nick said. He felt Sam’s eyes on his face, examining him. His hands felt cold. He opened and closed his fists, trying to feel his fingertips.

  Sam’s face resolved itself into a grudging smile. “Don’t worry about it, bro’.”

  “I’m just tired,” Nick apologized. “I keep waking up at the same time every night. I keep having this dream—the same dream every night.”

  “What is it? What’s going on?”

  Nick shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “What’s the dream about?”

  “It’s about you, Sam.”

  An odd look passed across his brother’s face. A look of recognition, Nick thought later, not of surprise. As though his brother had caught glimpse of a ghost, but one that he was expecting to see.

  “It’s about the lake,” Sam said. “Isn’t it? You’re dreaming about the day we went skating on the lake.”

  “Tell me what happened that day.”

  Sam’s lips pressed together.

  “I remember being on the ice with you,” Nick said. “And I remember the ice breaking. You went into the water. You disappeared for thirty seconds, maybe more. I was scared to death. I skated to the edge of the hole, where the ice was broken. I remember lying down on the ice—the ice bending underneath me. The water was so cold, I didn’t think you were going to make it.” Nick was trying to hang on to the memory. “The thing is, I don’t remember anything after that.”

  “Stop it,” Sam said.

  “It’s just like that in my dream. I’m reaching into the water, looking for you. It’s so cold my hands are freezing, turning blue. But in my dream, there’s blood. The water turns red.”

  “I’m telling you, stop it,” Sam said sharply.

  “You climbed out of the water. That’s what you told me. I lay down and put my hands in the water and found you, and you pulled yourself up. That’s what happened, right, Sam?”

  Sam placed a stiff hand on Nick’s shoulder. He made an effort to modulate his voice. “Just stop talking about it, okay? It’s a bad dream you’re having. That’s all.”

  Nick turned, freeing himself from Sam’s grip. “I’ve been feeling so dizzy recently,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going on. It’s been like this for a week now, every night. Ever since we had dinner last Friday.”

  “Maybe it’s a touch of the flu,” Sam said. “The weather turned last week. It’s been pretty cold.”

  Nick smiled wanly, recovering himself. “I’m sure you’re right. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  Sa
m gave his brother a gentle tap on the arm. “So where are you off to?” he said, brightening. “Why are you in such a hurry? It must be something important.”

  Nick’s eyes brightened as well. “I met this girl,” he said. “I was going to tell you.”

  “You like her, huh? She must be pretty special.”

  Nick opened his mouth to tell Sam about Sara. Sam’s wolfish expression, though, silenced him.

  “Are you okay, bro’?”

  Nick remembered that Sara was waiting for him. “I’m fine,” he resolved. “Really. But I have to go.”

  “You sure?”

  Nick pulled away from Sam, twisting to slide through the open door into the Toyota.

  “Do you want me to drive you?”

  Nick inserted the key into the ignition. The engine turned over a few times, then ground to a halt. He tried a second time. Again, the cylinders sparked, then died. The battery sounded weak.

  “Let me drive you,” Sam said again.

  Nick felt a burst of adrenaline surge through his veins. With more time, he would have taken a taxi. He couldn’t have defined the feeling, but the last thing he wanted was to get into his brother’s new car.

  “It’ll be better to show up in a car like mine anyway,” Sam said. “And like this, I’ll get a chance to see this girl of yours myself.”

  chapter 6

  Impossibly, Sara was even more beautiful than Nick remembered her.

  He spotted her from the passenger seat as Sam navigated his new BMW through traffic. She stood out from the crowd at the bus stop downtown where he had arranged to pick her up, tall and slender, dressed in jeans and a short, shiny leather jacket. Her long blond hair was tangled slightly in a scarf laced with a metallic wool weave. Nick was aware of the look on his brother’s face when he pointed her out to him. Sam didn’t say a word, but simply stared at her.

  Nick pulled the latch and jumped from the car, stepping up onto the red-painted curb to greet her. When their eyes met, he could barely contain his excitement.