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“Thank you,” Ben said, lowering his voice. “I didn’t want to say this on the phone, but tomorrow morning, I’m turning myself in. Since the decision affects all of us, I wanted to discuss it with you first.”

“I don’t need to discuss it,” Nathan said. “I made my decision the moment I heard about Ober.”

“Good for you,” Ben said. “Eric, any thoughts?”

“It’s your call. I just hope you can handle the consequences.”

“I don’t see what choice I have,” Ben said. “What happened to Ober ripped my heart out. I got him fired; I put the rest of you in jeopardy. I have to end it.”

“That’s real noble of you,” Nathan said. “But I’m warning you, you better end it tomorrow.”

“Or what?” Ben asked defensively. “You’ll do it for me?”

“You’re damn right I will,” Nathan shot back. “And I won’t feel a single bit of guilt doing it. In fact, you’re lucky my boss doesn’t work weekends, or I’d have turned you in today.”

“Why don’t you relax a second?” Eric said.

“Why don’t you shut up?” Nathan said. “No matter how hard you stick up for Ben, he still isn’t going to forgive you completely.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Ben asked.

“What’s wrong with me?” Nathan replied, forcing a laugh. “Let’s see: My friend got fired yesterday; it was all your fault; my job’s on the line; and I don’t trust you or Eric. Other than that, I’m peachy.”

“Listen, you can—”

“No, you listen for once!” Nathan yelled as the wind whistled through the monument. “You have to get over this golden-boy complex. For once in your perfect life, you screwed up. You blew it. You choked. You made a big mistake, and now you have to take responsibility for it. If you were the only one at risk, I’d say do whatever you want. But if you think I’m going to stand around, with my career on the line while you continue your futile hunt for Rick, you’re out of your head. Face facts, Ben—you’re outsmarted. You lost. Give up.”

“Shut the hell up!” Ben flew from the bench and grabbed Nathan by the front of his jacket.

Immediately, Eric pulled the two roommates apart. “Ben, relax a second. Calm down.”

As Eric attempted to keep Ben at bay, Ben yelled at Nathan, “If you’d shut your damn mouth for a second, you’d realize that I didn’t come here to plot against Rick. I came here to talk to my friends.”

Ober walked into the living room and placed a pile of books on the coffee table: four high school yearbooks and one overstuffed scrapbook. Picking up the ninth-grade yearbook first, Ober flipped to his roommates’ class portraits and smiled at the furry block that was Nathan’s hair. When he reached Ben’s picture, he laughed out loud. It had been at least four years since he’d last opened his yearbook and looked at the messy-haired, brace-faced, gawky nerd named Ben Addison. Turning to Eric’s picture, Ober remembered his desire to sleep over at Eric’s house, inspired primarily by the fact that Eric’s brother had the largest collection of pornographic playing cards in the neighborhood.

When he opened the tenth-grade yearbook, Ober again skipped to the class portraits. He remembered the year they got their driver’s licenses. Eric was not only the first to drive, he was also the first to crash—directly into Nathan’s mother’s car as she pulled out of her driveway. Thumbing through the eleventh-grade book, Ober remembered their first college party at Boston University. He laughed as he thought about Ben, who spent the whole night trying to convince the ladies he was “Ben Addison, Professor of Love.”

Opening his personal scrapbook, Ober was proud he had so thoroughly documented his friends’ achievements. He had the articles that appeared in The Boston Globe when Nathan was photographed with the secretary of state and when Ben received his Supreme Court clerkship. He had the first news story Eric wrote for the high school newspaper, as well as his first stories for Washington Life and the Washington Herald. He had the Herald’s first word jumble, as well as Eric’s article about a leak at the Supreme