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“No doubt in my mind at all, Mark.” He was nearly shouting.
    Twitchell looked stunned. He opened up his hands to Clark like he was pleading for scraps of food before finally responding. “Uh, wha, why?”
    Clark shuffled backwards to take a seat, ignoring the question, realizing he was now in for a marathon. Twitchell had become a prime suspect. He dropped down on the edge of the chair, his elbows resting on his thighs, opening up his body language. “As I said, Mark …” He shook his head, lowering his voice. “There’s no doubt in my mind that you’re involved in this disappearance.”
    Twitchell exhaled in a heavy sigh that seemed to empty his lungs. His body deflated. He collapsed and buried his face in his hands, gasping fora breath. Rubbing his forehead hard, he stared down at the office carpet, avoiding the detective’s probing stare.
    But Clark kept hammering away. “I just wanna get to the bottom of this because this is
not
gonna go away. It’s not gonna
leave
you, Mark.”
    Twitchell drummed his forehead with his fingers, hiding half his face. “I, I don’t understand.”
    â€œI’m gonna explain some of the reasons to you,” Clark said, pausing for effect. “But you
do
understand.”
    Twitchell sat up straight, squinted, and clasped his hands together again. He listened closely, expressionless.
    â€œYou’re involved in this and unfortunately …” Clark shrugged his shoulders. “Something got carried away. Something got carried away with this guy.” He kept nodding as he changed his tone to that of a father-confessor. “I mean, talking to you here tonight, you seem like a decent guy. And I think that something happened that night that maybe you just didn’t have total control of. And I’m here to get to the bottom of it. Because it’s not gonna go away. This is gonna stay with you …”
    Twitchell shook his head, staring at his palms as he sighed yet again.
    â€œWe need to clear this up here and now. We need to clear this up tonight.”
    Twitchell shook his head in defiance.
    â€œYou need to tell me the truth about what’s going on,” Clark stressed. “What happened … with this fella?”
    But the room was silent. The low hum of fluorescent lights droned on as the clock ticked past five in the morning. Twitchell did not respond. Clark, speaking slowly as his fatigue settled in, reached for an explanation. “I mean, did this happen because of the movie thing? … Something that went too far?”
    Twitchell fell back into the couch and threw his hands up in the air. “I have no idea what the
hell
is going on,” he said, his voice quivering.
    But Clark was relentless. “You
do
have an idea,” he said, staring him down. “You have a very good idea, Mark, about what’s going on. You know
exactly
what happened there that night.”
    Twitchell clutched his forehead again, sighed, and dropped his head into his hands. He refused to open up.
    Clark pressed on, scolding the filmmaker for more than an hour. He probed for a weak spot, circling back repeatedly to Twitchell’s wife, Jess,and his baby, Chloe.
Think of your family
. Clark repeated it.
What are they going to do? What are you going to tell your wife?
He laid on the guilt, then built him up with praise.
You’re a smart guy. Decent guy. Have a conscience
. He seized on anything that might get Twitchell to talk, anything to pry him open and unburden himself, get him to spill the story.
    Twitchell looked rattled. “This can’t be,” he peeped. “I don’t –” His whole body language had changed. Clark saw his posture close in on him like he had become a shamed man, lost, powerless, and under attack. “I just don’t understand,” Twitchell whimpered.
    Clark reached for his notes. The case wasn’t too difficult, he