Amber gives a little salute and hops over to a Keurig, while I follow Sheriff Morrow past reception through an open double doorway into a bullpen. An overgrown boy with a comical mustache looks up from a cluttered desk in the corner, furrowing his brow at me. Infinitesimally, his head tics to the right at a dry-erase board with my face on it. And Natalie’s, Luke’s, Morgan’s, Creepy Chris’s, even Mayor Bergen’s…They’ve pulled down a selfie I posted to Instagram a few weeks ago and printed it on cheap white printer paper. I’m on a police murder board. Wow.

Sheriff Morrow catches me staring. He clears his throat noisily and urges me to follow him.

Interview room B is on the left, a narrow, beige space with a single table and chair, except for a more comfortable rolling chair resting against the wall. The sheriff gets the rolling chair. I sit down on padding that may have once been a bright purple but is now a faded maroon, with grooves where many butts before mine have sat. Up in the adjacent corner is a camera. I’ve been transported into one of those ID channel murder shows my mom loved marathoning. Now I realize if this story ever gets dramatized for TV, that footage of me in this chair may make it on air. I sit up straighter.

Sheriff Morrow is thorough. Starts me in the morning and walks me all the way through to finding the body. He doesn’t write anything down; no, every ounce of his attention is on me. He’s casual—too casual—and blunt when I make self-deprecating jokes, like how of course I picked the worst possible place to pee. We discuss the fight between Natalie and Morgan, and betrayal stabs through me as I repeat Morgan’s ominous words:

Maybe it’s someone else’s turn to win for once.

God, she didn’t mean it literally, did she? No way…Morgan’s the one spinning an alternate-victim theory.

Unless that’s a cover, a nasty voice inside me whispers.

“What about Morgan?” I blurt. “She told me the killer might have been targeting her.”

The sheriff turns icy. “I’m the one asking the questions, Miss Ellis. Need I remind you about our conversation earlier today? I don’t like how you seem to be going out of your way to discuss this case with other witnesses. And Morgan Quinn has always had an overactive imagination. I don’t need her, or you, meddling in this investigation.”

His dressing down brings wicked heat to my cheeks, but also a surge of defiance. I got to Chris Wang first. I’m on top of the Reama lead. What do the cops have to show? I’m taking Morgan seriously.