“He killed Lucy Halpern in September. I wish I didn’t know her name. I wish I didn’t know any of their names. It’s been five months since he last struck. If he sticks to his pattern, we have around four months to catch him.

“I don’t want to be famous. I don’t want anything except justice. You can judge me any way you want. I don’t care. This show isn’t about me. It is about the thirteen women who are gone…and the one man who took them.

“Maybe you know something. Maybe you think you do. Maybe you have always suspected your dad or your brother or your neighbor. Maybe now you should tell someone.”

I don’t know if this is what they expected when they signed me up, but this is what they’re getting. She was forgotten once, but she won’t be forgotten again.

“If you’re watching,” I say, calming my breathing, steadying myself for the end, “if the monster who murdered my mother is watching this, you should know you didn’t break me. You made me. And if no one else can stop you, I will.”

Chapter 23

I stand up and walk to the bathroom, because that is the only place I can break down.

There’s no yelling “Cut!” Not until midnight. Until then, the cameras film everything, and I need to stay strong. But here I can quietly sob into a towel, the courage I felt during my speech crumbling.

Mom makes me strong. But if I remember too much, everything fractures.

“You’re my star,” she said once, sitting next to me on the top step as I cried about a play I didn’t want to do.

“Don’t worry about the other parents,” she whispered. “Focus on me.”

I did. I was fine. And three months later, she was dead.

When I’ve run out of tears, I shower, get dressed, and walk back out, ready for a new scene.

Chapter 24

At school, Emily runs over and hugs me and says, “You were amazing,” then she looks directly at the camera and smiles.

She has a new haircut and is wearing even more makeup than usual, and I don’t recognize any of her clothes. She’s taking her costar role very seriously.

Hanna doesn’t pay attention to the camera. She reaches out and squeezes my hand, and I smile and nod. This is our silent sign that I’m okay.

All around us, people are stopping and staring—the ones the audience can see and the blurry faces. How it works is facial recognition. Once Mrs. Bradley had the permission slips, she gave the production company the school photos of everyone who was happy to be filmed. The cameras have been programmed to recognize those faces while all the others are automatically blurred out, so they are just school uniforms with smudges for heads.