People want to cast Brenae as a saint now, but she didn’t want to be a saint. She wanted to be a star. That’s different. And she was a star. This video is art. That’s the problem. It’s art, but it’s a cry for help and it’s for perverts. So what do you do with it? What does the school do with it? What do the police do with it? What does a gallery do with it? I need some water. My throat is getting dry.

Just beyond the window of the restaurant, Ray paced, his hand to his ear, the expression on his face amused and patient. My eyes fell on his knapsack, opened a crack, a slim black notebook inside. Without waiting for any reservations to kick in, I eased it out, eyes on Ray. As if he sensed my gaze, he looked back. I touched the headphones and gave him a thumbs-up. When he turned away, I flipped quickly through the notebook. His handwriting was tinier than a line of ants, but I saw a whole lot of e-mail addresses, some of which had an illicit ring—[email protected], [email protected]—and dozens of cell numbers. Then I saw a date and the names of people I recognized and some I didn’t, including Layla Goetz-Middleton, Erik Reidl, Nelson de Wilde, Dee Rager, Phil and Spike Dingman, and someone named Genevieve, no last name, with a question mark after her.

I slipped the notebook into the bag.

The addresses looked like dealers of some kind. The names looked like a list of art-world people. The date was a year ago, around the time his brother Calvin died.

I went back to Zania’s interview.

Ray: So you had no knowledge of this video before today.

Zania: No. I knew she was working on a couple of projects about LAAC, but she didn’t say what they were. After London, she wasn’t around much. We didn’t hang together. The crew disbanded.

Ray: Someone erased this off her hard drive after she died.

Zania: That’s gross.

Ray: Any guesses who?

Zania: No.

Ray: And you don’t recognize the male in this?

Zania: His head is blurred out for a reason. We’re not supposed to know who he is. We’re supposed to see him for what he is.

Ray: What’s that?

Zania: The patriarchy. The systems of oppression that start at birth, privileging boys over girls and men over women. This woman, Brenae, she can’t leave the system. The only way she can participate is by letting it screw her.

Ray: Say someone shared this video with the press. Tomorrow. Whom would it affect the most?

Zania: Obviously, LAAC. The school would be exposed. And the guy, I guess, if people do figure out his name. But he walked into that. He should have known who Brenae was.