He stops halfway to the table. I didn’t tell him the last part about the lake, about the boy we thought was Colin telling us his name was Jay. And I know what he’s seeing. Looking at the boy in the chair is like looking at a person in one of those distorted carnival mirrors: it is and yet isn’t Jay’s reflection. His hair’s grown out. Face gaunt from lack of sun and fresh food. A patchwork beard stretches from his chin to his cheekbones. But still, if you blur your eyes a little, it could be Jay.

I decide to go with my initial impulse.

“Colin—” I begin.

“Colin,” the boy repeats. His voice strangely empty. “Such a stupid name.”

I pause just a fraction. “Is that how it started?”

“What?”

“You pretending to be Jay.”

We stare at each other. His sweater’s overlarge, thick with grime, and fraying at the sleeves. He’s fiddling with a string that’s come loose. Under one cuff, I glimpse a nice watch, the type that has to be wound and ticks loudly. It bothers me, for some reason.

Oliver opens the folder on the table. Inside are Jay’s transcripts from his freshman year, fall of his second, and this past spring.

The boy leans over. Smirks to see the line of Ds on the first column. I tap the one with As and Bs.

“Seems like Jay underwent quite the transformation sophomore year,” I say. “If he kept that up, he might have made the dean’s list.”

He gives an ugly, twisted smile, but something sad ebbs at the edges.

“We know you were sitting in for Jay. Signing his name on attendance sheets. Writing his papers. Taking his tests. All we have to do is show the professors your picture next to Jay’s and we’ll have confirmation it was you in class.” I close the folder. “But we’re not attendance police. We don’t care about any of that. We just want to understand Jay better. And why someone might want to kill him.”

He stares at me.

I lean back in my chair and match his gaze.

“When did you meet Jay?” I ask.

He blinks in confusion and then smiles. “I guess you could say I’ve known him my entire life.”

Cute, I think. So this is how it’s going to be.

“And is this how you remember him?”

I pull the worst of the morgue shots—grayish skin, lips receding, eyes pinched—and put them faceup on the table.