When the police call the slaughter of his mother and brother a home invasion gone bad, Mika doesn't believe it. Because he has no way to prove otherwise, he closes down, refusing to talk about what happened.<br><br>That is until Buck, a bouncer at a local bar Mika visits, convinces Mika to open up to him. When he does, Buck not only learns about the murder, but also that Mika grew up living off the grid until his father died, two years previously, at which point his family moved to the city.<br><br>They begin to bond as they try to figure out the reason behind the murders, which may revolve around the family property in the mountains. All they have to do is prove it, without being killed in the process. Only if they can will they take a chance and move their growing friendship on to something more.

Hunting a Killer

“Remind me I’m not supposed to tell him ‘I told you so’,” Mika said dryly as he and Buck sat on a bench along one wall.


“Yeah, that probably wouldn’t endear you to him,” Buck replied, chuckling.


It took twenty minutes before the detective showed up. As he led them up to the squad room he said to Mika, “I owe you an apology. If I’d listened to you to begin with, things might have turned out differently.”


“Yeah, they might have,” Mika agreed with some asperity. “If you had, you’d found the murderer. He wouldn’t have been able to come after me, I wouldn’t have killed him, and you’d have known long before now that Gordie, umm Gordon Finley hired him, and why.”


“It hasn’t been proven, yet, that Mr. Finley did hire him,” Windom said.


“Come on. He broke into my apartment looking for the locket.”


Chapter 38