“Sounds noble. What does he want you to do?”

“I told you this too. He’ll be the face of the foundation. I’ll be the brain trust. Together, we’re the whole package, the head and the heart. We were all set to get started, but I flaked out.” I shrug. “Like with you and med school. One day you’re a doctor; next, you’re having a go at sex crimes.”

“I investigate them. I don’t commit them.”

“Oh, sorry. You weren’t clear.”

“Now what? Now that your brother’s been arrested, how does that change things?”

“Don’t know that it does.” Leaning across the table, I get so close to Haggerty’s face I can smell his aftershave. I swipe whipped cream off his pie and lick it, slowly, off my fingertips. “You’re handsome. For a cop.”

Haggerty doesn’t smile back. “Stop.” His voice is as hard as his eyes. I bet under his baggy clothes this guy is a savage. “I am not playing.”

“I’m better than this?” My voice is just as hard. I’m a savage too. “Flirting is beneath me? Frankly, Detective, your questions are beneath you. You don’t care about Lawrence’s business or the foundation. Tell me what you really want, and then we’ll have a conversation.”

“You know what I want. I want you to tell me about Marcus Silver. He doesn’t show up on any Google searches for men aged thirty-five through seventy in the Tri-State area.”

“So what? I already told you: it’s over.”

“But it happened. You were a minor. He was an adult. It’s a crime. What if there were other girls? No one wants a predator roaming the streets.”

“There was no one else.”

“Only you.” Haggerty smirks. “You know that for sure?”

“I’d bet my life on it.” I pause. “Let’s say this is true. I was a minor; he was an adult. But what if it only happened once? One time before I turned seventeen. You’d arrest a man for one time? No credit for all the other times he held out?”

“That’s not how the law works, unfortunately.”

“Okay, let’s say he leaves his wife, and we get engaged. What could you charge him with? Statutory rape of his fiancée?” I think of Mary Kay Letourneau, a teacher who went to jail for raping her student, a minor, whom she later married. It’s possible, I concede.

“I’m sorry, Cassie.” His voice is a whisper. I notice he calls me Cassie. And says it with kindness. “Marcus Silver will never leave his wife. Not even for you.”

“Oh, I know. We broke up, remember?” I try to sound confident, but Haggerty’s conviction, the finality of it, is chilling.