“We’re going back to Chicago,” I say. “We’ll do the rest of the work from there. Now that we have proof, we’ll have help from other firms, other agencies, deeper pockets.”

“That sounds like good news,” Condor says.

“It’s bad news.” I practically shout it. Condor sits back in his chair, watching me without expression. Another memory surfaces, of passing the principal’s office and hearing Kaycee’s voice float through the open doorway. I’m not lying. I’m not making it up. Why won’t you believe me? “There’s more. I know there’s more. If we could only keep digging.”

“And then what?” Condor shakes his head. “It’s not your job to fix every evil. You did your job.”

“The world is full of people just doing their jobs,” I fire back, “and look what we’re left with.”

“Sure,” Condor says evenly. “And if all of us dig, guess what happens? We all get buried.”

He’s right. But what he doesn’t know is I’m already buried. I’m not trying to dig down. I’m trying to dig out.

“Why did you lie?” I ask him, and he glances up at me, surprised in the act of refilling my glass. “Why did you tell me you were the one to take the photos of Becky?”

He finishes pouring, carefully, wiping the bottle lip with a thumb.

“I didn’t tell you,” he says. “You told me.”

“You let me believe it. You let everyone believe it.”

For a long time, we sit in silence, and the house breathes as houses do, in ticks and clanks and creaks.

“She asked me to lie,” he says at last. I don’t know what I was expecting, but this, the simplicity of it, pulls the air from my chest. “We were friends. Our moms worked together at the prison before it closed. They stayed close.” He checks his cup, as if he might find something different inside of it, then takes a hard swallow. “I kind of lost track of her in high school. I had my own problems. But I gave her a ride sometimes, hung out when her mom came over to gossip.” He shrugs.

“Why did she want you to lie?”

He sighs, long and hard, as if the truth is something heavy he’s been carrying. “When she heard about the pictures, she freaked. She was worried her mom would find out, so she wanted to just pay up and be done with it.” His eyes click to mine. “I was the one who talked her out of it,” he goes on. “I told her just to talk to her mom. To explain. We agreed her parents would take it easier if they thought I was responsible. Like we were hooking up, hanging out, getting drunk, and I did it for a joke to show her later. It sounds stupid now.” He looks away. “When it turned out the photos were from a party with all those people standing around, she just…couldn’t take it.”

I imagine a circle of kids, laughing, faces red from alcohol: in my head, it’s Kaycee’s paintings I see, the predatory grins, a girl in the fetal position on the ground.