I drove us home and was surprised when Bowie followed me into my kitchen. I was fixing to apologize when he sat down at the kitchen table and put his head in his hands. Eddie skittered out of the room like it was on fire, but George wandered his chunky ass over to Bowie and wove his way in and out of his feet.

“Not everyone wants answers, Cass. Do you think I want to know for sure that my father murdered a sweet, beautiful teenage girl? Do you think that will help me sleep at night? To know that I have that in my blood?” He reached down and stroked a hand over the cat.

I pushed the start button on the coffee maker. “This limbo can’t be good for you. Even if it turns out to be true, at least you’ll know.” He really believed there was a possibility that his father did it. I was surprised by that. I didn’t believe it. Hell, I knew every piece of evidence we dug up would lead the blame away from Jonah.

“How would that help?” Bowie asked. “How would that not ruin everything for every single one of us? Do you want to marry the son of a man who committed cold-blooded murder? Are you okay with having your name linked to mine and my father’s for forever? Do you want to have babies with me and then spend the next twenty years watching them to see if they display any homicidal tendencies?”

“Bowie, it doesn’t have to be like that.” I was scrambling for the thread. But it was lost to me. I felt like my father trying to carry on a conversation. Tongue-tied and misspeaking. I’d forgotten that not everyone needed answers like I did. I’d forgotten that for some answers made things much, much worse. “You’re not your father any more than I am mine.”

“What about my mother? My mom.” His voice broke, and I died a little bit on the inside. “You say you think she might have killed herself. You think that answer would bring comfort to me? When I’d spent the last eleven years believing that she finally found her peace. It’s not always about answers, Cass!”

“I’m sorry, Bowie,” I said simply. I was.

“You come from good people. I come from misery, poverty, alcoholism. You don’t like being judged for being your father’s daughter? Imagine what it’s like for me.”

I shook my head. I was worried about living up to my dad. Bowie was worried about living down to his.

“Those answers you’re trying so hard to find?” he said quietly. “They will ruin someone’s life. Maybe my own. But you’ll have what you were looking for then.”

“Bowie, you aren’t asking me to stop investigating a case because it involves your family, are you?” I almost wanted him to say yes. Because if he was making me choose between him and my job then he was the bad guy. Black and white. Uncomplicated.

“Of course I’m not,” he said softly. “But you need to understand what you’ve done. You’ve taken that memory I’ve had of my mom and replaced it with something else. In twenty-four hours, you’ve taken a tragic accident that hurt us all and turned it into something even worse. A suicide? A hit-and-run? A tie to Callie Kendall?”

I felt sick. But stayed silent. Sometimes people needed to get things off their chests without someone else telling them how to feel.

“You’re pushing so hard to find my father guilty and what happens if he is? Do you think I’m going to be happy to have answers? To know that my father was so much worse than I ever knew? To know that I come from that? Both of them are gone, Cassidy. All I’ve got left are my brothers and sister. And what you’re doing is going to hurt them.”

“I don’t know what to do,” I said, rubbing my arms against the cold that was blooming around my heart. Bowie was hurting and very politely lashing out. But not sharing my opinion was part and parcel of being a cop. Besides, what the hell good would my opinion be to him now? What if it was wrong, and I gave him false hope?

“You said your dad had his suspicions about my mother’s accident,” Bowie said suddenly.

“Yeah.”

“But he didn’t come running to us about it.”

“He didn’t have any proof,” I said lamely.

“And maybe he was more worried about our well-being than a cause of death in an accident report.”

I swallowed hard.

“You seek the truth. That’s admirable, Cass. It really is. But sometimes it’s important to balance truth with compassion. Your dad does it every day. He doesn’t just try to solve. He’s there to serve.”

Emotions were bubbling up in me like a geyser. “I don’t know how to do my job and not hurt you,” I told him, stalking over to the coffeemaker and pouring a mug that I didn’t want. None of this was fair.

“I don’t know if you can,” he said quietly. “And I can’t ask you to choose.”

“You can’t give up. You can’t give up on me. On us!” My voice rose.

He looked down at the floor, hands on his hips. “Look, Cass.”

“Don’t, Bow. Don’t say it,” I pleaded. It couldn’t end like this.

He looked at me, his eyes blazing with pain that I’d thoughtlessly caused. “I want to be very clear. This is a fight. Not a break-up. Got it?”

I felt hot tears welling up and managed a nod. A fight. Not a break-up. I clung to that.

“Just a fight. But right now, I can’t talk anymore about this.” Bowie’s voice was rough. “And I’m real sorry, but the only examples I have are my parents. So I’m either gonna throw a ton of shit at a wall and drink too much or I’m not going to talk to you for a bit. Okay?”

I handed him the salt shaker from my table. “Here. Throw it.”

He set it down carefully.

Damn it. I would have felt a little better had he hauled off and chucked the squirrel into the wall.

“I know it seems like I’m asking you to choose between me and your job. And I don’t want you to have to make that choice. I really don’t. But right now, I can’t see a good solution. So I’m gonna go home and I’m gonna think. And you’re gonna stay safe and make good choices.”

“I’m not one of your students,” I said, nerves making me snap at him.

“I know that. But I just can’t give you any more right now. So I’m counting on you to take care of yourself for a bit until I can get my head on straight.”

Damn it all the hell. He was a gentleman even in a fight.

“Are we going to survive this?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

He looked down at the floor again. “I don’t know, Cass,” he said finally. “But we will talk. Later.”

He turned and headed for the back door.

“You wanted me to share. I’m sharing. Now you’re sorry I shared.”

The unfairness of it, of him closing the door between us, struck me in the stomach hard enough to knock the wind out of me. I sank down to the floor and gathered George in my lap.