“What’s the age range of your wards?”

“They’re all adolescents.”

“There’s a challenge.”

“You bet.”

“Is that by choice?”

“We’re masochists,” he said, chuckling. “Seriously, a lot of people don’t want the baggage teens bring to the table, so Cherish and I figured that’s where our efforts would be best spent.” Boyish shrug. “Sometimes I wonder, though. It can feel like temporary insanity.”

“That I can believe.”

He looked over at the doughnut stand. Crowded, just like the first time.

I said, “Rand wasn’t that long out of his teens. That could also be an issue for your kids.”

“Sure,” he said quickly, but his eyes told me he wasn’t tracking.

“Perceived similarity,” I went on. “There’s a whole bunch of data on how it relates to empathy.”

“If it could happen to him, it could happen to me?” he said. “Sure, makes total sense. But what I was referring to are the core issues they’re wrestling with. Sense of identity, establishing autonomy. And, of course, they think they’re immortal.” Wry smile. “We did, at that age, right? All that stuff we kept from our parents.”

I forced my own smile. Trying not to think about what this guy did to young girls’ autonomy.

A thirteen-year-old bleeding out in a prison supply room.

I said, “Thank God my parents never knew some of the things I did.”

“You were a wild guy?” he said, shifting closer. Engaging me with those warm dark eyes. As if I were the most important person on earth.

Return of the teeth.

Charisma. The most skillful psychopaths know how to play it like a guitar. Sometimes the smartest ones get to the top of the corporate ladder or the highest rungs of elected office. In the end, though, shallow theatrics are often counterbalanced by laziness and sloppiness.

Doing someone else’s wife in the marital bed.

Writing and shopping a thinly described screenplay and expecting it to make you an overnight millionaire.

Impregnating minors for a hobby and billing the state for their abortions.

For all his wizardry at manipulation, Daney was miles from where he wanted to be, the lifestyle he’d glimpsed after hooking up with Sydney Weider: Brentwood, Aspen, private jets, red carpet fantasies. All that upscale pillow talk fevering his brain.

Look at me look at me look at me!

Eight years later, instead of all that, he was a middle-aged guy running around singing camp songs and trying to cadge money from Dr. Marta Demchuk.

Fool’s move; Demchuk was tough and Daney’s smarmy mojo worked only on the weakest of victims.

He flexed a thick wrist, ran his hand through his thick, wavy hair.

I said, “I was never wild enough to get into serious trouble, but I had my moments.”

“I’ll bet you did.”

“How about you?”

He hesitated for a moment. “Nah, I was a good boy. Maybe too good.”

“Choir boy?”