It takes several more minutes to find it; I keep craning my head toward the door, convinced the cops will sense what we are doing, even though Ben assured me the alarm system is off and Bronte’s going to delete the last hour of CCTV to cover our tracks. In the glow, there’s Natalie and her dad, Natalie already in uniform, dress bag folded over her arm, her dad pacing back and forth. He gestures at the dress, lips moving fast. She puts hands on hips, says something that stops him in his tracks. First, rage ripples over his features; he clenches his fists. Then comes fear.

There it is. The gauntlet thrown down. The identity of his affair partner, I’m sure. Natalie tosses her hair over her shoulder, turns on her heel, and goes inside the building, leaving her father behind. After a moment, Morgan slinks into frame. She must have been listening. But then she does the strangest thing: she raises her hand to Mayor Bergen’s shoulder, gives it a reassuring squeeze, then trails her fingers down his arm, leans into his ear, and whispers something before going off to change. And the look on the mayor’s face has transformed from fear to a mixture of guilt and excitement.

“May I?” I say.

Bronte moves aside, lets me use the mouse. I skip forward, back to halftime, ahead of where we watched before.

“What are you doing?” Bronte asks.

“Checking on a hunch.”

And there it is. A minute or so after Natalie leaves, her father appears. Then Morgan comes out of the athletic center and meets him, and they go off together, away from the stadium.

“What did I just watch?” Ben squints at the screen.

“The mayor cheating with his daughter’s best friend. And they either left to hook up or to murder her.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Déjà vu washes over me as soon as I cross the threshold of To the Sea Funeral Home for Natalie’s wake. With a name like that, I half wonder if they offer literal burials at sea. I wouldn’t put it past this place.

At first, I attribute the uncanny sensation to fresh grief. The way all funeral homes seem to look, feel, and smell the same. The decaying flowers and overcycled air.

But, no, I’ve been here before, in this very receiving room. Hiding behind my mother’s pencil skirt, peeking through my fingers at the frightening life-sized doll in the coffin to my left. Granddad, cheeks too rosy, expression too slack to be the person he was. I knew, instinctively, that it was wrong.

Now, I think of how much puttylike makeup they had to shellac onto his purpling skin, if they took care to hide the rope burns on his neck. I wonder if it’s easier or harder to wrench a young body into a facsimile of their former self.