"Did you steal anything?"
"No."
"Was there anything unusual in your backpack?"
Isaiah shook his head automatically, then stopped. "Maybe."
Paul waited; Maya did not speak. Isaiah looked toward her, but she deliberately remained silent.
Paul asked, "What do you mean by 'maybe'?"
"There was a flash drive."
"What kind?"
"A USB drive."
"Black?"
Paul glanced down at his notes. "Was it yours?"
"I thought it was at first."
"What changed your mind?"
Isaiah took another careful breath before answering. "I was studying near campus earlier. There were a bunch of people sharing the long tables. I packed up fast, and there was a black drive beside my laptop. I picked it up because I thought it was mine."
"Did you open it?"
"No. I put it in my bag."
"Where?"
"In one of the small inside pockets."
Paul's pen stopped moving. "What does your own USB look like?"
Isaiah seemed confused by the question. "Blue."
Maya's eyes shifted toward Paul; neither of them interrupted.
Paul asked, "So, the black drive definitely wasn't your normal school drive?"
"No."
"Did you know what was on it?"
"I just said I never opened it."
"I'm confirming."
Isaiah leaned back against the pillow, clearly exhausted. "I didn't even think about it again until the police started asking weird questions."
"What kind of questions?"
"Whether I'd copied anything, whether I had uploaded files, whether I'd used a computer after leaving campus."