None of them spoke until she’d placed his mug on the table and then sat across from him. Izzy was behind her, leaning against the counter, her eyes watchful, her gun resting against her thigh.

“Tell me what happened,” Mia finally said. Cash’s gaze flew to hers, his eyes red rimmed and wet, his lashes clumpy with his shed tears.

He dropped his gaze.

“If you’d just let it go,” Cash muttered into his cup. “Christ, Mia, if you’d just . . .”

“What, Cash?” Because she needed him to say it. This wasn’t a confession; at least she didn’t think it was. But it wasn’t nothing, either.

“Left well enough alone.”

Mia ran her thumb along the rim of her mug. “You mean, just not investigate a murder?”

His eyes were on the table. “Who even cared about that guy? And now . . .”

A dry sob cut off anything further. Mia sat back against her chair, meeting Izzy’s eyes. The woman’s lips were pressed together as if she were holding back thoughts that wanted nothing more than to escape.

Mia turned her attention back to Cash. This wasn’t the boy she’d known. The boy she’d known was on the cusp of becoming a man with strength and conviction. This person before her was almost unrecognizable. What had happened? A disdain she never could have guessed she’d feel toward him rolled through her.

“He left a letter,” Cash said like it was dragged out of him, the words sliding against gravel.

A letter.

Mia ran her sweaty palms against her pajama pants, feeling far too defenseless and underdressed.

“Do you have it?”

Cash reached into his jacket. Mia’s heart fluttered, but she remained still. When he pulled out a sheet of paper and not a gun, she relaxed.

He tossed the letter to the table and stared at it, his fists clenched so that his knuckles were white.

Her fingers trembled as she picked it up.

I’m sorry. Forgive me.

Mia cursed on a quiet exhale and then handed the message back to Izzy. Cash hadn’t looked up at her to watch her read it.

“This morning?” she prompted.

He nodded once, licked his lips. “He comes down for breakfast every morning at seven sharp. He didn’t today.”

“How?” She ripped off the Band-Aid they’d all been waiting for her to strip away.

“Pills,” Cash said. Not another gunshot wound, then.

“And you didn’t hear anyone else in the house?” she asked.

At that he looked up, surprise breaking through the thick lines of anger that had settled into his face. “No.”

“Nothing out of the ordinary, then?”

There was a pause. “You think there was foul play?”

“Covering the bases,” Mia said, not wanting to agitate him.

Cash studied her but then dropped his gaze once more. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”