5

 When the authorities finally let him go, Byron was exhausted. They had questioned him, one nondescript officer after another. For hours they asked the same questions in hundreds of different ways, doing their best to make him slip up and reveal something. They sensed with whatever preternatural skills bigwig lawmen developed, his story didn't add up, that he knew more about the young woman's disappearance than he let on. 

He had done his best to answer their questions without, as far as he could tell, doing anything to betray Janice. Finally, their frustration cracked their professional masks and they let him go. Now, unlocking the door to his house, where he felt safer than anywhere in this whole mad world, he allowed himself to cry. No matter what happened with Janice, no matter if what she said was true, or if he was just another sucker drawn in by a charismatic madwoman, the fact his life had forever been changed was not in question. 

He only hoped