It amazed and scared me, the way her unseen world could seem more vibrant and alive than the real one. There was a time when I loved her imagination, would follow her anywhere. And yet even then, I hated the way she could make me question things that were obvious facts, things that were right there before my eyes.

I suddenly feel bad. I shouldn’t be here. Whatever Mr. Mitchell says about Kaycee now, he loved her and he still does. Why else would he be so careful to preserve her art? Kaycee’s paintings feel like live things, bits of skin and bone strapped down beneath their protective covering: but still bleeding, invisibly, all over. Even after I’m back in the car, I imagine the smell of paint, and keep checking my fingers and clothes for residue. Kaycee transmuted into oil paint looks different from the Kaycee I remember: lonelier, deeper, even desperate. I remember what Kaycee said to me that day, the day she turned beer bottles into a mushroom that seemed to be growing right out of the page. You know the problem, Abby, isn’t that you can’t draw, she said, out of nowhere. It’s that you can’t see.

I’m beginning to think she was right.

Chapter Eighteen

On Tuesday morning, my ass has barely touched the chair before my phone rings: an upbeat clerk announces that Dev Agerwal, the county prosecutor, is on the line for me.

I unroll the same song and dance I gave when I spoke to his junior prosecutor Dani Briggs just a few days before, and he listens patiently and without interruption before politely telling me that Ms. Briggs had already filled him in. I like him for that; he’s the type who likes to get the same story from different angles, more journalist than lawyer.

“But I don’t know how much help I can be,” he says carefully, and though it’s exactly what I expected him to say, my chest deflates. “My predecessor never announced a formal investigation into Optimal’s business practices.”

“But he spoke about it in interviews,” I counter.

“Off the cuff, sure.” He sighs. “Look, Ms. Williams, I’ve built my career on trying to take big business and big money out of local politics. But unfortunately, it’s mostly a gray area. Optimal has done a neat job of blurring the line. And corruption has to be provable.”

“Only if you plan to prosecute,” I say. “We just need a reason to open up the books. A subpoena would be a slam dunk, but right now, you’re the one with the best shot at a case.”

Agerwal is quiet for a while. Then, abruptly: “Have you thought of speaking to Lilian McMann?”

I scribble the name on the back of a coffee receipt. “Never heard of her.”

“She might have some things to tell you about Optimal, and about their relationship to the…political climate. She used to work at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. She was at the Office of Water Quality.”