Colin considers this, looking past me to the framed photographs on the wall.

“No,” he says, smiling a little sadly. “There’s no Colin here.” He moves to stand, but Teddy takes a step toward him, and he sits back, folding his hands in his lap.

“I’m Jay,” he says after a confused pause. “Jay Kemp.”

Eighteen

Monday, December 9, 1:00 A.M.

We drive the long stretch of dark highway in silence. I keep glancing at the boy in the rearview mirror. He’s quiet, staring at his own reflection against the black of the car window, and my mind’s flipping through images like one of those memory games. Each time I grasp the features of one boy, it vanishes and becomes the other. Jay with floppy brown hair and a sheepish grin on his student ID. Colin on the beach with one arm draped over his mother’s shoulder. Jay on the asphalt with blood leaking from his lips. Colin on the couch with white puffs emanating from his mouth. It’s not possible, I keep reminding myself. Jay’s body was identified by his parents. His photo was on display at the fraternity memorial service, his face circulated in the news. But another voice whispers that Jay’s professors saw those photos and thought it was the boy in their classrooms. None of his brothers came forward to tell us we had the wrong name. Katie was distraught; and certainly, she above anyone else would know the difference between Jay and Colin.

We set him up in interview room A. When I caution him, he blinks and then flinches. He looks alternatively confused and nervous, ghostly under the fluorescent lights with greenish circles under his eyes.

“Coffee?” Teddy offers.

It’s the first word he’s said since we put the boy in the back of the car, and it’s directed at him rather than me. I can see why: Colin-Jay—whoever he is—is cowering in his chair and he’s shivering. The suggestion of coffee’s an attempt to warm him up.

It’s not cold though. In fact, after the lake house, it feels almost balmy at the station. All that trembling is the adrenaline coursing through his body, increasing his heart rate, sending blood racing toward his muscles, and causing his limbs to shake. He’s scared, or nervous, or both. And it’s time we find out why.

But coffee gives Teddy the pretext for leaving the room. I sit there for a minute like an idiot, blinking at Colin-Jay and the empty seat next to me, and then follow him.

When I march back to the bullpen, Teddy’s on the phone with Oliver. In the car, I rang Truman with fingers crossed he wouldn’t answer—at this hour, it would be like waking a sleeping bear—but the call went to voicemail.