• • •

Only two of the five lawyers John called said they were available—one being Jeb Harris, who had been in the news for successfully defending two Philadelphia rap stars in a drive-by shooting despite an overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence. John didn’t like Harris’s attitude on the phone; it was as if he’d interrupted him. John felt like a nuisance rather than a client who would be paying him an extraordinarily high hourly rate, money he’d have to borrow from his parents.

The other was a young woman named Susan Clark, a former prosecutor who had “seen the light” and who told John she was fascinated by Ben’s case, that she’d been following the story all year. The decision was easy. John arranged a short call between her and Carrie when Carrie got home from the cemetery, then searched for other high-profile names he could call in New Jersey and New York, just in case Carrie hated her.

Within seconds of introducing herself on the phone, Susan told Carrie she thought she should agree to a police interview right away, as proof that “we have nothing to hide.” She said we like they were a team. They spent a few minutes exchanging information, but everything Carrie offered, Susan already seemed to know. She put her on hold and a few seconds later came back on to tell her she had cleared her calendar and arranged for the detectives to meet them at the precinct at eight o’clock the next morning.

Carrie hung up the phone in the kitchen. She felt queasy, exhausted, empty. She opened the refrigerator, took out a can of Diet Coke, and poured it over ice. John was upstairs changing his clothes. She swallowed the caffeine gratefully, felt the rush of bubbles as she heard the drawers above her open and close slowly, the clinking of a belt buckle, a clatter of change going in and out of a new pocket. Finally, he came down and sat across from her, his face pale.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“Carrie, I—”

“What, John?”

He opened his hand and held out the dog hair from the bureau. “Are you sure you’re not in love with that guy?”

Carrie closed her eyes, took a deep breath. “You went through my drawers, John? What’s next, a cavity search?”

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“John,” she said, “you have to stop doing this. I am not having an affair with that dog guy, okay?”

He looked down at his hands, suddenly ashamed. The same look he had the night she’d caught him on the path at college. Hiding behind the bushes. Strong but weak, vulnerable as a boy. She reached up, kissed him hard, and held him.

“I love you, John,” she said.

“I love you too.”

“Then stop going through the closets and drawers.”