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  Mason looked at Rachel. She looked as confused as he felt. “You're calling us at midnight-thirty to tell us your professor is missing?” she asked. “Wait, do you mean Professor–”

  “Ashton,” Mason cut in, before she could say asshat.

  “Yeah. There were signs of a struggle near his car, which is still in the campus parking lot. He didn’t go home last night, and he’s nowhere on campus.”

  Rachel said, “And that's a problem because...?"

  "I punched him in the face yesterday."

  "You punched him in the face?" Mason asked. "You want to be a cop, and you punched a guy in the face?"

  "I know. It was stupid. He flat out called me a liar. Someone saw, I guess, and told the police when they came around asking about him."

  "So the police are involved," Mason said.

  “Yeah, that’s why I’m calling. I’m…at your work, Uncle Mace.”

  “At my work?”

  “At the police department?” Rachel went bug-eyed. “Jeremy, are they questioning you about the professor’s disappearance?”

  “Not yet, but yeah, I guess that’s the plan. And I was alone last night, so….”

  “No alibi,” Rachel whispered.

  “Don’t answer a single question, Jeremy," Mason said. "You hear me? Not a word. If they question you without a lawyer, I’ll–”

  “Chief Cantone says no one can question me until you get here.”

  “We’ll be there soon, Jere,” Rachel said. She was already out of the chair. “You’re gonna be okay. Just…be okay. Be smart. And don’t worry. We’ve got this.”

  “We’ll call a lawyer on the way,” Mason told him. “Put the chief on the phone.”

  “Just a sec. She went out of the room to give me privacy.”

  “There’s no such thing as privacy in a police department,” Mason said.

  “Well, she let me use her office, so.…” The door creaked when it opened. “Chief?” Jeremy called, very softly, so she must’ve been close.

  A second later, Vanessa Cantone’s voice came over the line. “Mason–”

  “Not one question, you hear me? This is my kid, Chief.”

  “That’s why he’s in my office and not an interrogation room. And yeah, you’re welcome.”

  “Thank you,” Rachel said quickly.

  “Get here,” the chief said. “Bring a lawyer. It looks bad.”

  9

  He’s losing it, Rache.

  I can see that, Inner Bitch.

  Mason had been up and down the stairs five times in about a minute and a half; first for clothes, then keys, then wallet, then phone, then shoes, all at a dead run. I’d already called his mother, woke the poor thing up and asked her to come over and stay with Josh, who was sleeping upstairs. Josh had no clue about any of this. Yet.

  I was rapid scrolling the search results for “criminal defense attorney, Binghamton NY” on my phone when Mason headed out the front door, keys in hand.

  I caught up fast, snatched his keys, and said, “I’m driving. You’re too distracted. And we’re waiting for your mother to get here.” He looked at me and blinked. I figured my words were bouncing off his skull into space. “Here.” I handed him my phone. “Pick a lawyer.”

  He took the phone, looked at it, looked at me. The poor guy’s head was spinning.

  “I’ll help,” I said. “Imagine you’ve arrested the most detestable criminal in the universe, and you know he’s guilty. Who’s the lawyer you really hope he doesn’t hire?”

  “Celia Moon.” He said it without hesitation. “I hate her guts.”

  “There you go. Find her number and call her. There’s your mom.”

  Angela’s headlights bounded up the driveway and stopped. I was at the door of her Mercedes before she even got out. “Thanks so much for coming.”

  “Of course,” she said. She hadn’t put on makeup, and I was super touched by that, because Angela never so much as checked her mailbox without full hair and makeup. I’d told her everyone was fine, but it was urgent. Her grandsons were everything to her.

  “Is Jeremy all right?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

  “We don’t really know.”

  “Bullshit,” she said, and she held my eyes.

  “You never say bullshit.”

  “I learned it from you. Now tell me the truth.”

  Mason’s mother was growing on me. We’d had a moment, a while back. It had changed things. We were bonding. I decided to give it to her straight, because in her place, that’s how I’d want it. And I respected her. I respected even fewer people than I liked, so that was saying a lot. “He had a fight with a professor who has since gone missing. They’ve brought him in for questioning. That’s honest to goodness all we know. No bullshit.”

  Angela nodded. “Thank you. I hate being protected from harsh truths. It’s ageism, you know. Is Josh in bed?”

  “Sound asleep. Doesn’t know any of this.”

  “What should I tell him if he wakes up?”

  “See how much easier this would’ve been if you hadn’t called bullshit on me?”

  “I know nothing,” she said. “I’ll get him off to school if you’re not back in time.”

  “Thanks. You’re a life-saver.”

  “No, Rachel. You are.” She clasped my shoulders and kissed my actual cheek, instead of the air near my cheek. “Go, before my son’s head explodes.”

  Mason was outside, pacing and talking on his cell. Apparently, the defense attorney he hated most was on the other end of the call. I went to him and touched his arm. He was already pocketing the phone and getting into the passenger side of my T-bird without even arguing in favor of taking his own ride.

  “You get ahold of Celia Moon?” I asked, backing out and around, then heading up our beaten path toward civilization.

  “She said she’d be with Jeremy in fifteen minutes.”

  I lifted my brows. “Why do you hate her again?”

  “Because she’s good.”

  When we walked through the beehive a half hour later, Mason was greeted with sympathetic looks and shoulder pats all around. Chief Cantone came out of her office. Sleek dark hair pulled behind her head with an abalone shell clasp to hold it there. She wore a blue suit that hugged every curve, and an attitude that dared anyone to say shit about it.

  She didn’t meet Mason’s eyes, but marched ahead of us to an interrogation room, tapped twice, and opened the door.

  Jeremy was sitting at a table with a woman beside him. She was leaning close, one hand on his shoulder. He looked as if he’d been in lockup for a month on bread and water. He was pale, shaky, puffy. We’d just seen him off Tuesday morning. It was Thursday. Technically, Friday. There was only one thing I could think of that could make him look that bad, that fast.

  The woman beside him got up and faced us. She was a tall black woman with piercing green eyes and cropped brown hair with blond tips. I was sure I’d never seen her before, because I’d remember if I had. She was impressive.

  “Detective Brown,” she said, giving Mason a quick nod. Then she extended a hand to me. “I’m Celia Moon.”

  “Rachel de Luca,” I said, and I shook. Her grip was cool, dry and firm. Her energy was fierce. “Thanks for coming.”

  “Can you fill us in?” Mason asked.

  “Absolutely not,” Celia replied, almost before he’d finished the question. “Jeremy is of age and our communications are privileged. But I’ll give you some privacy so he can fill you in as much as he wants to.” She looked back at Jeremy. “Ten minutes? Then I’ll be back with Chief Cantone to get your statement.”

  Jeremy nodded. “Thanks, Celia.”

  She gave him a nod and left the room, pulling the door closed behind her. He looked like he was facing a firing squad. I looked up at the camera in the corner. Jere said, “It’s fine, Celia made sure they were off. And nothing I’m going to say is incriminating, anyway.”

  “Are you under arrest?” Mason asked.

&n
bsp; “No. Celia said I can leave any time I want, but I thought I should cooperate as much as possible.” He closed his eyes. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “You look like hell, Jeremy,” I told him. I knew why. I wasn’t sure if he would admit it or not, or whether Mason had picked up on it, in the state he was in. But it was obvious to me Jeremy had been drinking hard.

  It had happened before. He'd been drinking and hiding it until hiding it was no longer possible. He had a problem. It would have been pretty naive of us to think it was going to be once and done. Especially with his history. This damned missing professor had triggered him with his asinine assignment. I wished I'd have punched him myself.

  He had no way of knowing, though, Inner Bitch tried to reason.

  He called my kid a liar. Fuck him.

  Mason said, “Tell me everything.” It was a clear contradiction of Celia’s parting shot. Not that it had been a shot. It had been a message. Mason was the one who'd called her, but she worked for Jeremy. He was calling the shots, not his uncle the cop.

  Jeremy didn’t have any reason to keep secrets from Mason, though. Mason would die for the kid–had done worse than die for him.

  “I told you about the assignment. Last week Professor Ashton assigned us to write about our most traumatic experiences in the form of a police report. He said it would count for half our grade. I wrote about Mom. He gave me a zero and said I'd made it up."

  Jeremy's mother Marie was in a locked psych unit for the rest of her life. That hadn’t stopped her from breaking out and wreaking havoc in her kids’ lives, though. Writing about that would've brought it all back. It was no wonder Jere was drinking again.

  "And this is the part we already know," I said, an impatient edge to my voice.

  He took a deep breath. "I went to see him again today. I mean, yesterday. I don't even know what time it is."

  "It's after one."

  "We argued. I punched him in the face.” Jere shrugged, and lowered his head. “I stormed out of his office. That’s the last time I saw him."

  I was counting time in my head. Jere had gone back to campus Tuesday morning. He must’ve started drinking almost immediately to look as bad as he looked. He might've even been drunk when he'd hit the professor.

  “God, I’m an idiot. I never should’ve hit him. I wanna be a cop. Maybe I’ve messed that up for good.”

  “You haven’t,” I said. “Not unless you choose to believe you have. You need my bullshit books right about now, Jere.”

  He smiled a funny little smile. “I’ve been reading your bullshit books since I was sixteen, Aunt Rache.”

  My heart turned into a thick, pink puddle of love. He laid me low with it. I swallowed so I could talk again.

  “And you have no alibi for the hours between that last encounter and the time the police picked you up because…?” I asked.

  He lifted his head and looked me in the eye, like he didn’t know I could see right through him. He said, “I was alone in my dorm room all afternoon and night. And that’s the truth.” He shifted his eyes to Mason’s. “Find him, Uncle Mace. That’s the best way to clear me. If you can just find him, this all goes away."

  “I’ll find him,” Mason said. “I don’t want you answering questions right now. I want you to get up and walk out of here with us. Not a word to anyone.”

  “Celia says–”

  “I don’t give a shit what Celia says. Get up and walk out with me. Go straight to the car, not a word to anybody. Now.”

  I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. Mason didn’t talk to the boys that way. And then I saw the look in his eyes. He knew. He knew Jeremy had been drinking.

  Jeremy knew we knew it, too. He got up onto his feet like he had an assload of lead. Mason opened the door and walked out first. The chief was out there, and so was Celia Moon. Static energy hung between them.

  “Wait, what’s going on?” Chief Cantone asked when she saw us.

  “Not a word,” Mason said. He clapped an arm firmly around Jeremy’s shoulders. “I’m taking him home. You want to question him, you can do it there. But not today.”

  Celia looked at me like I was the one in charge.

  Usually you are.

  I know, right? This is a different side of Mason.

  It’s kind of hot.

  I didn’t have a clue what the hell was happening with my mild-mannered man, and I told the chief so with a shrug of my shoulders.

  Mason led Jeremy straight through the beehive and out into the hallway. I was right behind them, and Celia walked with us while Chief V yelled, “Brown, come on. You know better than this shit. Let me talk to him.”

  Celia turned around and stood in her path while Mason and Jere kept walking. I was sort of hovering in between, not wanting to miss a trick, either way.

  “Detective Brown is right,” Celia told the chief. “Jeremy’s exhausted and shocked. It’s the middle of the night. He’s barely out of high school. Upon reflection, I’d prefer my client be well-rested before answering any questions or making any statement. I’ll call you and we’ll set something up.”

  “Goddammit, Brown!” the chief shouted, ignoring the lawyer like she wasn’t even there. “Mason!”

  Mason looked back at her, and if I’d been on the receiving end of that glare, I’d have wilted. Then he pushed the front door open and ushered Jeremy through. I hurried up to him. “What can I do?”

  “Get him home. I need to be here.”

  “I can give them a lift,” Celia said, having come out right behind us.

  Mason looked at her. I couldn’t believe he disliked her. She was powerful, capable, confident, and a little bit scary. She didn’t take shit from anybody. You could feel all that wafting from her pores. I could, anyway.

  So I said, “I think that’s a great idea. That way she can consult with Jere on his own turf and–”

  “It’s the middle of the night,” Mason said. “She can come over tomorrow.” Then, to Celia, “Afternoon.”

  She held up a palm. “All good. All good.”

  I sent Celia Moon a grateful look, then escorted Jeremy out the door and down the wide stone steps to the T-bird, parked a little bit crookedly by an expired meter in front. We both got in. Celia gave us a wave. “See you tomorrow, Jeremy.”

  “Thanks for coming, Celia.”

  He closed his door, and I pulled away from the curb. I knew damn well Mason wasn’t going to leave the office until he knew everything there was to know about the disappearance of Professor Asshat.

  I planned to do a little digging of my own.

  But there was one thing I didn’t need to dig into at all. “So you were alone in your dorm room all afternoon and all night tonight?”

  Jeremy looked at me. There was a mix of guilt and accusation in his eyes. “You already know, don’t you?”

  “That you were drinking? Maybe ever since you went back? Yeah. And Mason knows it, too.”

  “How?”

  “Um, have you walked past a mirror lately?” I reached up and twisted the rearview mirror his way. He looked into it, then looked away shaking his head, and I put it back.

  “Even in college I can’t have any privacy, can I?”

  “Privacy to do what? Fuck up your life beyond repair? No, you’ll never have that as long as you have people who love you, dumbass.”

  “One of whom is fucking psychic.”

  “I am not fucking psychic. And watch your mouth.”

  He rolled his eyes, turned toward the window.

  “So how drunk were you when you decked him? Blackout drunk? Do you remember it?”

  He exhaled so slowly for so long I thought he’d run out of air. Then, “I remember most of it. I went straight back to my dorm room.”

  “When?"

  "After class. After I hit him."

  "What time was that?"

  "Ten a.m."

  "So you went back to your dorm room and kept drinking. Didn't you?"

  “Rachel–”


  “You wanna be a cop? You wanna be a cop? Look at you. Still too fucked up to even give a decent alibi.”

  He leaned sideways against the door.

  “When did you start drinking again? And don’t you even think about lying to me. You know I’ll know.”

  He said nothing.

  I slammed the brakes so hard he almost hit the dashboard. Then I took him by his shoulders and made him face me. “Talk, dammit!”

  “Fine! All right! I partied with some friends last week, and I did fine. I was handling it. You saw me over the weekend. I was fine.”

  “You were not fine. Mason and I both knew you were shaky.”

  “I felt fine.” He pushed a lock of mink brown hair off his forehead. “And then…and then…I don’t know.”

  “And then you weren’t so fine.” I said. “That’s what happens with addicts.”

  “Don’t say that. I’m not an addict.”

  “You prefer I call you a drunk? An alcoholic? A chemically dependent little shit? What? You tell me. You can’t drink, Jeremy. Period. And you know it, that’s the worst part. You know it.”

  “I know it.” He closed his eyes, sighed. “I know, I know, I know.”

  “Good.” He was hanging his head. I ran my hand over the back of it. “Knowing it's everything. We'll help you deal with it. You didn’t give any blood or urine to those assholes at the department, did you?”

  “Celia got there before they had time to ask.”

  “So tell me everything you remember."

  He looked at me, finally. Maybe another layer of booze had evaporated from his teenage baby veins. “I will, if you’ll stop swearing at me.”

  “I’m not making any promises, kid. Talk.”

  He rubbed his jaw in such a Mason-like way, my heart cracked a little. “I worked hard on that paper. It was like…”

  “Opening a vein,” I said, because I knew.

  “Yeah. I thought it might help, getting it out, you know? It was raw and honest. Then I went back and took out all the emotion, but I still felt it, you know? And for that asshole to accuse me of making it up–I just lost it."

  "But not until today."

  "Liquid courage, I guess." He was quiet for a long time.