"She was not my mother." Andrew waited a beat to make sure Neil understood and made a cutting gesture with his hand. "Cass, though, Cass? Cass would have been. She really wanted to be. Oh, you don't know. Here's a story for you, Neil. Listening? Cass wanted to keep me. She wanted to adopt me. Andrew Joseph Spear, she said. She collected all the paperwork but she wouldn't file without my consent. She thought I was old enough to choose."

"Spear," Neil echoed, startled. "Like—"

"Richard Spear," Andrew finished for him. "I told you all about him, yes? My last foster father."

"You mentioned him," Neil said slowly, stalling as he tried to process that bombshell. Richard Spear was the father Phil Higgins tried investigating in August. All Andrew said about him was that he was uninteresting and harmless. "What happened to make the adoption fall through, your arrest?"

"No, you have it backwards. I went to juvie because she wanted to adopt me. But she didn't give up on me. She thought a stable home could straighten me out, she said. Her biological son wanted to join the Marines after high school, so she even offered to reallocate part of his college fund to me. She wanted me to have a future. My own Stephanie Walker, of a sort."

Neil only recognized that name because he'd just talked to Renee. He nodded to show he was following. Andrew rocked onto the balls of his feet and reached for Neil. It was all Neil could do to not tense up when Andrew's hands wrapped around his neck. Andrew didn't hold tight enough to cut off his air but tapped his thumbs against Neil's throat in time to Neil's pulse.

"Luther would have let her have me if it was what I wanted. He knew Aaron's mother wanted nothing to do with me, but he wanted to make things right with me somehow. If Cass was 'right', he would fight on her behalf to get the adoption approved. Couldn't have that, could we?"

"Why not?" Neil asked, searching Andrew's expression. "What did Cass do to you?"

Andrew looked surprised. "Cass would never do anything to me."

"Then what went wrong?"

"That's a different story. This story is about Cass and Luther, isn't it? Luther said he could send me back to Cass. I gave him a secret to make sure he wouldn't."

"And he told someone," Neil guessed.

"No." Andrew tapped his fingers a little faster, an agitated rhythm completely at odds with the mocking smile on his lips. "That's too easy. These kinds of secrets are not given out lightly. You know that. We calculate collateral damage and escape routes. We plan and brace for the reaction and fallout. But Luther did not tell. He chose to not believe me at all. And that's a thousand times worse, you see."

"That depends on the secret," Neil said.