Colin’s mouth is still open. He’s staring at us and blinking hard like a rabbit surrounded by a pack of dogs who’ve just been called back by their owner. One more minute, I think, and he would have confessed it all. The cheating. The stolen car. Slamming his foot against the accelerator instead of the brake.

Truman stops me at the door. Florence rushes past, and I watch her embrace her son as I hand over my badge.

I resign, just like I promised.

Mr. Haines doesn’t move. He’s still wavering in the doorway when I follow Truman out of the room.

I cast one last glance behind me and realize almost as an afterthought that the ill-fitting sweater Colin’s wearing must also be Jay’s, and he must have worn it, still fresh with Jay’s scent, since the day he died.

As I look around for Teddy, I wonder absently what that means—Colin wearing Jay’s sweater. But Teddy’s nowhere in sight. His desk is tidy, jacket and helmet gone.

All the adrenaline abandons me then. The high wire I’ve been tripping across for days seems to vanish beneath my feet. My stomach rises to my chest and leaves me feeling weightless, the ground rushing toward me at an undefinable speed, too empty to know whether its impact will damage me any more than I’ve already destroyed myself.

It will be Oliver’s job now to fill in the details. Check video footage along 85 for signs of Colin driving the BMW. See if he stopped for gas. Anything that can link him directly to the car that day. Florence will fight tooth and nail to protect her son, but Colin’s instinct for self-preservation has already been worn down by the year he spent as Jay, the weeks alone at the cabin, and the long night in the interview room staring at gray ceiling tiles and waiting for the hybrid beast he and Jay created to finally swallow him whole. Oliver will try to grind him down hard enough so that he breaks. When really, he’s already broken. They all are. Suddenly it all seems so meaningless.

Nineteen

Monday, December 9, 7:00 A.M.

I keep my head down while I gather my things. Oliver’s still in Truman’s office with the door closed.

I feel a shift in the air and look up to find Amy, arms crossed, watching from the doorway as I shuffle pens and candy bars into a cardboard box.

The clock on the wall reads 7:10. She arrived just in time to see the end of my not so illustrious career. The idea that she’s been sent to escort me out is so ludicrous and I’m so delirious with fatigue that I let out a high-pitched and strangled laugh that might be mistaken for a sob.

“What?” I ask when she clicks her tongue.