“You think I’m horrible, don’t you?” Cash asked, a little boy’s vulnerability in his voice, like that moment in Edie’s kitchen. She turned once again to look at him, her chin resting against her shoulder.

“I think being relieved that your dad’s at rest makes you human.” She could give him that at least.

“What about the other stuff?”

She raised a brow in question.

“I’m on your suspect list,” he said.

“Everyone on the island is on our suspect list,” Mia shot back, though it wasn’t quite true.

Cash shifted, shoving his bare hands into his pockets. They were both underdressed for the weather, as she hadn’t stopped to grab her gear. They wouldn’t last on the pier much longer.

“Dad was.”

A suspect. She didn’t confirm it, just watched the water particles in her breath freeze into visibility.

“You think he killed himself because of it,” Cash said, and again that wasn’t quite true. She thought he was killed because of it. She wasn’t sold on the fact that he was the one who did it. That was a bit more than semantics.

“You said he was living in the past most of the time?” Mia asked. If the deaths had been weighing on his conscience for the past decade and a half, it could have been the heaviness of them that was dragging him back to that particular summer.

“Yeah, but not like what you’re thinking,” Cash said. “It was mostly from when we were real young. Babies.”

There went that theory.

“What do you think he was apologizing for in his note?” Mia asked. Had he been the father of Monroe’s baby? How had he gotten to the lighthouse so quickly? What had he been doing out in the woods?

“Being weak.”

“For killing himself, you mean?” she clarified.

Cash nodded. It’s not like he would have said anything else, anyway. If he’d suspected his father’s involvement in whatever had gone down, that was.

“Does Lacey ever talk about it? That night? That summer?” Maybe it was cheap to ask Cash about his girlfriend, but Mia knew Lacey wouldn’t tell her what she was actually thinking herself.

He slid her a glance from the side of his eye. “Are you asking as Detective Hart?”

“Some friendly advice. You should always assume you’re on the record with cops, Cash.” Mia pushed at his shoulder. “You know that.”

“Eh, not much criminal law going on around here.” He shrugged a little, his grin self-deprecating. “Most of what I handle is contracts and wills.”