Sean snorted. His jaw was so tight I could see muscles moving in his temples.

“I’m sorry.” Elise reached out. Seemed to want to take my hand, but stopped herself. I was untouchable. “Mel is sick. She’s sick, and she’s secretive, and we would have stopped her if we’d just—”

“Don’t get sucked in by this crap, Ted,” Sean said to me. “Mentally ill or not, she systematically, strategically, and with deliberate forethought set out to ruin any trace of a good reputation you had left in the world. If you ask me, she probably thought she had struck gold when she saw you’d been arrested for Claire’s abduction. There are people who are like that. They come wriggling out of the woodwork when they smell opportunity.”

Sean gave Elise a searing look. The young woman actually cowered, neared Frankie, the sleeves of her hoodie almost in her mouth.

“Your sister thought she could drop the accusations on national television and then run off with the money like she didn’t have a care in the world,” Sean said. “Who was going to question them, right? The whole world knows this man’s a fucking monster!” Sean slapped me in the chest. I winced. “And then suddenly the police are involved, she’s chickening out with a fucking mental illness sob story. What a heartbreaker. No worries, then! All’s forgiven!”

“No.” Elise stiffened with a moment of boldness. “She—”

“We’re suing,” Sean snapped. He went back into the interview room and slammed down his briefcase, started stuffing papers into it. He came back to the door. “We’re suing your sister, Ms. Springfield. We’re suing the producer. We’re suing the network. Stories and Lives hasn’t answered the phone to you because they’re holding damage-control meetings. I suggest you and your family do the same.”

Sean charged past Elise, his shark eyes locked on her downturned face until the last instant. The best lawyers can do that. Reduce you, so that you can’t even look them in the face, the strength drained right out of your legs and your stomach threatening to force itself up into your throat. I knew that from experience.

Frankie followed Sean down the hall, leaving Elise and me alone. I was too exhausted to even feel awkward. I leaned in the doorway, watching my lawyer go, his rants bouncing off the narrow walls as Frankie tried to calm him. Elise took her hair out of its ponytail and put it up again, an unconscious resetting, pulling the hair too tight, still sniffling. She nibbled her nails. When she dared to meet my eyes, she found me watching her and looked away, burning with shame.

“I can’t imagine what all this has been like,” she said.

I couldn’t think how to describe it, so I didn’t try.

“Did you read the transcript of the interview?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Those accusations,” I said. “They were pretty specific. The treats. The games. You have to wonder if she adapted what she said from something real that happened to her. Or you.”