On the other side of the table, Evan Pawloski sat with his elbows on his knees. He was skinny the way high school boys were skinny, with broad shoulders and long legs, the kind of build that he was still growing into. He wore an Under Armour tank, Nike shorts, and Adidas slides with matching Adidas tube socks, now stained with mud. His head came up, and he stared at them.

  “Where are my parents?”

  “Your parents are on their way, Mr. Pawloski,” the sheriff said as he pressed a button that activated the recording equipment. “I’m going to remind you that you’re in custody, which means you’re under arrest, and that you have certain rights.” The sheriff mirandized the boy with the camera running and then asked, “Do you understand your rights?”

  “I’m not talking to you until my parents get here.”

  “Do you understand your rights, Mr. Pawloski?”

  “Yes! I’m not saying anything.”

  “Where’s Ashley Boone?”

  The shock on Evan’s face almost made Somers laugh. Then the boy shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Well, that’s interesting,” the sheriff said. “Because the way I see it, you might know something. Maybe you’re worried that you did something stupid, and you’re trying to figure out what to do next. Maybe you know somebody else, somebody who did something stupid, and you want to help them. Maybe it was supposed to be a joke, and things got out of hand. So, I’m going to do you a favor and tell you what I’d tell my own son if he were sitting here: tell the truth, the whole truth, and things are going to be a lot easier for you.”

  Evan shook his head. Some of the baffled disbelief still showed in his face, but all he said was, “I’m not talking to you. My dad told me not to.”

  It went like that a few more times, round and round, the sheriff hammering, testing for weak spots, Evan repeating his refusal again and again. Somers held back, observing. Evan’s words might have belonged to any privileged teenager trying to keep himself out of trouble.

  His body language, on the other hand, was much more interesting. He had started the conversation with his elbows on his knees, his legs spread, a kind of poseur slouch that Somers had seen a lot of high school boys affect. But as the sheriff had continued his questions, Evan had shrunk in on himself, wrapping his arms around his body, his head coming down, his knees drawing together—all classic, nonverbal cues of fear, defensiveness, worry.

  And while part of Somers knew that other teens might exhibit similar behavior, one movement that Evan kept repeating told Somers that something different was happening here. Every few minutes, Evan would reach down and touch the spot on his hip where the words from Loretta’s book were tattooed. And then, when he realized what he was doing, he’d snatch his hand back. He’d hold himself like that until he forgot again and touched the tattoo.

  The best way to convince someone to give up their secrets, Somers knew, was to convince them that you already knew—enough, anyway. But this secret was different. Somers knew this kind of secret. He knew what it was like to be Evan Pawloski, to have wealthy, influential, successful parents who dominated your life. He knew what it was like to want to fit in and not be able to find your group—for him it had been football, sure, and the popular kids, of course, but also Mikey Grames, which no one had understood. He knew what it was like to have a secret that was terrifying because it meant opening up for the whole world to see the gap between who they thought you were, who they believed you to be, and who you really were. He knew what it was like to wonder, when you were a teenager and when reality was starting to shade in the dark corners of the world, if anyone would love you if they knew what you really were. He remembered the locker room, his fingers like butterfly wings on Hazard’s collarbone, the goose bumps that chased his touch on Hazard’s skin. He remembered the desire in Hazard’s scarecrow eyes, and how that same desire had hooked him behind his breastbone and dragged him through the years until they had found each other again. He remembered hiding fitness magazines in the trash so his parents wouldn’t find them. He remembered hiding the yearbook photo of Hazard, the one he’d kept like a totem. He remembered hiding from the guys on the team, from his friends at school, from Bing, from Cora. He remembered hiding the texts from Ricky Wade, his college roommate, when paranoia made him think someone might start to suspect. Hiding himself. Always hiding.

  But he had a job to do, and he had a son and a husband who were counting on him. Even if he couldn’t take a full breath. Even if cold sweat beaded on his nape, gathered between his pecs, soaked his muddy clothes and stuck them to him, filling his nose with the smell of his own distress and, of course, the river.

  When Sheriff Engels sat back, the older man kept an unreadable look locked on Evan, but Somers could feel his frustration. Minutes were ticking away, and the Pawloskis would be here soon.

  “We found him,” Somers said.

  Evan looked over at him.

  “That college kid.”

  Surprise and then horror spiderwebbed through Evan’s face. He gave an aborted half-shake of his head.

  “Yeah,” Somers said. “It actually wasn’t that hard. See, it’s the tattoo on your hip. People remember something like that. Even if you try to cover it up—especially if you try to cover it. They see a little ink, and they remember.” He smiled and tugged on his sleeve, exposing the lines cuffing his wrist. “Trust me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure, you do. Joyce Sturgis has been telling people about it. And somebody—my guess is Kirsta—put it on Wildcat Tea. You even got in a fight at school about it.”

  Evan shook his head harder this time and looked away, his gaze focused on the corner of the room.

  “Kid, here’s the deal.” Somers had to stop. He had to breathe through the pain in his chest. He had read about trees, trees that grew up around a hatchet abandoned in the wood, trees that grew up around a splitting wedge that had been driven into the trunk and forgotten. The tree grew and grew, and nobody knew anything was wrong until one day, it split in half. The flaw had been there the whole time, the old wound hidden but never healed. He imagined the tremendous relief at the end, when it eventually split in half. Maybe it finally stopped hurting. And he spoke. “Until now, it’s been a rumor. And the thing about rumors is that you can fight them. You can rise above them. If you like to suck a dick now and then, that’s your business. I’m in no position to judge, right? But I’m guessing not everybody in your life feels that way. So, kid, tell me, if your life has been hell because Joyce and Kirsta have been spreading rumors about you, how’s it going to be when I trot out the guy who stuck his dick in your mouth? What’s going to happen when his photo is in the newspaper next to your name? What’s going to happen when he’s doing TV interviews, telling people about how you got on your knees and let him wreck your throat?” The lights were bright, and he had to fight the urge to close his eyes; they felt like they were burning. “That’s what you’ve got to ask yourself right now. Because one way or another, you’re going to tell me everything you know, or I’m going to take a backhoe to your life and figure it out the hard way.”

  Evan stared back at him, his face bloodless. His breaths were tiny, frantic, scrabbling things.

  “All right,” Somers said, standing.

  “He can’t,” Evan said. “I’m a minor!”

  And that was it, Somers thought. It was a shearing sensation, being torn in half. And yes, he thought numbly. It’s actually a kind of relief.

  Sinking back into the seat, Somers said, “You know that doesn’t mean anything. We’ll give him immunity if he gives us testimony about why you killed Loretta Ames and whatever you did to Ashley Boone.”

  Evan shook his head and started to cry. He dashed at the tears with both hands, shaking his head harder, and then he shuddered and went still.

  “Go on, son,” Engels said. “Tell us. It’s better this way.”

  No, Somers thought, it’s not. In some ways, it doesn’t ever get better.

  “He—he—he was so nice,” Evan wailed. Then he stopped. He pressed his fingertips against his eyes until his nail beds turned white. When he spoke again, his voice was steadier. “It was stupid. It was such a stupid mistake. But he was so nice about it. Why would he—he said he wouldn’t tell anyone—”

  “Evan,” Somers said, “sit up, and pull yourself together, and tell me all of it. Right now. Because Ashley—”

  “I don’t know anything about Ash.” Evan wiped his face and sat up. His eyes were red, and he had to sniff between words. “I swear to God, I don’t. I just—it was one dumb mistake, and now my life is over.”

  “You mean Loretta?”

  “I mean all of it!”

  “What did you do, Evan?”

  The boy’s mouth opened, but no words came out; he gave a tiny shake of his head.

  “All right. Let me tell you what I think. I think you hated Loretta Ames because her book turned you gay—or that’s what you tell yourself, anyway. And I think you hated Ashley because you fought at school. I was there, remember? I heard you, what you said to Kirsta and Gwen. And I saw the fight. Did you want payback? Was that it?”

  “I didn’t do anything to Ash!” Evan jerked forward in the seat. “Or that—that dyke. I didn’t!” He shuddered, head twisting to one side, something popping in his neck. When he looked up again, he was pale and breathing fast, but his words were steady. “Yes. I did what—I did what you said. With Mark. Don’t make him part of this, please? He was…nice. And it would kill my parents.”

  “You’d better start at the beginning.”

  Evan was silent for a moment. When he spoke, he sounded like he was still trying to find the right words. “Do you know Kirsta?”

  “I’ve met her.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t know her, do you? I mean, you look at her, and she’s wearing her mom’s clothes and her mom’s makeup, but that’s new. That’s since—well, me. When we were dating, she was a freak.” Something must have showed on Somers’s face because Evan said, “I mean, I liked her. A lot, actually. But that was her reputation. She’d do stuff with you. And then, when we started hooking up, I realized she’d do a lot more than any other girl I’d been with. And then we started hanging out because we liked a lot of the same stuff.”

  “Like?”

  “Books. Anime. Manga.” He hesitated. “Do you know what hentai is?”

  Somers shook his head.

  “Uh, porn. But, like, anime.”

  Engels had worked on his professionally neutral expression for probably close to forty years, but a faint frown showed now, a tightness in his brow.

  Evan glanced at him and looked back at Somers. “She showed me some stuff, and in hentai, it’s, like, not real. You know? Because it’s anime, so anyone can do or be anything. And it was, you know—I don’t know.”

  “Did you like it?” Somers asked.

  “I guess. I mean, it’s just pictures, right? And she could tell I liked it, so then she said I had to read Katabasis, and I did, and it was…have you read it?”

  Somers nodded.

  “So, you get it, right? I mean, it’s not just the sex. The story, the characters, the underworld, kids fighting this monster in a small town, and some of the adults think they’re crazy, and some of them are oblivious, and some are working for the monster. It’s not like I read books all the time, but it was freaking awesome.”

  “And?”

  “And—and she talked me into it. We tried some stuff, and it was, whatever, and she said if I liked that, then I should try, you know—” He cut off and squeezed his eyes shut. For a moment, he looked on the brink of tears. When he spoke again, he choked the words out. “And the next thing I knew, I had a Prowler account on my phone, and I was talking to this guy. He was funny. He was only a few years older, and I told him I was eighteen. We had a lot of stuff in common. We started trading pics. I mean, you’ve met him; you know he’s, like, cute or whatever. And Kirsta and I were—we were really getting into it. Like, it got her so hot, every time I showed her the messages, every time she offered to help me take a pic. I guess I thought it was hot too, or I don’t know. It’s all confusing now. She—she messed with my head, and now, when I try to remember, it’s like it was someone else. I even got that stupid tattoo. And then one night, Mark invited me over to his apartment. His roommates were gone, and he had the place to himself. I knew it was dumb to go to a stranger’s house, but we’d been talking for weeks, and he was so cool. And Kirsta made me, you know, not, uh, do anything for two days before, so I was about to explode.” He stopped, sagging in his seat, his face crimson.

  Somers let him hang. He felt numb, hearing the story unspool like this. The tiny voice at the back of his head, the one shouting in outrage and protest, sounded like it was trapped behind glass. Maybe all of him was trapped behind glass, a wall between him and the whole world. He had the strange sense that if he moved his hand too quickly, he’d bark his knuckles against something.

  Evan’s voice sounded muffled when it reached him. “And it was fine. Mark was exactly who he said he was. He was nice. He was funny. It was so cringey at first, but it got better, and we had a couple of beers, and it got a lot better, and then he wanted to kiss, and that was all right. His hands felt weird. I’d never felt a guy’s hands on me like that. And I kept waiting for it to be like in the book, or like in hentai, so when he asked me if I still wanted to suck him off, I said yes, and he asked me if I wanted to do it on the couch, and I said yes, and he didn’t say anything, but I got on my knees because—”

  Because that’s how they do it in the movies, Somers wanted to say. His eyes felt like they had sand in them. Not enough sleep; after this, he could sleep for a month.

  “He was wearing these little black shorts, and when I reached up, he helped me, you know, lifting his hips a little. And I could tell he was hard. And I kept thinking, this is going to be it, this is going to be just like I imagined it, only I knew it wasn’t, I was, you know—” He made a vague gesture toward his waist. “And then his dick was sticking out, and the next thing I knew, he had his hand on the back of my head and was, you know, guiding me forward. Not hard or anything. I could have stopped him. But I was in such a weird space.” He stopped again, and this time, he let out a disbelieving laugh. “You know what my first thought was? He smells like balls. And my second thought was, He tastes like balls. And that was it; I couldn’t do it. He was so nice about it. He asked me if he could do me, if I wanted another beer, if I just wanted to hang out and see where things went. I started crying.” Tears shone in Evan’s eyes; when he shook his head, they fell free to track down his cheek. “He was so fucking nice about all of it. Wouldn’t let me leave until I calmed down. He’d be in a lot of trouble, right? Because I’m a minor?”

  Somers nodded.

  “Please,” Evan whispered. “He was so nice. And my dad—” He cut himself off, closing his eyes, and more tears spilled. He sounded like he was trying to laugh, though, when he said, “Is it weird that this would be so much easier if I were actually gay?”

  “You attacked Theo Stratford at the board meeting.”

  “I had an elective in the spring with him. I picked Katabasis as a choice book; I knew he liked it, and that was when I was obsessed with it. I wrote—I wrote some stuff that I probably shouldn’t have, but I knew he was gay, Dr. Stratford, I mean, and I thought maybe, you know, because I was trying to figure out what was going on with me. Then, at the board meeting, I thought he was going to read what I wrote.” Evan sat back, scrubbing his palms on his knees, and his mouth twitched. “My mom told my dad he needed to buy me a car, another one, I mean, because of that. I honestly think that’s the first time he’s been proud of me.”

  “And what about Loretta Ames?”

  “I told you: I didn’t have anything to do with that. I was home with my parents, like we told the cops.”

  “My husband saw you getting a knife out of your parents’ car at her talk.”

  Evan flinched. “I was going to slash her tires. Then I couldn’t figure out which one was her car; I thought it’d have New York plates because she’s from New York.”

  That sounded just teenage-stupid enough to be true, so Somers asked, “What about Ashley?”

  “I don’t know where he is.” Shifting in his seat, Evan glanced away. “Probably off with Gwen.”

  “Come on,” Somers said. “We were doing so well.”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Son,” Engels said. “You’re not helping yourself right now.”

  “I swear to God, I don’t know.”

  “Evan, whatever you think you can cover up—”

  Evan squirmed in his seat and burst out, “I sent those guys after you. At the party tonight. They were just supposed to slow you down.”

  “What?”

  “Colt was hanging out with Ash and Gwen all night, right? And they were partying pretty hard. Gwen and Ash were wasted, and Colt was, you know, trying to keep up. And then you showed up, and Mr. Hazard, and I saw Colt going off toward the hotel with this guy, and I thought, oh, shit, Colt’s going off to score, and his dads are going to blame me, so I sent Jon and Kev to, you know, hold you guys up while I went to get Colt, only—only then I saw Colt up on the bluff, and I figured things were fine.”

  “You said you saw Colt going toward the hotel,” Somers said.

  “I thought it was Colt. He had on this hat, this blue snapback, and I thought I’d seen Colt wearing it earlier. But then I saw him up on the bluff, so I figured I was wrong.”

  Somers knew the hat; it had belonged to him before being appropriated by his son. But when they’d found Colt earlier that night, he hadn’t been wearing the snapback. He’d been wearing Ashley’s stupid cowboy hat. Dread closed like a fist in Somers’s gut.