Leonard Carr is the good cop. He says I’m too smart to bother with bad cop and he says he won’t bore me with head games. But of course he’s boring me with head games. He thinks I’ll relax and accidentally admit to killing someone. He has kids. He should know better. But then, he’s human. We all are.

After lunch, he returns to the windowless room where we have our talks. He offers me water and he kicks his feet up. “So,” he says. “I’ve been thinking about Wolf of Wall Street.”

There is something springy about him and I break my rule about looking at the camera, the one focused on me all the time, all day, the glass orb hell bent on capturing me as I incriminate myself. Edmund nudges my leg, a reminder to stay calm. Detective Carr has new information. I know it. He’s excited, trying so hard not to show it that he’s showing it. But then, maybe that’s part of his strategy.

“Here’s what I like about the movie,” he says. “I like it when the guy eats the goldfish. It’s so simple. Something about it. That stayed with me. I’ve never seen anyone eat a goldfish. Have you?”

“No,” I say and I wonder what he knows. I am thirsty but I don’t drink the water.

“Not ever?” he asks.

“No,” I say. I would like to open his skull and find out what he knows so we can avoid this banter and I can get out of here and go on with my life.

He nods. “You didn’t see anything like that in Cabo?”

I look to Edmund. He nods. “No,” I say. “I didn’t see anyone eat a goldfish in Cabo.”

Fincher. What the fuck do they know about Fincher? My heart beats loud. I tell it to stop. It doesn’t listen to me. I do not control my heart. Nobody does. Detective Carr is still nodding. Torturing me. Scratching his neck. “Hey,” he says. “How’s your buddy Brian?”

Captain Fucking Dave. I swallow. “He’s fine.”

“Now, he sounds like a party animal to me, right?” He laughs. “A guy like that, I bet he would swallow a goldfish, yeah?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

Detective Carr stares at the wall. Edmund stares at me. There is a unique silence to this room and I know what happened. Captain Dave is a fearful man—Rules are rules, Joe—and when the cops asked him about our time in Cabo, he forked over every detail. He told them about my imaginary friend Brian, the one I invented when I was trying to get the boat so I could dump Fincher’s body. Now the police are going to want to talk to Brian and there are probably others on this case, cops poring over airline records, passport records, cops trying to find Brian the American who went to Cabo San Lucas. They aren’t going to find Brian. But they are going to realize that a cop named Robin Fincher flew to Cabo. They are going to see that he disappeared while I was in Cabo and I love Love, but this is America. If you kill a cop, they don’t let you go. Cops protect their own. They are the ultimate family, loyal to the end.

“How’d you meet Brian?” Detective Carr asks.

“At a party,” I say.

“Henderson’s party?”

Nice try, fucker. “No,” I say. “I didn’t meet him at Henderson’s party.”

Henderson, of course, is their favorite thing to talk about, the fact that I was there, that I was in his house, on YouTube, the night that he died. They think it’s too much coincidence. But they have no evidence.

“Sounds like you guys aren’t close,” he says.

“We aren’t,” I say. The days are long in here. I will not complain when I am free, staying up around the clock helping take care of the baby.

“Why did Love hate him so much?”

I look at him. “Huh?”

He smiles. I fucked up. Huh was the wrong thing to say. “They’re asking her right now,” he says. “Just one of those things, you know, we’re curious about you, Joe, the kind of people you run with and all.”

“I don’t know why she hated him,” I say. And this is that Newlyweds game show from before I was born, where they test your knowledge of your partner. But it’s not fair. We are not playing for a fucking vacation to Cabo. We are playing for my life, for my right to be a father to my child. My child. Love and I did not sign up for this but I have to play.

“Take a guess,” he says. He gets a text. He reads the text. He nods. “Huh,” he says. He is imitating me. He has Love’s answer and I don’t have Love’s answer and I don’t know what she would say.

“Joe, you don’t have to answer,” Edmund reminds me, but he’s wrong, I do. Detective Carr isn’t going to leave the room until I answer a question about someone who doesn’t exist or I will be one step closer toward a life without love. Milo will raise my baby. My baby will run into his arms.

My mind swirls. Brian doesn’t exist. There is no Brian. But Love answered the question. What did she say? This is like in Magnolia when the kid breaks down. I am cracking under pressure and Detective Carr knows it. He knocks his phone against the table and this is the sound of my life ending.

“Are you thirsty?” Detective Carr nudges the water toward me. “Go ahead,” he says. “Trust me, we didn’t slip anything in there.”

I look at him and I am doing it again, digging my own grave. Does he know about the cactus? Was there a camera at the house? Was there a camera in the sky? A drone? He sips his water. “When did Love meet Brian?” he asks. “Did she meet him before you left town to do the movie? Or did she meet him in Palm Springs?”

He could be lying. Love could have refused to answer the question. She might be playing the same game as I am. I try to imagine that I am Love, pregnant, in love, and there is a man asking me questions and if I say the wrong thing, the man I love so much will be gone. My heart beats faster and faster, and I wish I could carry it around in a rolling suitcase. It’s annoying, the way it’s connected to my other bodily functions, the way my little motherfucker pores allow sweat to weep upon my forehead, the way my asshole pupils shrink and expand and I can’t control them. I’m not a fucking sociopath.

Detective Carr puts his feet up on the desk again. “Joe,” he says. “What was Brian’s last name? Love can’t remember. Do you remember?”

Edmund looks at me meaningfully. “No,” I say. “I don’t remember.”

I don’t remember. The magic words, according to my attorney, according to Love. If I just keep saying I don’t remember things, I will be out of here soon. I will not let Detective Carr break me. Love and I shouldn’t be playing the Newlywed Game. We’re not even married yet. I will my heart to take it easy and I sip the water and I can’t wait for this session to be over. I look forward to returning to my cage. I feel empowered when I’m in there, locked up.

Love is the key to happiness in life, and I have no doubt that it will set me free. Love, and Edmund, that’s all I need and I have it all, and I know that if I believe in Love and play by the rules—say nothing, remember nothing, say as little as possible, say nothing—I know I will be out of here soon, watching my child break out of Love’s vagina, my favorite place in the world.

If Love were here, in this room, she would wrap her arms around me and tell me why she hates Brian, what his last name is, share with me all the elaborate and specific details of when and where they met, how he offended her. I know it’s ludicrous to say such a thing. After all, Brian doesn’t exist. They never met. I invented him so I could get access to one of the boats. So because there is no such thing as Brian, there is nothing for Love to know. And yet I know she would know because that’s the thing about feeling so connected to someone, so entrenched, so attached. I believe she knows me better than I know myself, and hopefully I know her as well too.

“Joe,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“How did Love and Brian meet?”

I say nothing. What would Love say?