CHAPTER 9Joe was tired.
It wasn’t just physical exhaustion. He could deal with that. They’d become best buddies somewhere in the middle of the Pacific, when he wasn’t sure how he was going to put one more foot in front of the other, when he couldn’t even be certain that he wanted to.
It was the sheer weariness from knowing there was nothing more he could do, that the last step he’d taken had been predictable and dull, that the next one would be as pointless. He couldn’t even lay the blame at Copper’s feet, even though he might be the source of their current predicament.
No, this had been a decade in the making, created from constantly turning his back on anything that might remotely give him pleasure.
He wanted it over. He’d hoped to find Copper and put this matter to rest, so he could
