But a man who believes he holds all the cards will often say the thing you could never make him say.

So I would go to the pier — wired, watched, with a tactical team already moving into the dark around the sheds — and I would let Dax believe he still held my son, and I would let him talk.

It was, they told me, my choice, and no one would think less of me if I said no.

I thought of Porter’s face on that little screen. Choose the truth. I said yes.

I understood exactly what I was choosing, and I want that on the record too, because it was not recklessness.