"I don't know." There's frustration and heartbreak in that. "He said he was. He told me he was innocent, that he'd been framed, and I believed him. I started looking into the guy he was supposed to have killed, turning over rocks. I was starting to make real progress when he confessed to shooting his superior officer. Said he lured the man there and killed him. But I'd turned up enough to know something more had to be going on. We were all taken into protective custody."

She looks at Neal. "Me, you, and your mother were all sent to St. Louis. Your dad... I don't know where he went. Not to prison. But your mom had divorced him by then, and she didn't want him anywhere near you."

Neal stares at her, shock rolling through him in waves. "I didn't know."

Ellen lifts her other hand to his cheek. "She didn't want you to."