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“Water under the bridge.”

“Dead and buried.”

“Who are you again?”

After an astonished moment, Beau laughed. Sort of. “I forgot. You always have to have the last word.”

Not really. Not anymore. That was something Archie had outgrown. The inability to be wrong. Unfortunately, Beau seemed to trigger his worst adolescent instincts.

He said wearily, “No. You’re right. It was a long time ago. There’s no point...”

He felt Beau glance his way. Beau said, “Yeah. Let bygones be bygones. Neither of us need this. I guess we both said things we regret.”

Was he talking about the last couple of hours? Last couple of days? Or seven years ago?

Archie nodded curtly.

Beau spared him another glance. “And—off the record—no, I don’t believe you killed John. On paper, you’ve got a strong motive, but in practice, it doesn’t make sense. Somebody could argue that all things being relative, Mrs. Simms has an equally strong motive.”

Was he joking? Archie said nothing, but the idea that Simmy had killed John for an inheritance she clearly had known nothing about was ludicrous. Beau had to know that.

Beau continued, “And I’m not missing the fact that Judith believed she and Desi were going to inherit the bulk of John’s estate. Or that Professor Azizi was threatening to sue John and now he’s MIA. Or that for years John had a contentious relationship with Mila Monig’s son, which means John’s bequest to Dr. Monig conceivably gives her son a pretty good motive.”

Archie looked up in surprise, catching Beau’s gaze. “That was a long time ago. When John and Mila were—”

“Monig believed John was his father.”

Archie’s jaw dropped.

Beau absorbed his shock with grim satisfaction “Yep. Last year he hounded John into taking a paternity test, and when the test came back negative, he wouldn’t accept the results. He insisted the test had been rigged.”

“What?”

Beau’s smile was wintry. “You heard right. Monig continued to insist John was his father and was deliberately and knowingly rejecting his obligations—rejecting him, in fact.”

“John never said anything about it.”

Beau shrugged.

There was nothing pointed in that shrug, but Archie didn’t need an actual accusation to feel the guilt of not having been there when John needed him. Sure, he had not been in position to offer much support, couldn’t have been physically present no matter how much he wished—hell, he had barely managed to keep his “heartbeats,” those regular check-ins with his handler to confirm he was still okay and the ball was still in play.

But it was yet another weight on the scale, on his heart.

Beau’s voice broke into his somber thoughts. “I know what you think, but I don’t have any bias against you. Or for you. This case will be investigated just like any other.”

Archie nodded, but he was barely listening.

With a little edge in his voice, Beau added, “I also know you never thought I had what it takes to be a cop, but I’m good at my job. John’s homicide will be solved and his killer, regardless of who that is or what their motive was, will be brought to justice.”

Archie stared into Beau’s hard blue eyes. “Okay,” he said mildly. “In fairness, I was fifteen. I was wrong about a lot of things.”

“You weren’t fifteen the last time we spoke.”

“True. But I don’t remember us talking a lot about your career plans.”

Beau retorted, “No, we talked about your plans. As usual.”

That was pretty fucking unjust considering how that final conversation had gone. Archie started to answer, but Beau cut him off.