Whatever I think is happening, or might happen, between Sylvie and me is impossible. We’ve been working together the past few days, but we are adversaries. Nothing has changed. I don’t believe in psychics, and if Sylvie, and people like her, are allowed to continue their scams unchecked? People like my mom, who can’t accept reality or process grief, will be victimized.

On top of all that, I’m a journalist. This is my job. Annie has given me enough rope to either hang or save myself. I prefer the latter. I owe my boss for the chance and still believe in the value of this story. Sylvie glances over at me, offers a smile. She is fighting for self-preservation, but if she wins, a lot of people lose. I lose . . . My brain searches for a way out and a memory leaps forward . . .

—

Do you hate your mother? Sylvie asked on our drive away from her childhood home.

I feel sorry for her. She thinks that people like you can bring back the dead.

What if people like me could, at least for a few minutes?

Then, assuming you always believed that your bio parents were dead, why didn’t you ever try to connect with them?

I told you on the train, it felt like a betrayal.

Doesn’t ring true.

. . . I can’t.

Why not?

I don’t know.

—

The reporter in me abruptly wakes up. Everything falls into place. This search is a carefully orchestrated charade. Sylvie already knew the plane crash was a lie; that her birth parents were still alive. She’s constructed all of this to make me feel like I’m the hero that saves a damsel in distress. The past five days have been an elaborate ruse to soften my stance, get me to omit her from my exposé. My face burns. That’s why she slept with me. I’ve been so blinded by her act that I let her admission of guilt slither away.

“You said you couldn’t contact your biological parents, on the other side.”

Sylvie finishes her phone call and turns. “Why are we going back to that?”

I stand up, pace the room. “I let it go. You’d just been through hell with Hana and Wess. But it was either an admittance of guilt, that what you do is a scam, or you knew all along that the plane crash story was a lie; that they were alive.” Sylvie’s face drains of light, the smudges of gray beneath her eyes now visible. This week has been brutal—me, her parents, the pressure. But a lot of it is her fault.

Warily, Sylvie admits, “Yes. I lied that it felt like a betrayal to Hana and Wess. But I didn’t lie when I said that I couldn’t contact my biological parents. Not because I knew they were alive, but because every time I opened the red door, tried to reach them, I had a panic attack—it felt like dying. One of my therapists said it meant childhood trauma. So I let it go.”