His statement struck me like a jolt of electricity. And our encounter started to move in a direction I’d already suspected—It was terrible that the girl got killed—but wished and hoped it wouldn’t. Because if it moved that way, if Aaron was the one responsible for Jennifer’s death, then the line from that death to Aaron’s accident led directly back to me.

“Aaron,” I said.

“Shhh. I went there, and I saw where she lived. And I found out her name. It’s not hard to do. Isn’t the Internet a remarkable thing? You can see how wonderfully other people’s lives have advanced while you’re stuck in neutral. You can learn the name of a woman you want to talk to. So I went back another night, and I talked to the lovely Jennifer.”

“Did you know her already?” I asked. “Had you met her through her job, Aaron?”

A look of recognition spread across Aaron’s face. “Oh, I get it. I see. You think I knew her because she worked with prisoners as they transitioned to the outside. It’s that simple, right? Blame the ex-con.”

“You know what her job is,” I said. “Is that how you knew her?”

“I know what her job was because she told me when we talked,” Aaron said. “And yeah, we talked about my record a little. But mostly we talked about the two of you. I told her I was good friends with Blake from college. And with you, Ryan. She was suddenly very interested. And willing to talk. We talked. . . . We even had a drink. She said a few times, ‘This is totally nuts, me talking to you like this.’ But she didn’t send me away. I’ll give her credit. She was a ballsy chick. Not a shrinking violet at all. And eventually I explained the whole thing to her. How I knew you two in college, and what happened the last time we saw each other. The drinking, the hazing, the accident. How Ryan was the one behind the wheel, and how I took the fall because I couldn’t remember. Did you know we talked about that, Blake?”

Whatever color remained in Blake’s face drained away. He shook his head. “I didn’t know that,” he said. “But she and I . . . We weren’t . . . close anymore. We’d broken up. That night you saw us at the restaurant, we’d already broken up. I was letting her know that things were really over, once and for all. That’s why we were there together. The relationship was over, and I was engaged. She didn’t know me as well as she thought she did. She—she didn’t understand everything about me anymore.”

“I guess she didn’t,” Aaron said. “She didn’t seem to.”

Blake looked uncertain. His eyes narrowed, but he remained quiet, waiting for the next shoe to drop.