The hotel room décor is a clash of yellow-and-blue-plaid furniture, matching bedspread paired with a similarly colored Persian-style carpet. Sylvie silently hangs her clothes in the closet then goes to the desk, drops the folder on it. She sorts through the message slips. “Eleven. All from Lucas.”

“And the folder?” My tone is petulant and I hate it.

Sylvie sighs. “It’s my prep—names of audience members, research on their social profiles. Lucas must’ve asked for them early, considering my situation.”

“Are you going to look at it?” She glares at me. The truth hits hard. I’m mad at her for being who she is. It’s like I forgot for a moment that I’m writing an exposé. I’m pissed off because I’ve started to like or at least empathize with Sylvie. How could I not, after meeting Hana? They have different MOs, but our mothers both have obsessions—Hana for her religion and orchard, my mother for psychics and the dead. Both women have pushed their children away. But my job is to be impartial; state the facts. Period.

Still, it’s hard to look at Sylvie and not imagine her at eighteen, desperate to escape High River and Hana. When I left for college, I was desperate, too, rarely returned, making any excuse not to be back in that apartment, surrounded by unfulfilled dreams and ghosts.

Sylvie pulls a roll of Tums from her pocket, chews one. “When I was a kid, my dad used to eat those by the box,” I say. “Turned out he had a peptic ulcer. The doctor said it was work stress, put him on a prescription drug that reduced stomach acid. It’s sold over the counter now. We passed a CVS about a block away?”

She doesn’t bother answering. Moose stalks the room. I let Chris out of her carrier and she instantly follows the big dog, sniffs where he sniffed like she’s a Great Dane, too, except she’s a twenty-year-old cat held together with bits of string and old glue. Her hips hitch with each step, like she’s a wind-up toy powered by a twisted rubber band that’s ready to snap. I’ll put a pain pill in whatever she decides to eat today. I’ve tried not to give her too many, worried they might hurt her somehow. The pills were prescribed two years ago for arthritis. Chris needs to see the vet when we get back to LA. I’ve been putting off that visit.

I dial the concierge from our room phone and ask him to get a fourteen-day course of Prilosec, charge it to my credit card. I’d go myself, but that’d mean leaving Sylvie alone with the room phone and that folder.

Sylvie slumps onto a corner of the bed, pulls her hair down, and braids it. She untangles the braid, lets her hair fall free. Backed into a corner. My article will protect folks from people like Sylvie, Doug, Victor, but in this moment it feels like I’m the Grinch who tells children there’s no such thing as Santa. The truth is the truth. I pull out my computer, Google “Oregon Department of Human Services.” “ODHS is only a half mile from here. We can walk.”