Izzy realized she hadn’t seen Nephy after the meeting in Bombay Beach ended. She’d hardly seen Nephy there at all, just heard her crying from inside one of the cars. “What’s wrong?” Izzy asked. “It’s late. Are you okay?”

“I have to tell you something,” Nephy said.

Izzy sat up and turned on the light. Dog, alerted, uncurled himself from his spot by her feet and sat on his haunches facing her, dutiful. She buried her fingers in the scruff of his neck for comfort. “What is it?” Izzy asked.

“Where did that video come from?”

“I don’t know. I think those kids brought it. I tried to ask them but their father threatened me. Why?”

There was a long pause and then, finally, Nephy spoke. “That woman in the video,” she said.

“What about her?” Izzy clutched onto Dog.

“She looked familiar. I—” Nephy stopped.

Izzy drew the blankets over her shoulders. “You what?”

“I think there’s some connection between Cyrus and her,” Nephy said.

“What do you know?” Izzy’s voice came out louder than she’d intended and Dog flinched.

“Cyrus told me that he was looking for his bio-mom,” Nephy said.

“Wait, what? He told you? Why the hell would he tell you?”

“He didn’t want to freak you out, I think. I don’t know. He told me about this woman. Well, he went to see her, I think.”

“What woman, Nephy?”

“The woman in the video.”

“And how do you know what she looked like?”

Nephy started to cry. Izzy gripped her phone. She wanted to throw it to the ground, smash the screen to smithereens, cut her hand on the glass shards.

“I went with him,” Nephy said. “I’m sorry, Izzy. We went to this meeting this woman ran. Cyrus wanted to meet her, and he asked me to go with him. He didn’t want to freak you out. It was some weird thing. I didn’t understand it, really. I forgot about it until I saw the video.”

“You forgot about it? You just forgot about going to a meeting with Cyrus to find his bio-mom without telling me? Neither of you told me? Because it would freak me the fuck out? Where was this meeting, Nephy? Was it in Desert Hot Springs? At Miracle Manor?”

“It was nothing,” Nephy said. “I’m sorry, Izzy. I just thought since Cyrus—since what happened—we should look into everything. And this woman in the video was the same woman.”

“What do you know?” Izzy shouted. “Tell me. What did you do? What do you know?”

She heard Seth’s voice in the background, but she couldn’t hear what he said.

Silence.

Then Nephy was gone.

Izzy sat staring at her phone for so long that the screen went black. She pressed her thumb on the button and the phone lit up.