Chapter 8: The Hearing

"The only copy," I said. "You didn't back it up?"

"I'm a law student, Georgia. I can barely back up my car."

"There were forty people on that quad. At least six of them were filming."

"Then let's find them."

We spent the next two days finding them.

Or trying.

A girl who'd filmed it from the steps had deleted it that same night. Her roommate had heard Tyler was asking around.

A boy from the swim team said his phone had died. He didn't look at us when he said it.

A grad student in chemistry said she'd been told her lab funding was "under review" and she didn't want to talk to anyone right now.

Every door we knocked on, Patrice had already knocked on first.

On Wednesday night I sat on the floor of my room with Will, eating cold lo mein out of the carton.

Maddie sat in my doorway, half in and half out of the hall.

"Do you know what you're going to say?" she asked.

"The truth," I said.

"That's not a plan. That's a vibe."

"She's right," Will said. "It's a vibe."

"I'll question them myself," I said. "I can do that. I'm the accused."

"Do you know how to cross-examine somebody?"

"I sat in on four hundred board meetings in Paris with my mother's house. Every one of them had a man lying about a number."

Will looked at me over his carton.

"Okay," he said. "That's actually a plan."

Maddie didn't say anything.

She was picking at a loose thread on the knee of her overalls.

"Maddie," I said. "You don't have to come tomorrow."

"I know," she said. She got up. "Good night."

Thursday at four the student union ballroom was packed.

Patrice had expected forty people.

There were four hundred.

They filled every folding chair and stood two deep along the back wall and sat cross-legged on the carpet in the aisles.

Some of them had been on the quad.

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