“I left. And then she left right after me. She was worried because I’d had too much to drink. She didn’t want me to drive.”

“Did you?”

“I walked. I’d walked to campus that morning because I knew I’d be drinking later.” I pointed to her right, in the direction of downtown and campus. “It’s not far,” I said, as though the cops wouldn’t know.

“So did Madeline O’Brien walk you back here to your house?” Bowman asked.

I froze. The words that once tumbled so freely out of my mouth backed up like cars jammed on a highway.

I could only rip the Band-Aid of my drunkenness off and let the cops see the scab underneath.

I knew Madeline had walked with me. I remembered that clearly. We crossed the square together. I could remember the fountain, still shut down and full of dead rustling leaves although spring had just arrived. We went two blocks up College Street, the night cool, my jacket pulled tight around me. My hands stuffed deep into my pockets because I had forgotten to bring gloves.

We turned west on Eighth Street.

I didn’t know if we talked. We must have. I couldn’t imagine we walked side by side, even on a cool night, without talking at all. I liked talking to Madeline. She acted more mature, more worldly, than any other student I knew.

“So you don’t know what you might have talked about?” Bowman asked.

“I have no idea. Maybe her thesis, since she just turned it in. Maybe how cold it was.”

“This was just two nights ago, and you don’t remember what you talked about?” Bowman asked.

“I was drunk,” I said.

Two more blocks, and I saw my house. I’d left the porch lights on. I knew that. And through the alcoholic haze, I saw them burning. A beacon in the night.

When Emily and Jacob were alive and I’d turn the corner either in my car or on foot, my heart lifted at the sight of those lights. They meant warmth. Safety.

Home.

The basketball hoop in the yard, Jake doing his homework at the kitchen table. Emily on the computer in the other room, working on a management consulting project for a local company.

When I saw the lights with Madeline, I felt pretty certain I turned to her and told her that was my house. And that she didn’t have to keep walking with me, I could find my way from there.

And we said good night.

I think.

“You think?” Bowman asked. “You need to be sure, Dr. Nye. A young woman is missing. Did you say good-bye on the street or not?”

I couldn’t lie. Not to the cops.

And if Madeline was really missing—and in danger—then they needed to know everything they could possibly learn about what she’d been doing.