Ridley scrolled through the names and faces on the Ohio Bar Association website and found a young woman who looked like she might be willing to do some digging. He emailed her, so she’d have time to Google and find all the handsome photos of him at microphones, celebrating with clients, leading meetings, accepting awards. Soon enough the phone rang and he spun the tale of the boy who was dating his “very naïve” niece.

“Her mother thinks she is giving him money,” he said. “If you could just lift the hood a little, see if there’s anything I should know about. I’d certainly owe you a night on the town. Are you ever in New York?”

The lady lawyer laughed and said she might have to plan a trip. The next day she called back with the news that Trevor Barber had a sealed juvenile record, a brother who’d served time in prison for drugs, and parents with an underwater mortgage. Twenty thousand should have been more than enough but apparently Claudia had Trevor under her spell, too. Having Eric grab the phone was risky—it upped the ante—but he’d had to make a quick decision. The boy was stupid to have turned down the money.

If he could have avoided Jeremy Cahill he would have, but Ridley needed to know if the kid from Long Island was going to be a problem. After he procured Trevor’s phone, Ridley went back downtown and found Jeremy outside the dorm. He invited him into the car, and when he showed the boy the video the poor kid’s face went white. After a long silence Jeremy said quietly: “That’s not how I remember it.”

“Well,” said Ridley, “I assume there was a good bit of alcohol involved. Perhaps other substances?”

Jeremy nodded and Ridley explained that what was on the video was a crime Jeremy could do time in prison for, and that it would be best for everyone—including Claudia, because who wants to be seen like that?—if all copies were destroyed.

“I’ll give you thirty thousand dollars cash if you can bring me Claudia’s phone,” he said.

“You can’t get it?”

“I’m working on it,” said Ridley, taking care not to sound irritated that he hadn’t been able to track down a nineteen-year-old girl whose mother he was fucking. Though that was over now, of course.

Ridley opened his briefcase and took out an envelope.

“This is a thousand dollars,” he said to Jeremy. “Take it. If you get the phone, call the number on the card inside.”

He supposed he hadn’t really expected the kid to deliver but neither had he expected the call he got a few mornings later from Chad, saying that Jeremy was in the hospital.

“He got jumped or something last night,” said his son over the phone.