“Spill,” Annie says.

I settle onto a bright yellow Lucite chair and tell her about getting picked by Sylvie and her summons after the show.

Annie asks, “First impressions?”

“There’s ice under that pretty surface.”

She tips her head back and forth like a metronome then asks, “Anything else?”

“I anticipated cunning, but she’s smarter than I expected.”

“Do I detect a note of admiration?”

I chuckle. “Hardly. Sylvie is just another con artist and all the good ones have a natural cunning. But I get her appeal.”

“So what’s your next move?”

I shift on the hard plastic before giving her an answer. “I gave Sylvie an ultimatum. Do an interview about her real past and commit to a show without cheating to definitively prove she’s not a con artist, or I’ll run the story that she’s a fraud.”

“So you turned on the T. Holmes charm. Be still my heart.” Annie grabs her fidget spinner and twirls it.

“She’ll call,” I say.

“And if she doesn’t?”

“It’s her only chance to have any control over the narrative.”

My boss frowns. “Thomas, you sold me on this exposé based on evidence that Sylvie is not only a cheat, but has giant skeletons in her closet that will prove the psychic world’s up-and-coming superstar is a complete fraud. To be honest, though, this is starting to feel off, like Brezen—big hat no cattle.”

Heat crawls up my neck. Senator Stoddart Brezen was supposed to be the story of my career. A source told me that he’d paid underage girls for “massages” and those girls also serviced a network he’d created of powerful people both in politics and entertainment. Annie went to bat for me, got the budget I needed for private investigators, flights, hotels, the works.

I spent eight months pulling the story together but could never get that one, irrefutable piece of evidence that would’ve closed the deal. Then the linchpin, a seventeen-year-old girl who’d sworn Brezen was basically her pimp, recanted. Turned out she was attempting to blackmail Brezen, who was married, over a one-time sexual encounter. Her friends recanted, too. My big story imploded. Powerful people were furious. Annie almost lost her job. I’m not sure how she kept me from getting fired.

I clear my throat and tell her, “I’ve got truckloads on Victor and Doug.”

“They’re old goats—”

“With interesting backstories and almost a million followers and fans each. Plus, Sylvie fell for the people I planted in her audiences.”

“One hundred percent of the time?”

I think about the plants Sylvie never picked, Daryl’s text, and my own experience and equivocate. “More than fifty percent. Look, even if she doesn’t agree to an interview, I can still use what worked and loop her in with the other two.”

Annie chucks the spinner onto her desk. “I told you this before, I have friends who’ve gone to her shows—people without a social media presence, very private people, smart, and they’ve come away believers. Right now, including Sylvie in your exposé doesn’t live up to the Times’ investigative standards and lacks a broad appeal for our readers. The latter is no small thing. Sylvie is young and hot as hell, even if you won’t admit it. Cherry on top, she’s trending. You need her to make this a big story.”