Midnight, and someone is leaning on Jark’s doorbell. Hard.
He’s awake. His diarrhea is not better, and he’s been unable to sleep for fear of fouling his bed. So he’s been sitting on his screened-in veranda, taking a break from celebratory emails and responses to the congratulations flowing in from locals and Silicon Valley colleagues and celebrities alike. Listening to the rain, reading books, hydrating, trying not to freak out. His phone has been shut off for hours. A common step, for times when stress threatens to overwhelm him. Something his guru recommended.
The doorbell chimes, over and over.
Passing the mammoth, he sees bright blue and red lights flashing outside. And the little mouse nibble of fear he felt earlier, when the mayor showed up at his office all smiling and apologetic to take him to the police station for some questions—is now a gaping shark bite splitting him down the middle. Intestines unfurl in the dark sea around him. Cold water floods his internal organs.
They’ve come to arrest me. I don’t know why and I don’t know what to do about it but I know that’s why they’re here.
Like any self-respecting billionaire, Jark has a go bag hidden in his house. Cash and passports; credit cards under other names, backed up by actual bank accounts. For six seconds he stands there, in the shadow of his skeleton, and debates making a break for it. Grabbing the bag, running out the back . . . into what? A freezing downpour; a tiny town where the whole police force is apparently right outside his door? Even if they didn’t have the place surrounded, even if they didn’t tackle him before he takes his third step across the backyard, he wouldn’t last fifteen minutes out there.
But it’s a stupid instinct. He didn’t do anything wrong. Whatever it is, he can fight it. He can afford to win.
He opens the front door, to find the outgoing mayor with his thumb on the doorbell, and a dozen cops standing behind him. Is this some weird hazing ritual, a good-natured passing of the baton?
“Nate,” he says, smiling, but the mayor doesn’t smile back.
The man looks like shit. Pale and wan and soaking wet. Probably he has diarrhea, too. Chief Propst looks angry, and the cops look even angrier.
“Jark Trowse, you’re under arrest.” The chief’s voice is flat, emotionless. Cold.
Jark turns to the mayor, looking for the friendly man he’s known for years now. “Nate, come on. What’s this all about?”
“For the statutory rape of Jeremy Bentwick,” continues the chief. “And for filming the incident without the knowledge or the consent of the subject. And for sharing that recording on the internet, which constitutes distribution of child pornography.” He speaks slowly, like Jark might be dumb. Like he had been completely wrong about who he believed Jark was. Like they all were. Like he hates himself for it. “You have the right to remain silent. Do you understand?”
Jark doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand anything.
“Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. Do. You. Understand.”
Jark is wearing his pajamas. They put the cuffs on him.
“You have the right to an attorney.”
He knows he should at least ask if he can put on his jacket—a pair of shoes, even—but all of this is so far beyond the scope of what he thought life could ever hand him that he is completely unable to formulate a sentence. When they lead him out into the rain, he feels as cold and dead inside as Chief Propst’s voice.