He’d tossed his tablet to the table and pushed out of his chair when he froze again. The next story had popped up. This one with video.

AREA TEEN QUESTIONED IN DEATH OF RIVER VICTIM.

He slowly sat down and turned up the volume. A reporter’s voice-over accompanied the video of a young man being walked toward CPD headquarters, escorted by the two cops he’d seen on the news story in his father’s nursing home room. The white-haired Fed, Deacon Novak, and his CPD partner, Adam Kimble. There was a third person with them, a woman who had her hand on the kid’s back. Both she and the kid wore ball caps that hid their faces, but every so often the woman would look up and glare at a reporter who came too close.

“Michael Rowland, stepson of river victim John Brewer, was brought in to CPD for questioning this afternoon regarding the apparent murder of his stepfather.”

Cade frowned. “That’s not Brewer’s stepson.” Brewer’s stepson was a little kid. Five years old, tops. The kid on the screen was a teenager.

Shit. Did Brewer have two kids?

“Police have withheld the teen’s name due to his minor status,” the reporter continued, “but his mother has come forward, claiming that her son both killed her husband and assaulted her, beating her on numerous occasions.”

The video of Michael walking into the police station switched to a clip of a woman wearing wrinkled but expensive clothes. Her skin was sallow and her hair was snarled and dirty.

“He killed my John,” she said tearfully. “I tried to control him, but Michael was just too angry, all the time. He was always a difficult boy, but in the last year he’s become violent. He kept threatening to kill John and now he has.” Big tears gathered in her eyes and spilled down her face. “And now I’m afraid for me and my little boy, Joshua. I’ve lost my husband. Are they going to take my little boy, too?”

They cut to the reporter, who stood in front of a large school building. “Michael Rowland is a freshman at Albert Sabin High School. We were here earlier during the annual Spring Fling dance talking to faculty and students, who were stunned at the news. Many expressed disbelief that Michael could be involved. School administrators declined to comment, and we were told by his fellow classmates that Michael keeps to himself. But the students believed that this was due to the teen’s disability. Michael is deaf and uses an interpreter during his school day.”