Cast the First Stone (The True Lies of Rembrandt Stone 1)

“A couple fisherman found a body of a kid in a lake near Waconia yesterday.”

Silence, then, “And Booker thinks it’s your brother?”

I nod.

He looks away, and releases a curse under his breath. Really, it’s how I should be feeling, but like I said, the old wound has scabbed over. I’ve done my grieving, although I suppose when it comes to grief, it just keeps circling back around because a heaviness builds in my throat.

“Sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“And there was that kid today, at the scene.”

David Jorgenson, which, for some reason, feels like a fresher wound, and the heaviness descends to my chest.

“Do your parents know?”

“I’m waiting for the DNA to come back before I talk to them, just, you know, to be sure.”

“I suppose, having some closure will help,” he says.

It will, and it does, but I just nod.

We pull up across the street from 5th Street Java and I stare at the stand-alone brick building. It has a green awning, the windows dark, the chalked specials on the window shrouded. Across the street, a twenty-four hour laundromat beams lights onto the pavement.

I roll down the window and turn off the car, trying to get a feel for the place.

“What are we doing, man?”

I sigh. And really, what does it matter? It’s just a dream. It’s not like Burke is going to wake up tomorrow and suddenly think, hey, remember when you went off your rocker twenty-four years ago, and claimed that you were in a dream and predicted a bombing?

So I turn to him. He’s hidden in the darkness, just his eyes, white and confused on me as I shrug.

“I’m having a dream. A very vivid one where I’m reliving my—our—first cold case. It’s three bombings. One today, one tomorrow and one the next day. And I’m trying to stop them.”

He is silent, just blinking at me. Then, “What?”

“I know, but—listen, it’s not the first time I’ve had this dream, although usually it stops right around the time of the first bombing, when Melinda Jorgenson goes into the coffee shop. I don’t know why I’m not waking up but, as long as I’m here, I have to try and stop—”

“Are you high?”

His question knocks me back. “What? No, of course not—”

“Then, what are you talking about? This is not a dream, man. This is real.” Burke’s voice get intense. “Get out. I’m driving.” The door opens and the dome light flickers on. I can see his face now, and he’s serious, his eyes wide, shaking his head.

“Burke—”

“Shut up.” He gets out and I’m not sure what to do because, well, although I expected disbelief, the anger in his voice has rocked me.

He opens my driver’s door and as I turn, he hauls me bodily out of the car.

I go without resisting because I don’t want to make a scene, but I give him a hard shove as soon as I hit my feet. “Step back.”

Burke puts his hands up, a decoy a split second before he slams me into the car. His face is in mine and he’s eying me as if he doesn’t know me.

And now I’m mad, too. “I’m telling the truth. This is twenty-four years ago for me. The bomber goes uncaught, and we spend the next two decades looking at twenty faces who beg us for justice. And it’s eating me alive, Burke.”

I walk away from the car, then round on him. “I wake up in the middle of the night, sweating, and Eve—she tries, I know—to tell me to let it go, but I can’t, right? And I know I’ve got everything going right for me—Ashley, and Eve and—geez, we’re still friends, sort of, but—it’s still there, you know? The regret. The fact that I failed so many people. And now, suddenly I’m here, dreaming, and it’s not like the other times and I think, maybe I can fix it this time. And yeah, when I wake up it’ll still be messed up, but at least—at least I’ll know I tried. And maybe I won’t see Melinda Jorgensen’s face haunting me, carrying little David into the coffee shop.”