He heard her let out an audible breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up again. I know it’s old, tired ground, but—”

“Don’t apologize. I understand.”

She turned to face him then. “You can’t let go either, can you?”

It was more of an assessment than a question, but he answered anyway. “Never.”

Then, quietly, she said, “The difference is I can’t because he was my father. You can’t because you feel responsible, no matter who tells you or how many times you’re told it wasn’t your fault.”

“The people saying it weren’t there.”

“Quinn was there. And he’s about the most levelheaded guy I know.”

“He is. But he’s not a cop.”

She continued to look at him in that assessing way. “If it had been my father who had gone inside, believing what the clerk said, that they were gone, and you had been the one Malachi shot...would you blame him?”

He nearly groaned aloud as she asked the question he’d asked himself so many times, although not in quite that way. He’d only asked it of himself because he’d been certain Greg would have reacted differently, would have somehow known the robber’s accomplice was there in the shadows, even if Adam couldn’t explain how he could have. Greg had had those instincts he himself hadn’t had time to hone, the instincts of a man who’d spent a career learning how the bad guys thought so he could protect the good guys.

“He wouldn’t blame you,” Amanda said, with quiet certainty. “I know he wouldn’t.”

“You did,” he pointed out.

“I know. Unjustly. I told you, I was in so much pain I...had to strike out. And you were the likeliest target, no matter how undeserved. And that is something I will be sorry for until you can forgive me. And if that’s never, then I’ll just have to live with the guilt.”

He was torn between saying she had nothing to feel guilty about and telling her good luck with living with it, since he’d learned firsthand what a useless effort that was; you learned to live in spite of it, not with it, which implied some kind of accord reached.

And then it hit him, what she’d actually said. Until you can forgive me.

She wanted him to forgive her?

What she’d said before... If you hate me for that, it’s only what I deserve.

The world really had turned upside down.

Liam Burnett was a very different presence, Amanda quickly realized when he took over the night watch. While Quinn was imposing, even intimidating, the man with the hint of Texas in his voice, who looked younger than she guessed he was, was quick, lively and had a ready grin.