“I didn’t think they’d actually send the photos around,” Condor says, and I feel sure it’s the first time he’s made the confession out loud. “I thought they were bluffing. There you have it. My dirty secret.”

“Not so dirty after all.”

“Dirty enough. She’s dead.”

“It’s not your fault,” I say, unconsciously parroting his own words back to him.

He gives me a narrow smile. “Thanks. Feels like it, though.” He finishes his drink. The bottle is empty. He stands up to get another.

“Fuck it, right?”

“Kaycee Mitchell is dead.” I can’t keep it in any longer. “I’m sure of it.”

For a long time, Condor says nothing. “Kaycee Mitchell ran away,” he says shortly.

“No. That’s why I can’t find her anywhere. She never left in the first place.”

“So everyone in town is lying?” Condor’s voice is curiously flat, as if he isn’t really asking the question. He pours another glass and slides it across the table to me.

“Only the people who matter. Everyone else just believes what they were told.” My head is already spinning. “She was murdered.”

There. I’ve said it.

But Condor doesn’t look shocked. Just tired. “Oh, yeah? Then who killed her?”

I can tell he doesn’t believe me, and I say so.

Condor sighs. He rubs his eyes hard with his fists. “Why would someone murder Kaycee?”

“I—I’m not sure yet,” I admit. “But I know it had something to do with Optimal. And with the Game, too.”

“You think Kaycee was killed for some high school hustle?”

“No. It was bigger than that. I think her father was selling the pictures Kaycee and her friends collected. I think he found a new market. And I think he killed her when she threatened to tell.”

“That’s insane,” Condor says.

“He used to hurt her.” Almost immediately, I’m ashamed. It feels like a betrayal of a secret Kaycee would have sworn me not to tell.

“I don’t doubt it,” Condor says, and his tone softens. “I’m telling you it’s impossible. There’s no way Frank Mitchell killed his daughter.”

“So you’re a mind reader, now.” I don’t even care how I sound. I’m sick of being doubted, disbelieved, and made to feel like I’m imagining things. “Did you have to get a special degree for that?”

The words hang sharply between us. Condor didn’t get a degree at all, and he knows that I know it.

“Look, I saw Frank every day for months after Kaycee disappeared. Every morning, he bought a six-pack and a pint of vodka. For a while, it was a twelve-pack and a pint. It was like watching someone commit suicide in slow motion. One day I couldn’t help myself, and I told him drinking wouldn’t help him forget Kaycee.”

He interlaces his fingers, squeezing so tight his knuckles stand out. “He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. You know what he said to me? ‘I’m not drinking to forget,’ he said. ‘I’m drinking to believe.’ I didn’t know what he meant at first. ‘Believe what?’ I asked him. ‘Until I believe she ran off, until I believe she’s somewhere doing just fine.’ ” Condor is quiet for a second. “Don’t you get it? He said she ran because he wanted to believe it. He needed to. But he didn’t know. He was terrified of not knowing.”