“Please affix it to your outer clothing,” he says, then points to where the elevators are located.

I get a similar pang of familiarity when the elevator doors open to let someone off on the seventh floor, my old stomping grounds. I crane my neck to see if there’s anyone loitering in the halls whom I might know, but then the doors shut again. A few seconds later, they part at my destination.

McKenney greets me at the threshold to his office. Although the DA’s work space lacks the panoramic view that my father’s boasts, as well as the museum-quality art, it’s no less a kingdom. There is certainly no shortage of places to sit—four guest chairs opposite his desk, twelve others around a conference table, two sofas and three armchairs. The walls are covered with photographs of Drake McKenney and A-listers from politics and the arts. Everyone from President Trump to Jay-Z is represented in the pantheon of famous people who have shaken Drake McKenney’s hand.

McKenney arranges himself behind his desk, then directs me to occupy a chair opposite it by pointing. When we’re both situated, he gets down to business.

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” he says.

I suspect he doesn’t have the first clue as to what I’ve been doing with my life since I left the office. Like everyone in the legal community, he knows my father. Like everyone in the English-speaking world, he knows about Charlotte’s murder. I don’t flatter myself into thinking that he’s given me a second thought in the last nine months. More to the point, I doubt he gave any thought to me at all even during the years I worked for him.

“Not every day the District Attorney asks to speak to you.”

“Your circumstances are going to become even rarer in a moment,” he says. “People sit where you are every day and ask me for a favor of one type or another. But today, you’re going to receive such a request, because I have a favor to ask of you. And like they’re always telling me, I wouldn’t be asking if it weren’t important.”

For years, I thought about my career path at the office. And now, after I’ve given up on being a lawyer altogether, the promotion I long dreamed about is at hand. Talk about irony.

“I’m all ears, Mr. McKenney.”

“Please, call me Drake.”

“Drake.”

“The reason I’ve asked you to come down here is that, quite frankly, when Lauren was murdered, I made a mistake allowing Dana Goodwin to handle the investigation.”