“I know you do. I spent a great deal of time studying these pictures.” He turned over the photo of Dorian and Emily in the park. From the corner of his eye Dorian could see more images of himself: roughhousing with his sister, reading to her, jumping with her in a pile of leaves. “Seeing them, I couldn’t doubt that you were telling us absolutely everything you know that might help us to understand why she died.”

Dorian didn’t know what to say to that. “Sure.”

“The little jerk’s been doing nothing but lying his ass off from the first time we talked to him,” Agent Smitt snarled from behind Dorian’s left shoulder. Dorian couldn’t help twisting around at the words, and Agent Smitt’s blue eyes met his with a slick, repellent look of self-satisfaction.

“Please, Agent Smitt.” Ellison was warmly reproachful. “That’s not at all constructive. We have no reason to believe that Dorian is actually lying.”

Dorian was aware that he was being played with, but awareness didn’t stop any of it from affecting him. He felt the repulsive slap of Agent Smitt’s words, his queasy smirk, and then the soft comfort of Ellison’s reply.

“From everything we’ve learned, it sounds as if Dorian had a truly enviable life before the tragedy. Mother a professor of Russian history, father in medical research. Beautiful home, top schools. Everyone who knew them describes a very cultured, happy, loving family. ” Ben Ellison was watching Dorian too intensely as he spoke those last words. Dorian was careful to keep his face completely frozen. “Dorian would have more reason than anyone—anyone at all—to want to get to the bottom of this.”

Dorian sneezed, loudly. Smitt snickered and said, “That’s what you’d think, all right.”

“That’s what we all thought,” Ellison agreed. He focused his attention on Dorian again. “Your story doesn’t explain anything, of course. ‘Everything went dark’?” Was there a note of sarcasm in his voice? “But considering how little we know about the effect an occurrence like that might have on the human mind . . . Well, let’s just say that I was prepared to accept your version of events. It did leave open the question of how you reached the shore, though. We can definitely rule out the possibility that you swam.”

“I never said I swam.” Dorian felt his throat getting rough. “I said I didn’t know how it happened.” Ellison nodded, fixing his serious gaze on Dorian’s face.

“You don’t know how it happened. Of course. But how do you think you made it to land? What’s your theory?” Dorian stared blankly. “Just speculate. I’d like to see what ideas we can come up with together. Anything at all.”

“I mean . . .” Dorian had found a spot of carpet to stare at. “Maybe I took a lifeboat or something part of the way? And I just repressed it?”