I had laughed and shrugged, twirling my martini glass between my fingers. “I’m just asking…”

Now, as I stood next to his hospital bed and his face scrunched up in the way faces do when they’re about to explode into sobs, I was frozen, unable to process what was happening. I knew how much his return to the swim team had meant to him, but I didn’t know how to handle his reaction. As the tears began to stream down his cheeks, I finally snapped out of it and moved closer, bringing my arms around his shaking body.

“Babe,” I said. “It’s okay.”

And it was in that moment, as I quietly breathed in his sorrow in that shared hospital room, that I thought about the phone that was buried in my purse.

The one that might be dead by now but, if not, probably had several more missed calls from a famous pop star on it.

I thought about what Vanessa had said—there should be a reward for keeping quiet about what I’d seen that night. And for whatever evidence, given Hooks’s reaction earlier that night, was undoubtedly on his phone.

A $180,000 reward.

I thought about Tiffane’s promise that she would leave Ryan the minute she heard even a whisper about another woman. And I pictured the woman from the park—Emma—and her face when I’d mentioned that I’d be going to see Ryan Hooks.

It was right then that I knew what I would do.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said again, and I pulled back and looked into Keith’s face. I cleared my throat. “Actually, I have some good news.”

He looked up at me and wiped at his eyes before taking a few long, slow breaths. “What is it?” he asked.

“The la-di-d’artists,” I said with a smile, swallowing as the lie began to form in the back of my throat. “They’ve decided to make you the primary recipient of the next Art Bowl. They told me yesterday, but I wasn’t sure when to tell you.”

The Art Bowl was an annual charity event that a few alumni from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago had been pulling together for the past five years. With contributions from the school, other former students, and community guests, it had become one of the largest crowd-sourced art fund-raisers in the city, raising money for a new cause each year. I’d talked to Tammy Davies, who led the effort, about the possibility of honoring Keith one year, and I’d never seen someone look more uncomfortable in my life.