“Dad.” I burst into his office without knocking and came up short when I realized Detective Connelly was making himself at home in my dad’s visitor chair. It was an hour past the end of my shift. I was supposed to be getting ready for Girls Night Out.

But I had Callie Kendall’s photos.

“Excuse me for interrupting,” I said, trying to decide if the photos burning a hole in that file were worth me demanding they give me some time right now. It didn’t prove anything definitively, but it gave weight to the ignored suicide theory.

“Do you need something, deputy?” Connelly asked coolly.

What the hell. I’d done my investigative duty and turned up something that no one else had in twelve years. “I have some new information on the Kendall case,” I said.

“You?” Connelly asked. “Did your boyfriend confess?”

I wanted to kick his chair out from under him and watch that smug expression fall off his face. “No, sir,” I said crisply. “I spoke to Mrs. Kendall and she provided me with photographic evidence that Callie was harming herself.” To be a bit of an asshole, I handed the folder over to my father instead of Connelly.

My father stared at the photos, his face impassive. But his mustache twitched. He slid the folder across the desk, and Connelly gave it a cursory glance.

“Deputy, why were you talking to the victim’s mother?” Connelly asked. There was an edge in his voice. But I hadn’t done anything wrong. I was an officer of the law involved in an investigation. I’d investigated.

“I saw a vehicle in the driveway when I was doing my patrol and had a couple of questions.”

Connelly closed the folder and set it on the edge of my father’s desk.

“It’s not your job to have questions. Not unless I tell you you’re allowed to have them. Your job is to support me and my investigation.”

“That’s what I was doing, sir.” If my jaw got any tighter I was going to crack a few teeth.

Connelly rose from his chair and gave me that icy stare. “I don’t give a shit how things were done around here before me. What you two need to grasp is there is an ongoing murder investigation that requires a certain level of professionalism.”

“Disappearance, sir.” I probably shouldn’t have corrected him. But he was already in my space talking down to me, so what the hell. Which one of us wasn’t professional now?

“Excuse me?”

“We don’t know for sure that Callie Kendall was murdered and those photographs, if they can be verified, cast more doubt on that theory.”

Connelly clearly didn’t like to be educated. His face turned a mottled red, and a vein throbbed in his neck.

“You know what I think, deputy?”

“No, sir.” But I’m sure your rat face is all excited to tell me.

“I think that you know your boyfriend’s family was involved. I think you know that maybe it wasn’t just the father who had something to do with it. And I think that you’re doing your damnedest to protect them.”

“Are you accusing me of impeding an investigation, sir?” And the Bodines of conspiring to murder a teenage girl? I may be good and pissed at Bowie Bodine but nobody, nobody could call his character into question. The damn fool got in trouble for being too good, too careful.

“I’m accusing you of not having an impartial bone in your body. I can’t trust you. And if I can’t trust you, I don’t want you to be part of this team.”

My nostrils were flaring, and I think I felt a filling give way.

My father cleared his throat. “Detective, I think you need to remember that this is a very small town. My officers know the people we serve. It’s impossible to exist in a vacuum here,” he said. He looked calm. But the way his mustache was twitching to the left meant he had a full head of steam worked up.

“I don’t care if this is Bumfuck, West Virginia, we have a job to do. Find out what happened to Callie Kendall.”

“And that’s exactly what Deputy Tucker was doing,” Dad said, his voice deceptively calm.

“I don’t trust your daughter’s judgment,” Connelly said, glaring at me. “She’s too busy playing house with the son of a suspect. Perhaps even an accomplice.”

“Every one of them Bodine boys was alibied solid.” Technically that was a lie. All of the Bodine boys except Gibson had an alibi. Gibson’s alibi for the night was that he’d had pizza delivered to his apartment around 9 p.m. and his siblings showed up around midnight. I knew the case files inside out.

“Fact is, so was Jonah Bodine,” my dad continued. “You may not like how we do business here in Bootleg. But we know our town, our people.”

Connelly glared back and forth between us. “I don’t want her anywhere near this investigation. Deputy, from now on, your contribution will be to scan files, fax memos, and get me coffee.” He stormed out, pushing his chair out of the way with enough force that it tipped over backward.

I watched him go and squashed the need to flip him the bird.

“You did good, kid,” Dad said gruffly.

“Good? I just got demoted.”

“Those pictures are the biggest find in this case since the sweater. You found them, not Connelly.”

“So he’s throwing a temper tantrum and taking my job away from me? What is his damn problem?” I was getting more and more worked up by the second. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to control myself. There was only so much I could take before I boiled over or imploded like a still.

“Let it sit a spell. Things will calm down,” my father said confidently.

“I’m supposed to play personal assistant? That’s not what I went to school for. That’s not why I’m here. Why don’t I just resign right now?”

Dad sighed. “Cassidy. I need you here. We need you here. Don’t let some outsider with a God complex chase you off.”

I kicked at the overturned chair with the toe of my boot before righting it and pushing it back into place.

My father sat back down behind his desk. “You did the right thing. He’s holdin’ up a mirror right now. Connelly came in here already convinced that Jonah Bodine was guilty. He’s the one who’s having trouble with impartiality. Not you.”

“Yeah, well he’s the one in the position of power and I’m the one at the bottom of the totem pole.”

“Hang in there,” Dad advised. “He’s tryin’ to scare you off. Be professional. Do your duties. It’ll drive him nuts.”

I puffed out a breath and nodded. “Fine.”

“What’s the order of your Top Three right now?” Dad asked.

“Top Three?”

“Which one of us are you most mad at?”

“It’s a three-way tie at this point.”