In eight years, they hadn’t found new evidence to implicate someone else or tampering with evidence in his brother’s case.
So what the fuck could he do in twenty-eight days?
Alex wanted to go and beg Lockwood to help free his brother, but he knew that the man wouldn’t. No matter what Richard Lockwood had said to his face, he’d had no intention of helping Quinten. His wife had been another matter altogether. Christina Lockwood had lied to him. The only woman he’d ever let close, and she’d taken his heart and crushed it.
He first met her when Richard Lockwood had employed him and Quinten to create one of their masterpiece carvings for the wooden banister in the foyer of their home. At first, Christina flirted with them both when Richard wasn’t around, which they ignored.
A few weeks later, he found her upset when he went looking for a bottle of water. He saw a different side of her then, and over the course of the following weeks things had gotten out of hand, but neither could stay away from the other...and then she crushed him. Just as Saige did to his brother. If Saige hadn’t been her stepdaughter, he’d have said it was a case of like mother, like daughter, because Saige had crushed his brother’s heart.
Alex remembered the first time they met Saige Lockwood. It had been the day before she turned twenty-one. She suddenly appeared on the stairs in front of them on her way down to breakfast. His tongue had gotten stuck to the roof of his mouth, and as she passed them by, he noticed a similar stunned expression on his brother’s face. Quinten had been in a bad marriage back then, but Alex watched as his brother fell for her. He didn’t blame him. Saige was beautiful, and they later discovered that she was just as beautiful on the inside as well.
She had a head full of sun-kissed blonde hair that nearly touched her bottom. Her blue eyes had been like looking into the ocean on a sunny day. He hadn’t been as taken with her as much as Quinten. His obsession had been directed elsewhere, but from that day forward, his brother looked for her every time they were at her house.
Alex shook his head, wanting to forget all about her. She betrayed his brother and him in the end by lying about the man who took her. What he’d never been able to understand was why? Why would she lie and let the real man walk free? For years, he’d wanted answers, and still did.
Saige refused to see him when she’d first been taken to the hospital, before he even knew that his brother had been arrested for her abduction. Then when he discovered the lies she told, he felt nothing but betrayal.
His gut burned. He wanted justice, just like she should.
He wanted his brother to be set free, and allowed to live his life.
It killed him knowing that in twenty-eight days his little brother would no longer be on this earth. He would never see him again. Even though he was behind bars, he at least lived and breathed. But in less than a month, his brother would be put to death for something he didn’t do.
“Fuck,” he roared, and punched the bag blindly. He just missed knocking his lieutenant down.
Alex stood gasping for breath while he tried to hold himself together. He ripped the gloves from his hands and bent at the waist; he gripped his thighs, dropping his head as he fought back tears.
At thirty-seven, he was man enough to apologize to his superior, but he was afraid if he opened his mouth he’d break down and cry like a baby.
His heart was breaking and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Everything was out of his control and he wanted to scream at the whole world.
“Let’s go to my office.”
He nodded.
Straightening, he noticed that two of the guys on his shift stood behind him.
They held his gaze and patted him on the back as he moved past them.
Closing the door behind him, his lieutenant indicated for him to sit in the chair opposite.
He needed to pace, to run even, but instead he dropped his weary ass into the seat offered.
“I’m not going to ask,” his lieutenant wasted no time in starting the conversation. “The reason for that is that I know...Alexander Peterson.”
Alex’s mouth fell open in shock as he stared at his boss.
“There isn’t much I don’t know about everyone under my command.” His lieutenant held up his hand when Alex went to speak. “I’ve known since the minute you stepped foot inside this station. I never judge anyone by his family. Mine weren’t the best. I know from experience and we’ll leave it at that. I should have told you, but I figured if you ever felt the need, then you’d come to me.”
Alex glanced at the door. “Do they know?”
“I take it that you didn’t see the governor’s conference?”