She pushed off the doorjamb she’d been leaning against and snagged his arm, just above his elbow.

“Let’s walk,” she said, slowing down only enough to make sure he was following. They pushed through the tight hallway, and people let them, too uncomfortable with the clear grief on Cash’s face to bother him.

When she hit the porch, she kept going, taking the stairs at a light jog. They were near the port, but she turned left instead of right, heading for a seldom-used pier that jutted out into the black water of the bay. It was calm today, the stillness almost unnerving because she knew a storm hovered on the horizon.

Cash followed her out along the old planks, both of them skipping over a board that looked loose. Leaning her forearms against one of the last posts, she kept her gaze directed at the ocean instead of him. “I’m sorry,” she finally said. “About your dad.”

Timid waves lapped at the wood beneath them, and a seaplane’s engine rumbled overhead. There was a shuffle behind her as Cash settled up against the post next to hers.

“Want to know the worst part?” he asked, and she cut her eyes to his face. It was softer than she would have guessed, his jaw relaxed, his shoulders loose. He was staring out toward the nothingness that was interrupted by a single tanker that was moving so slowly it seemed to have stopped.

She made a questioning sound in the back of her throat to get him to continue, and still he didn’t look at her.

“The relief.”

“Cash,” she said on an exhale.

He laughed, just once and without humor, and blinked too fast for there not to be tears threatening at the corners. “That was my first reaction. Relief. How messed up is that?”

His hand shook as he brought it up to scrub at his face. She could tell he hadn’t shaved in a few days, his five-o’clock shadow grown out to proper scruff.

“Most of the time he didn’t even recognize me,” Cash continued when she didn’t move to offer sympathy. It was an odd position to be in. Cash and Earl were both suspects, but they were also family of sorts. Even Earl, with his stiff New England coldness. He had been such an institution on St. Lucy’s. It must have been devastating to watch him deteriorate, lost in the years that had come before.

As for Cash, Mia was still struggling to reconcile the boy he’d been with the man he’d become. So she didn’t comfort him, didn’t soothe as might have been her instinct back when they’d been growing up. Instead, she kept her distance, her arms tucked beneath her breasts, bearing her weight against the post.