She spread her hands. “What does that mean?”

He just shook his head. “It’s my word against theirs.”

“Right, but see, there’s two problems. First off, it’s not just them. They got a couple of Carson ’s buddies to back up their story. Of course these buddies would back up the claim that you performed anal probes on a spaceship if Carson and Rosemary asked them to. So that’s not our big problem.”

Mike said, “So what is?”

“The firmest piece of evidence is those prescription pads. You can’t tie them directly to Rosemary and Carson. It’s not a nice neat package. But they can tie them directly to you, Dr. Baye. Obviously. They are yours. They can also pretty much tie how they got from point A-you, Dr. Baye-to point B-the illegal market. Via your son.”

Adam closed his eyes and shook his head.

“What?” Hester said.

“You won’t believe me.”

“Sweetheart, listen to me. It’s not my job to believe you. It’s my job to defend you. You can worry about your mommy believing you, okay? I’m not your mommy. I’m your attorney and, right now, that’s a whole lot better.”

Adam looked at his father.

“I will believe you,” Mike said.

“But you didn’t trust me.”

Mike was not sure how to reply to that.

“You put that thing on my computer. You eavesdropped on my private conversations.”

“We were worried about you.”

“You could have asked.”

“I did, Adam. I asked a thousand times. You told me to leave you alone. You told me to get out of your room.”

“Uh, fellas?” It was Hester. “I’m enjoying this touching father-son scene, really, it’s beautiful, I want to weep, but I bill by the hour and I’m damn expensive, so can we get back to this case?”

There was a sharp knock on the door. It opened and Special Agent Darryl LeCrue and U.S. Assistant Attorney Scott Duncan entered.

Hester said, “Get out. This is a private conference.”

“There is someone here who wants to see your clients,” LeCrue said.

“I don’t care if it’s Jessica Alba in a tube top-”

“Hester?”

It was LeCrue.

“Trust me here. This is important.”

They stepped to the side. Mike looked up. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but certainly not this. Adam started to cry as soon as he saw them.

Betsy and Ron Hill stepped into the room.

“Who the hell are they?” Hester asked.

“Spencer’s parents,” Mike said.

“Whoa, what kind of emotional trick is this? I want them out. I want them out now.”

LeCrue said, “Shh. Just listen. Don’t talk. Just listen.”

Hester turned to Adam. She put his hand on his forearm. “Don’t say one word. Do you hear me? Not one word.”

Adam just kept crying.

Betsy Hill took a seat across the table from him. There were tears in her eyes too. Ron stood behind her. He crossed his arms and looked at the ceiling. Mike could see the tremble in his lips. LeCrue stood back in one corner, Duncan the other.

LeCrue said, “Mrs. Hill, can you tell them what you just told us?” Hester Crimstein still had her hand on Adam’s forearm, readying to quiet him. Betsy Hill just looked at Adam. Adam finally lifted his head. He met her eyes.

“What’s going on?” Mike asked.

Betsy Hill finally spoke. “You lied to me, Adam.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Hester said. “If she’s going to start with accusations about deception, we’re going to stop this right here and right now.”

Betsy kept her eyes on Adam, ignoring the outburst. “You and Spencer didn’t fight over a girl, did you?”

Adam said nothing.

“Did you?”

“Don’t answer,” Hester said, giving his forearm a little squeeze.

“We are not commenting on any alleged fight-”

Adam pulled his arm away. “Mrs. Hill…”

“You’re afraid they won’t believe you,” Betsy said. “And you’re afraid you’re going to hurt your friend. But you can’t hurt Spencer. He’s dead, Adam. And it’s not your fault.”

The tears kept coming down Adam’s face.

“Do you hear me? It’s not your fault. You had every reason to get angry with him. His father and I missed so much with Spencer. We’ll have to deal with that for the rest of our lives. Maybe we could have stopped him if we had kept a closer eye-or maybe there was no way to save him. I don’t know right now. But I know this: It is not your fault and you can’t take the blame for this. He’s dead, Adam. No one can hurt him anymore.”

Hester opened her mouth, but no words came out. She stopped herself, pulled back, watched. Mike did not know what to make of this either.

“Tell them the truth,” Betsy said.

Adam said, “Doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does, Adam.”

“No one is going to believe me.”

“We believe you,” Betsy said.

“Rosemary and Carson will say it was me and my dad. They’re already doing it. So why drag someone’s name through the mud?”

LeCrue said, “That’s why you tried to end it last night. With that wire you were telling us about. Rosemary and Carson blackmailed you, didn’t they? They said if you told, they’d put it on you. They’d say you stole the prescription pads. Just like they’re doing now. And then you had your friends to worry about. They could all get in trouble too. So what choice did you have? You let it go on.”

“I wasn’t worried about my friends,” Adam said. “But they were going to put it on my dad. He’d lose his license, for sure.”

Mike felt his breathing go funny. “Adam?”

He turned toward his father.

“Just tell the truth. Don’t worry about me.”

Adam shook his head.

Betsy reached out and touched Adam’s hand. “We have proof.”

Adam looked confused.

Ron Hill moved forward. “When Spencer died I went through his room. I found…” He stopped, swallowed, looked at the ceiling again. “I didn’t want to tell Betsy. She was going through enough and I fig- ured, what difference did it make? He was dead. Why put her through any more? You were thinking something like that too, weren’t you, Adam?”

Adam said nothing.

“So I didn’t say anything. But the night he died… I went through his room. Under his bed, I found eight thousand dollars in cash-and these.”

Ron tossed a prescription pad onto the table. For a moment, everyone just stared at it.

“You didn’t steal your father’s prescription pads,” Betsy said.

“Spencer did. He stole them from your house, didn’t he?”

Adam had his head down.

“And the night he killed himself, you found out. You confronted him. You were furious. You two fought. That’s when you hit him. When he called you back, you didn’t want to hear his apologies. He had gone too far this time. So you let his calls go into voice mail.”

Adam squeezed his eyes shut. “I should have answered it. I hit him. I called him names and said I never wanted to speak to him again. Then I left him alone and when he called for help…”

The room pretty much exploded then. There were tears, of course. Hugs. Apologies. Wounds were ripped open and closed. Hester worked it. She grabbed LeCrue and Duncan. They all saw what happened here. No one wanted to prosecute the Bayes. Adam would cooperate and help send Rosemary and Carson to prison.

But that was for another day.

Later that night, after Adam had gotten home and had his cell phone back, Betsy Hill came over.

“I want to hear,” she said to him.

And together they listened to Spencer’s very last message before ending his own life:

“This isn’t on you, Adam. Okay, man. Just try to understand. It’s not on anyone. It’s just too hard. It’s always been too hard…”

ONE week later, Susan Loriman knocked on the door of Joe Lewis- ton’s house.

“Who is it?”

“Mr. Lewiston? It’s Susan Loriman.”

“I’m pretty busy.”

“Please open up. It’s very important.”

There were a few seconds of silence before Joe Lewiston did as she asked. He was unshaven and in a gray T-shirt. His hair jutted up in different directions and there was still sleep in his eyes.