While Campbell drove, Rex called directory assistance and got the number for LTB Construction. The office manager told him where R.J. Wylie was working and gave him directions.

“I can chill at the Landing while you talk to R.J.,” Campbell suggested.

Rex reached into his wallet and pulled out a fifty dollar bill. “Here you go. Get yourself something for the Keys.”

“Thanks, Dad!”

They drove downtown in slow-moving traffic. At night, the blue-lit Main Street Bridge and illuminated skyscrapers cast ribbons of neon color across the river. Rex had taken a photo the last time he was in Jacksonville, though it hadn’t done the scene justice. This morning the glassy towers sparkled with sunlight above the marina. The Landing, a complex of bistros and boutiques built on the waterfront, successfully combined urban chic and Florida casual. They entered Bay Street across from the Modis Building and parked the SUV.

“I’ll call you,” Rex said as they split into different directions.

As he approached the LTB construction site, a bronze glass skyscraper with scaffolding scaling one side loomed over him, dwarfing the tall buildings around it. A giant crane stood motionless against the azure sky. Within the wire fence lay piles of concrete blocks and stacks of pipes. Rex opened the gate and made his way to the trailer. Before he had taken two steps across the yard, a robust man in a yellow construction vest waved his arms at him.

“Hey! You there!” he shouted. “This is a hard hat area. You need to get outta here.”

“I’m looking for R.J. Wylie.”

“He’s up there somewhere. I’m his super. What d’you want him for?”

“Can you tell him his dad told me where I could find him? It’s important.”

The man radioed up to the tower. “He’ll be down in the cherry picker in just a minute,” he told Rex. “He’s a good kid. Comes to work on time, does what he’s told. But you’ll have to wait outside the gate.”

Minutes later, a mechanical arm lowered a red steel basket to the ground. A young man in jeans, yellow vest, and a white T-shirt and hat stepped out. The supervisor pointed to the gate where Rex waited, and he nodded. He was about Campbell’s height with more developed shoulders and a broader chest.

“I’m R.J.,” he said opening the gate. “The boss said you wanted a word.”

“I wanted to discuss what happened last year when you were suspended from Hilliard.”

“You must be the Scottish boy’s dad. You sound just like him. Whose side are you on?” Hazel eyes fringed with thick black lashes gazed at him in curiosity from a well-formed face edged with dark stubble. A silver ring pierced his right ear.

“The Dixons asked me to look into their son’s suicide, but I’m not taking sides. I’m just trying to get at an approximation of the truth.”

“My expulsion was a crock. The dean of students was just looking for a way to get rid of me.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I strung his bicycle up on a tree last year. It was an April Fool’s dare—a prank. That’s the real reason Bikey-Bink was pissed at me.”

“Did you sell drugs?”

“Sell? No! I handed a bit out when I had some to spare. Pot mostly, including to your son.”

“Campbell?”

“Sure. Just the one time. Don’t worry, he’s not a pothead, far as I know.”

Rex took a moment to recover from this revelation.

“Look, it wasn’t me on the tape. Any moron could see that. The gray hoodie didn’t even look like mine. But the cops needed to make a bust. Their informant was making $60 off them for every buy he reported. Thing is, he never bought from me. I never dealt. Period.”

Rex held up the button that Klepto had given him.

R.J. pulled a cigarette and lighter from his jeans pocket. “Not mine. Lots of students have hoodies. Anyway, school records prove I was in the chem. lab at the time the bust went down. I couldn’t have been in two places at once. Plus my lawyer pointed out in court that the guy in the video standing next to the informant, a man of six foot, was inches shorter. I’m six-two. You couldn’t even see a face under the hood. It took less than thirty minutes of deliberation for the jury to deliver a verdict of not guilty.”

“Who arrested you?”

“Campus Security. Then Detective Beecham came to question me and took me to the station for no good reason other than I couldn’t produce the hoodie I was supposedly wearing. I told him it wasn’t me on the video, and he said he had a list of six eye-witnesses who confirmed I had the exact same hoodie. At first I said I didn’t need a lawyer because I hadn’t done what they accused me of. He and his partner questioned me for four hours straight. They found a second person to say he’d bought from me. I never saw either man in my life.”

R.J. kicked at the dirt with the toe of his work boot. “Not that it would make a difference now, but I could prove that button doesn’t come from my hoodie.”

“This isna aboot the drug bust. It was allegedly found in Dixon’s room the night he died.”

“So?”

“I don’t think his death was a suicide.”

R.J.’s face blanched. “Shit … Excuse me, but what are you saying, sir?”

“Someone got to Dixon from your old room.”

“How?”

“A system of air ducts leads to his room.”

“I don’t have access to my old room. If I as much as set foot on school grounds, campus security would arrest me.”

“A hoodie would disguise your face. Like you said, several students have ones that are similar.”

R.J.’s face tightened in rage. “I better not be getting the rap for murder as well as dealing. Why me? Lots of kids experiment with drugs. Why did Dix single me out? And why the fuck are you looking at me for his murder?”

“You have a compelling motive for killing him. He got you kicked out of Hilliard. You could have gone to prison for dealing.”

“Yeah, I could. He totally ruined my life.”

“You ruined it the day you first took drugs. You blew your degree at Hilliard.”

R.J. clamped his arms across his chest and stared off into the middle distance. “Don’t I know it! Not a day goes by when I don’t kick myself. But I’m clean now, six months. I even volunteer in a mentor program teaching kids about the risks of drugs. Whatever; I didn’t kill Dix Clark.”

Rex glanced over the barrier. “You work in construction. You’d know all about air ducts.”

“If I’m gonna get framed again for something I never did, I’d rather end it now.” R.J. chucked his cigarette butt on the ground. “I haven’t got any money left for a defense. And that bitch never even stood by me.”

Before Rex could understand what was happening, R.J. swung open the gate and sprinted across the job site. Enclosed in a construction elevator, he rose up the glass façade of the building.

“Where’s he going?” Rex asked the super who stopped him as he chased after the boy.

“To the top. What did you say to him?”

“He’s been implicated in a murder.”

“Christ, as if that kid hasn’t been through enough trouble already.” The super tilted back his head and followed the elevator’s progress to the dizzying bronze pinnacle of the skyscraper. He got on his radio. “Pete, R.J.’s on your floor. He may be suicidal. Don’t approach. I’m comin’ up.”

“I’m coming with you,” Rex said.

“Grab a hat from the trailer.”

Rex found one on a hook inside the door and joined the super who led him around the building to a second elevator.

“You should be wearing a harness,” the supervisor said, hesitating as they stepped onto the platform. At close quarters, he reeked of Marlboroughs.

“No time. Beam me up, Scotty.”

The super set the hydraulic lift in motion. “Name’s Tony,” he said thrusting a calloused hand into Rex’s. “Hope you’re not scared of heights. That hat’s not gonna do nothin’ for you if you fall from the sixtieth floor.”

Rex was not prone to acrophobia, but he had never ridden in an outdoor elevator. As a precaution, he decided not to look down. “Do you test employees for drugs?” he asked, trying to gauge R.J.’s state of mind.

“It’s mandatory at LTB.”

Perhaps R.J. was telling the truth about being clean. The floors sped down to meet them, reflecting the mesh cage off the bronze panes. Toward the summit, Rex’s ears popped. He did not venture a peek until he reached the top. From here the site looked like a sandbox littered with die-cast trucks and blocks of Lego. He fought down a reeling sense of nausea.

Tony let him out of the elevator and, clearing the other men off the roof and construction platform, led Rex across the concrete floor latticed with naked steel girders. The breeze, barely noticeable before, flattened Rex’s shirt against his torso. R.J., standing perfectly still, was staring over the edge. He had removed his hard hat, and his dark hair blew about his forehead. Rex could not look at him without seeing the tops of surrounding towers spiking the skyline. If something happened to R.J., he would never forgive himself, especially if the boy was innocent.

“Come away from there, R.J.,” he called. “I just want to talk to you.”

“What’s the point?” A gust buffeted the boy and he took a step to steady himself. Another step and he would go over the low rail and fall sixty floors. “I should have done this before and saved my parents the money for my defense. What good did it do?”

“I want to see justice is done.”

Behind Rex, Tony murmured into his radio. “Call the cops. No sirens or lights.”

“Just think what this would do to your parents,” Rex reasoned with R.J. “One boy is already dead.”

“I didn’t kill him! I didn’t!” R.J. stepped over the rail.

Rex’s stomach completed a somersault. “I believe you! Klepto gave me the button.”

“Should have known!” the boy cried out, looking back in despair. “But I could prove it’s not mine.”

“Come over here and tell me about it.”

R.J. turned away and peered over the brink. This was the second where, in the recklessness of youth, he could decide to end his life and make a dramatic, poignant, and ultimately futile statement. Rex sprang forward just as the boy let himself fall head first in slow motion. Adrenalin pumped through his veins.

Grabbing him around the waist with one arm, Rex hooked a vertical beam with the other. The impact of R.J.’s weight pulled him forward, almost wrenching both arms from their sockets. A telescopic view of asphalt, cars and tree tops swam before his eyes before he managed to yank R.J. away from the edge, bringing him keeling on top of him as he hit concrete.

Tony pulled R.J. to his feet and stood gripping him by the shoulders. Rex lay for a moment staring at the sky. He had a fleeting notion that the world had gone mad. His heart reverberated through his body while concentric waves of pain shot through his elbow.

A construction worker helped him up. “I just saw the cops pull into the site,” he told Tony.

A spasm of terror crossed R.J.’s face.

“Don’t worry,” Tony said. “We won’t say nothing about this. Let’s get off of this building. I got a first-aid kit in the trailer,” he told Rex.

A cop approached them when they reached ground level.

“What’s up, Tony?”

“Trailer got broke into again. Don’t think anything went missing, but they jimmied the lock.”

“Who’s this?” the cop asked, looking at Rex.

“A building inspector. He fell and scraped his arm pretty bad. Lemme see to it first. Come with us,” Tony instructed R.J., prodding Rex up the steps to the trailer.

They removed their hats and dumped them on the desk. Stale smoke hung in the stuffy air. Tony rummaged among a pile of rolled-up plans on a shelf and extracted a white plastic box marked with a red cross. He handed Rex a wad of cotton wool doused with hydrogen peroxide and a large Band-Aid.

“You can use that room back there if you guys need to talk. Here, take this.” Tony gave R.J. a Thermos flask from off the desk. “It’ll do you good. And take the rest of the day off. You wanna talk, call. I got to see to the cop and make a report on the break-in.”

Rex, holding the wad to his bleeding elbow, made his way past the water cooler into a closed-off room equipped with a small desk and two chairs. He sat down and stuck the Band-Aid on his arm while R.J. took a seat and twisted off the lid to the scuffed flask. An aroma of sweetened coffee rose into the air. R.J. filled the cup and pushed the rest toward Rex, who took a swig straight from the Thermos. Though no longer burning hot, it tasted fresh and strong, much better than the coffee he had been served at the airport restaurant that morning.

“Tony’s a good guy,” R.J. remarked, speaking for the first time since his brush with death.

“Aye. He seems to think mighty highly of you too. You gave us quite a turn.”

“You saved my life. That was a crazy thing you did, man. You could’ve gone over with me.”

“I wouldna’ve let that happen. I have a strong sense of self-preservation.”

R.J. ran a hand through his dark hair. “I can’t explain what happened. All the time I was riding to the top, I thought I would never do it when it came right down to it. And then when I looked over, it all seemed so simple.”

“I would never have forgiven myself if you’d gone over.”

R.J. shrugged in response.

“How do you feel now?”

“Light-headed, I guess. Like nothing really matters, except that I can feel every pulse in my body. The coffee tastes better than anything I ever had before.”

Rex guessed R.J. was feeling an adrenalin rush. As for himself, he was shaking. “My ex-girlfriend tried to commit suicide on Tuesday,” he found himself confiding.

“You should carry a government health warning. Seems like people all around you are trying to self-destruct.”

Rex smiled ruefully. “The doctor said it wasna a serious attempt, but still … It’s a terrible thing to think about.”

“I was thinking about someone in that moment before I let myself go. I remember saying to myself, ‘Now she’ll be sorry.’ She could have saved me from having to go to court. All she had to do was go to the police and show them my hoodie, and tell them she had it all along.”

“Why didn’t she? Who is she?”

R.J. shook his head. “I can’t tell you—I promised I’d never tell.”

“And when did you make this promise?”

“When we were in my bed the first time. Just lying there whispering in the dark.” R.J.’s voice caught in his throat. “I would have done anything for her.”

“Did she feel the same way? If she did, why didn’t she go to the police? Why didn’t she try to protect you?”

R.J. hunched over the table. “Maybe she thought I’d never be convicted. Then, when I was expelled, she probably thought it was too late to come forward. I don’t know if she ever spoke to the dean because by then she had stopped taking my calls.”

“Would she have had any authority with him?”

“Probably not. Cormack didn’t. And I know he tried.”

“I could talk to the dean.”

“The faculty would never admit to making a mistake. And Binkley would just argue I was using, which is against university policy.”

“Can they actually prove you were using? My guess is they don’t have much of a case, since the video failed to incriminate you.”

“A couple of students testified that they saw me snort coke. I have no money for college now anyway. It’ll take me years to pay off my defense.”

Rex leaned forward. “Be that as it may, I need to be absolutely convinced of your innocence in Dixon’s murder. You have to tell me about the button if it absolves you.”

R.J. sat back in his chair. “I can’t.”

“Then I don’t know how I can help you.” Rex reached into his pocket and slid one of his business cards across the desk. “Here’s my cell number. I’ll be in town until tomorrow.” He stood up and, on his way to the door, stopped by R.J.’s chair. He gave his shoulder a paternal squeeze, sighed heavily and left.

Tony was talking to the cop at the foot of the trailer steps. He escorted Rex to the gate. “Is he okay?”

“He’s not very communicative.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Rex took out his cell phone and called Campbell to tell him to meet him at the car.

“Can’t we get lunch first?”

“Don’t you have a lecture?”

“Not until two. How did it go with R.J.?”

“It was hair-raising. I’ll tell you all about it, but I need to get to the campus right away.” Rex remembered to look both ways before crossing the street. Sometimes he forgot that traffic moved in the opposite direction from home. He didn’t want to have survived a close call on a skyscraper just to be hit by a car.

“There’s someone I need to see immediately,” he told Campbell over the phone. “Could be downright embarrassing if I’m wrong, but I have to give it a shot.”