He appeared on television, pale and shaking, begging for information. “Please,” he said, “if you’ve seen her, contact the police.” The interviewer’s eyes stayed cold. Viewers called his performance a sham—that he was shedding crocodile tears. Even he didn’t know anymore whether the grief he showed was real or rehearsed.
The irony wasn’t lost on him. He had always mocked her emotions for years, calling her dramatic, sensitive, and fragile. Now he was all three, and on public display. The man who’d once thought humiliation was power was learning what it felt like to be its subject.