“Lastly, the university’s board members will apply their own pressure. Parents don’t want to send their little girls off to a college where they won’t be safe. This girl is pretty and young. They’re going to trot out her fucking baby pictures for the media. Grade-school snapshots of Zoe Finch in pigtails will be all over the news and Internet. Her parents will go on the nightly news to plead for their daughter’s return. You, on the other hand, had better never have been convicted of so much as a parking ticket. The media will find the worst shots of you possible to bombard the public. If there’s anything resembling a mug shot anywhere in the universe, they will find it.”

“This is all wrong.”

“Conor, snap out of it. This is real. You are caught in the middle of an emotionally volatile situation. You have to deal with it. The detectives will be in here any minute. Answer their questions as succinctly as possible. If I think a question is loaded, I’ll stop you from answering. Don’t volunteer information. Do not refer to this girl in the past tense. Not even once. As far as you know, she is alive and well and spent the night at a friend’s beach house. And Conor, pay attention, because the questions they ask will tell us about the evidence they’ve found.”

Light-headed, Conor dropped his head into his hands. Blood rushed in his ears.

The door opened, and Detectives Jackson and Ianelli came in. Damian moved to the chair next to Conor, leaving the cops to sit across the table.

Damian held up a hand. “Before we get started, Mr. Sullivan needs a glass of water.”

Ianelli slipped out the door. He returned in a couple of minutes and set a paper cup in front of Conor.

He drank the cool liquid and used the minute to get his shit together. They read him his Miranda rights and handed him a paper to sign confirming he understood them.

Jackson rested his forearms on the table. “Let’s start with a recap of Monday night.”

“You have the surveillance video,” Conor said.

Jackson nodded. “We’d like to hear what happened in your words.”

“A group of Flyers fans came in after the game. One girl and four guys. The guys were drinking pretty hard. One of the guys grabs his girl. She protests, but he won’t let her go. I interceded. The guy took a swing at me, so I popped him. Then I bounced him. The other three guys took him and left. The girl stayed behind. I offered to call her a cab. She declined, saying she’d call her roommate for a ride, but when closing time came, she was still there. I asked her how she was getting home, and she said the subway. I locked up, gave her a ride to the station, and went home.”