“I could be with you,” she said.

I felt a lump develop in my throat. God, it had been a long night.

“Really,” I said. “I’m okay.”

“And the kids? Is everything okay there?” Sarah asked.

“Sure,” I lied, thinking about Trevor’s surveillance of Angie, my surveillance of Trevor and Angie, Angie’s mysterious visit to Trixie’s, Paul’s drinking binge.

“Everything’s fine.”

I WAS TIRED ENOUGH to have slept for a week, yet I mostly tossed and turned during what was left of that night. I had a few things on my mind. There was my daughter, who was making secret visits to my dominatrix friend while being stalked all over town by a possibly unstable admirer. There was my son, who, at the age of sixteen, was getting into the booze, a behavior that put him in the company of most sixteen-year-old boys, and evidently my daughter’s stalker was supplying him with the stuff. My new friend lay in the hospital after a near-fatal stabbing. I had impulsively spent $8,900 that we didn’t have on a car that started only when it felt like it, plus another small fortune on a new wardrobe. And there was the fact that I was lying to my wife about just how serious things might be on the home front because it would involve disclosing that I was violating the privacy of a member of my own family.

At least I had those new clothes to wear.

By seven, I was sitting at the kitchen table, that morning’s Metropolitan spread out on the table before me, reaching for my coffee and reading the headlines without registering them.

Paul showed up first, since he had to be at high school before Angie had to be at her first class at the university. He looked tired and bleary-eyed.

“Sit down,” I said.

“Just let me grab some juice,” he said.

“Sit down,” I said, using my Angry Father Voice.

He came over, pulled out a chair, and sat down across from me. He had that look of feigned bewilderment, as if to say, “What could you possibly want to speak to me about?”

I said, “You look a bit rough this morning.”

He swallowed. “I’m good. Just a bit tired is all.”

“What did you do last night?”

“Hung out here. Had a couple of friends over.”

“What’d you do?”

Paul hesitated. “Uh, just, I don’t know, watched some movies, played video games.”

“What do you think the chances are, if I go look out back between the garage and the fence, that there’s still a six-pack there?”

“Huh?”

“Shall we go look? I know it was there yesterday afternoon, and I have a pretty good idea who left it there, and I’m betting it’s gone.”

Paul looked at the table. “It’s gone.”

“And I’ll bet most of it’s been thrown up or pissed away by now,” I said.

Paul swallowed again. No denials there.

“You got a fake ID?” I asked.

Paul feigned indignation. “Oh my God. Don’t you trust me?”

“Of course not. You’re a teenager.” I took a shot in the dark. “Let’s see the ID.”

Paul sighed, took his wallet from his back pocket, opened it up, tossed a piece of plastic across the table at me. It was a reasonably good facsimile, as long as you didn’t look too closely, of a driver’s license, with Paul’s picture on it. It would have to be pretty dark in a bar to fool anyone with.

“This says you’re twenty-one,” I said. “You’re barely shaving.”

“I shaved two days ago.”

“Let me guess. You look too young to fool many people with this, so you get your older friends, Trevor Wylie included, to buy your beer for you.”

Paul said nothing. I slipped the fake ID into my pocket.

“Jeez, Dad, you know what I had to pay Trevor for that?”

“No, what?”

Paul decided it was better not saying. I said, “Trevor’s what, four or five years older than you? And he’s your buddy?”

“He’s okay.”

“That kid’s using you, being nice to you, buying your beer for you, to get close to your sister.” I paused, got very serious. “Don’t let people use you to hurt your family.”

For a moment, Paul’s eyes looked scared. “He wouldn’t hurt anybody. He just likes Angie, that’s all.”

“You better hope so,” I said.

“And jeez, why are you coming down so hard on me about this? You didn’t get this way with Angie.”

“Angie wasn’t drinking when she was sixteen,” I said.

Now it was Paul’s turn to smile. “Yeah, right. I’ve got so much shit on her, you’ve got no idea.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked, thinking maybe the comment had to do with more than just underage drinking. Maybe it had to do with Trixie. Paul and Angie confided in each other about a lot of things.

“She’s no angel, Dad. I mean, she’s okay, but if you think she’s always been Little Miss Perfect or something, well, sorry.”

“Does this have anything to do with Oakwood?” I asked. “With people out there?”

“Huh?” said Paul. “Neither one of us want anything to do with that place again. Listen, I have to get ready or I’m going to be late.” And he got up from the table and walked out of the kitchen without even bothering to get his juice.

And Angie walked in.

“Hey,” she said. She gave me a once-over. “Hey! You’re not wearing any of your stuff from last night.” She sounded hurt.

“I’m sorry, honey. I got in real late, I think the bags are still in the car.”

“I don’t believe it. You didn’t even bring in your stuff?” She took a yogurt out of the fridge, peeled off the lid. “Gee, good thing I helped you pick out a new wardrobe. You can’t even bring it inside.”

“It’s not like that,” I said. I told her about Lawrence.

“Are you kidding?” she said. “Is he gonna make it?”

“I’m going to call the hospital in a little while. I’m guessing the first few hours will be pretty critical.”

She was still shaking her head in disbelief. “Man, that’s so freaky.”

“Yeah. Well, so,” I said, thinking that a lot of freaky things were going on around here lately. “Where did you go after we split up last night?” Trying to make it sound like regular conversation, not an interrogation.

Angie shrugged. “Just around. Did some studying with some friends.”

“Oh yeah.” I took a sip of my coffee. “These friends taking the same courses you’re taking?”

“Yep.”

“Uh-huh.” I watched Angie get out a slice of bread, drop it into the toaster, then root around in the fridge for some jam.

My daughter. Doing the small-talk thing with Daddy. Making her breakfast. Talking about homework. Getting ready for class.

And a few hours earlier, she’d spent the evening with a dominatrix. Who was, I reminded myself, my friend.

I decided to try a different tack, come at things from another direction.

“So, have you thought any more about what you might want to do when you finish college?” I asked.

“I dunno. There’s lots of time. I’ve got three more years.”

“Yeah, but, you know, you must have some ideas rattling around in your head. Lines of work you might want to get into.”

“There’s lots of things,” Angie said. “There’s photography; sometimes I think advertising might be interesting. Or something where I’m working with people. I think I’d like working with people.”

I nodded. “You’d like to work with people.”

“Yep.”

“What kind of work would you like to do for people?”

Another shrug. “All kinds of things, I guess. Who knows? Why all the questions about my future?”

“Just interested, is all. I’d just like to see you get into a line of work you’d enjoy, that makes you happy, that offers lots of opportunities, that’s financially rewarding, that’s something that would make your mother and father proud.”

Angie looked up at that last one. “Huh? What, you want me to become a doctor or something? Because I can tell you right now, I am not planning to become a doctor.”

“I’m not saying you have to become a doctor. All I’m saying is, you’ll want to get some kind of job you can be proud of, and I’m sure if you’re proud of it, your mother and I will be proud of it, too.”