DAD TOK ANOTHER slug of tequila. Was he bracing himself? Did he expect an outburst from me? I was angry, and growing angrier, and tempted to say something mean, feeling like I needed to vent but trying at the same time not to. It wasn’t just what he’d done to those girls. It was what he’d done to Mom and me, too. Did he ever think about us and what would happen if people found out?

It was hard to imagine anything more disappointing, or humiliating. My own father…was practically a child molester.

Suddenly, I couldn’t stand being in the same room with him. I understood exactly how Mom felt. I ran upstairs and sat down on my bed, seething, the same question rolling over and over into my brain, as if it was coming off an assembly line: How could he?

How could he?

How could he?

He was despicable. I thought of the photos of those famous actors and models, and how Dad had faked them, just as he’d faked everything he’d been doing, pretending to be a successful photographer when he was really just preying on young women for money and sex. There was symbolism in thinking of our family at that moment. Mom and I upstairs in our bedrooms, the high and righteous. Dad downstairs, not exactly in a dungeon, but low and contemptible just the same. He deserved it. Unlike the other times, I couldn’t even begin to try to forgive what he’d done.

I heard a soft knock on my door. “May I come in?” Dad asked.

I didn’t answer. I had to think about it.

“Sweetheart?” he said after waiting.

I gritted my teeth. Had he called any of those other girls sweetheart? The thought threatened to make me ill. I waited until the sensation passed, then thought the same thing I always thought: he was still my father. “I guess.”

He stopped inside the door, as if afraid to come any closer, his hands shoved into his pockets. He was a rumpled, disheveled mess, his eyes downcast. “I’m sorry. I was incredibly stupid. I made mistakes. I…never really thought about the consequences.”

It sounded heartfelt, and despite how angry I was, I also felt sad that he’d come to me and not to Mom, as if he assumed that she was a lost cause. As if I was his only chance.

“Sweetheart?”

That word made me want to scream, but I gathered myself in. “Don’t ask me for forgiveness, Dad,” I said, keeping my voice flat and unemotional, “because I am so far away from that right now.…I just have to ask you one more time, because there’ve been way too many surprises. Just swear to me that this is the end of it. That this is as bad as it gets and it doesn’t get any worse.”

“It doesn’t get any worse. I swear.”

“Then why can’t we go to the police and tell them what Gabriel did? If they’re going to find out about you and those girls anyway …”

Dad ran his hand over his head, letting his hair flop wherever it wanted. “I don’t want them to know.”

“So Gabriel gets to threaten me with a knife and go free?” It was incredible.

Dad gazed at me with sad, weary, reddened eyes and didn’t answer.

“And what about the money? He said he’d go to the police if he didn’t get it by the end of the week.”

As if lost in thought, Dad gazed off. Suddenly, I caught a glimmer of what was in his head. “You’re not…seriously considering paying him, are you?”

No reply. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe he would acquiesce to Gabriel’s demands. “Dad, you can’t….”

“Shelby, please, don’t. Not now. Give it a rest.”

He sounded like he was in agony. I had to wonder if he could pay Gabriel even if he wanted to. I had no idea if my parents had any money in the bank. We had our house. And the only other things of value that Dad owned were his camera equipment and his car, which reminded me.

“Why did they take the Ferrari?”

“DNA tests. I assume they got a sample from the body they found in Scranton and want to see if anything in my car matches it.”

“Was…she ever in your car?” I asked.

Dad made a helpless gesture with his hands. “Who remembers?”