"Mr. Littrell, are you sure you are up to this? It can wait awhile longer, if need be."

The detective's voice carried a trace of concern that Brian noticed. He lifted his head to return the man's gaze.

"I'm never going to be up for this. It's never going to be better. My best friend is dead." He wiped his red rimmed eyes with a damp handkerchief. "Let's do it now, please."

"Okay." The detective opened his notepad and poised his pencil over the pages. "Why did you go see Mr. Carter tonight?"

"It was just a thing we did. We'd grown apart a little bit since I got married and we were trying to get the closeness that we had when we were younger back. I just stopped in to say hi and ask how his day was."

"Didn't you spend the whole day with him?"

"Well, yes, but it's hard to talk to each other and share anything. There's reporters, photographers, fans...we spend the day together, but we don't, if you know what I mean."

The detective nodded and jotted on the paper.

"Did Nick have any enemies? Anyone he would have bothered enough to want to kill him?"

Brian grinned slightly. "We all hated him at times. He could be a real pain, but then he would do something so incredibly nice for you that you couldn't hate him. It was hard to stay mad at him."

The detective nodded.

"You still think one of us did it?"

"Yes sir, we do. The only other suspect is the bodyguard and, honestly, he couldn't have had time to clean himself up and return to his post. And unless he is protecting someone, it was one of you four. You were the only people in the room."

"But none of us would kill Nick! We all loved him like a brother!" Brian protested. "And aside from that, why would any of us want to kill him? He was part of our career. Part of the group we make a living from!" Brian wiped his tears roughly away. "He was our brother! I refuse to believe it was one of us!"

The officers in the room looked sadly at Brian as he hunched over the table, quietly sobbing Nick's name over and over.

"Mr. Littrell, perhaps we should finish this another time?"

"No! I want to get it over with!"

"You know that we are searching for clues to the killer's identity as we speak, if he was careless about cleaning up after himself or touching anything on the body..." Brian winced as the image of Nick stabbed through with his prized Japanese knives leaped into his head. "...we will find him."

Brian sat quietly for a moment. "Are you accusing me of killing Nick?" he asked softly.

"No." the detective assured him. "Just letting you know that if you are protecting someone, hiding their identity, it won't matter. We will find out who killed Nick Carter tonight."

"I don't know who did it." Brian whispered. "But I wish to hell he was here right now so that I could do to him what he did to Nick." He clenched his fist and banged it on the table.

"Even if it was one of your friends?" The detective stared at Brian with a raised eyebrow.

"It wasn't." Brian declared. "It couldn't have been. Please God, it couldn't have been one of us."