Page 127 of Moonshine Kiss
“What about my mother? My mom.” His voice broke, and I died a little bit on the inside. “You say you think she might have killed herself. You think that answer would bring comfort to me? When I’d spent the last eleven years believing that she finally found her peace. It’s not always about answers, Cass!”
“I’m sorry, Bowie,” I said simply. I was.
“You come from good people. I come from misery, poverty, alcoholism. You don’t like being judged for being your father’s daughter? Imagine what it’s like for me.”
I shook my head. I was worried about living up to my dad. Bowie was worried about living down to his.
“Those answers you’re trying so hard to find?” he said quietly. “They will ruin someone’s life. Maybe my own. But you’ll have what you were looking for then.”
“Bowie, you aren’t asking me to stop investigating a case because it involves your family, are you?”I almost wanted him to say yes.Because if he was making me choose between him and my job then he was the bad guy. Black and white. Uncomplicated.
“Of course I’m not,” he said softly. “But you need to understand what you’ve done. You’ve taken that memory I’ve had of my mom and replaced it with something else. In twenty-four hours, you’ve taken a tragic accident that hurt us all and turned it into something even worse. A suicide? A hit-and-run? A tie to Callie Kendall?”
I felt sick. But stayed silent. Sometimes people needed to get things off their chests without someone else telling them how to feel.
“You’re pushing so hard to find my father guilty and what happens if he is? Do you think I’m going to be happy to have answers? To know that my father was so much worse than I ever knew? To know that I come from that? Both of them are gone, Cassidy. All I’ve got left are my brothers and sister. And what you’re doing is going to hurt them.”
“I don’t know what to do,” I said, rubbing my arms against the cold that was blooming around my heart. Bowie was hurting and very politely lashing out. But not sharing my opinion was part and parcel of being a cop. Besides, what the hell good would my opinion be to him now? What if it was wrong, and I gave him false hope?
“You said your dad had his suspicions about my mother’s accident,” Bowie said suddenly.
“Yeah.”
“But he didn’t come running to us about it.”
“He didn’t have any proof,” I said lamely.
“And maybe he was more worried about our well-being than a cause of death in an accident report.”
I swallowed hard.
“You seek the truth. That’s admirable, Cass. It really is. But sometimes it’s important to balance truth with compassion. Your dad does it every day. He doesn’t just try to solve. He’s there to serve.”
Emotions were bubbling up in me like a geyser. “I don’t know how to do my job and not hurt you,” I told him, stalking over to the coffeemaker and pouring a mug that I didn’t want. None of this was fair.
“I don’t know if you can,” he said quietly. “And I can’t ask you to choose.”
“You can’t give up. You can’t give up on me. On us!” My voice rose.
He looked down at the floor, hands on his hips. “Look, Cass.”
“Don’t, Bow. Don’t say it,” I pleaded. It couldn’t end like this.
He looked at me, his eyes blazing with pain that I’d thoughtlessly caused. “I want to be very clear. This is a fight. Not a break-up. Got it?”
I felt hot tears welling up and managed a nod.A fight. Not a break-up.I clung to that.
“Just a fight. But right now, I can’t talk anymore about this.” Bowie’s voice was rough. “And I’m real sorry, but the only examples I have are my parents. So I’m either gonna throw a ton of shit at a wall and drink too much or I’m not going to talk to you for a bit. Okay?”
I handed him the salt shaker from my table. “Here. Throw it.”
He set it down carefully.
Damn it. I would have felt a little better had he hauled off and chucked the squirrel into the wall.
“I know it seems like I’m asking you to choose between me and your job. And I don’t want you to have to make that choice. I really don’t. But right now, I can’t see a good solution. So I’m gonna go home and I’m gonna think. And you’re gonna stay safe and make good choices.”
“I’m not one of your students,” I said, nerves making me snap at him.
