I've had this argument going on inside my head for over a month now, steadily eroding any respect I had for Quinn. I needed a break, some way to change my thoughts, make some art like I used to. Take the anxiety and the frustration and create something beautiful.

I left my Dad's house and drove north, towards Glenwood College. I was an adjunct film studies professor there, and kept access to the editing suites. My home studio was much more cushy and had all the digital amenities money could buy, but I needed to get back to what I used to be, when I was a kid who actually knew what he believed in. Glenwood represented what was still simple and pure in my life.

My family was smothering me, making me feel like my sole duty in life was to defend them or advocate for them. I was an artist and I had a whole life without them, a role in the world they could never understand or touch.

If my twenty year old self could see me now, he'd be in awe of my life: I've directed films, television series, worked with the most notable actors and directors in the the business. My work has exceeded his wildest dreams. Yet I knew how hollow it all is, and what I wanted was to be an unknown again, with a camera and a notebook.

I parked in the faculty lot and noticed Nelson's Range Rover. Nelson and I had been students together at Glenwood, study buddies. He was ten years my senior, and only decided to go to college when he'd nearly been imprisoned for forgery. He gave up the life of a grifter to become first a criminal attorney and then a law professor. We don't talk often; he was probably more burnt out than me. Still, I headed straight to his office once I entered the building.

The door to Nelson's office was open, and he was lying down on his sofa with the lights out. I knocked on the door, and he nodded to acknowledge me. "Deacon, hey," he said nonchalantly. "Turn the lights on and come in."

I flipped the switch and settled into a chair opposite him. "What brings you in on a weekend, Leatherman?" Nelson's last name sounded like a serial killer or a superhero, and I loved saying it whenever I could.

"They caught Freddy," Nelson said, still lying on the sofa and staring at the ceiling. "He's in jail right now, awaiting trial, and demanding that I represent him."

My mouth went dry. Freddy Chopin was our craziest classmate. He never graduated, but got kicked off campus and expelled after his behavior became disturbingly bizarre our senior year. He'd been the main suspect in a series of homicides throughout the tri state area, and if he'd been caught then they had solid evidence on him.

"Are you going to take the case?" I asked. "Or, do you want to?"