“The Expulsion Briggs gave you was a nasty one, I can tell.”

“I guess so…”

“You don’t gotta tell me what it was. Just know that it’s a lie. And you have to take responsibility for telling yourself it’s a lie every single day.”

“I know—”

“It might seem obvious now. ‘Oh, my mom did this, my daddy did that, and now I like dick.’ But spend a couple of weeks, a couple months at Nightlight…” Darcy taps two fingers to her forehead, her tone deepening. “That lie won’t go away. Won’t let you sleep. And that idea, that easy excuse, for why you’re still stuck here, starts to look real friendly.”

“I’m leaving after a week,” I blurt without energy.

Those words have never sounded like such a fraud as they do just now. Darcy cups her hands over mine; she notices the pins and needles tremoring my fingers. “Connor, believe me when I tell you…nobody has left Nightlight after one week. Ever.”

My breath evaporates. We hold each other’s eyes like trapeze artists holding hands, petrified but utterly responsible not to let the other one go. “You know that for a fact?”

“It’s why I wanted to talk to you.” Nauseated as I am, I don’t look away. I need to know what she knows. “Campers are all given jobs. In my first few months, mine was organizing the Reverend’s paperwork. Secretary shit. I found a room that stores camper files, and these files are filled with Expulsion Diaries and tape recordings of our sessions. Bit by bit, I referenced the names on the files with the names on both Winner’s Walls. The files covered every person who’s ever been a camper, and no one left camp until at least the three-month mark. Now…imagine what kind of information might be inside Ricky Hannigan’s camper file.”

Breath drops back into my lungs, hot and clear. Of course—over his year-long stay, Ricky must have filled dozens of Expulsion Diaries. “Do you know what happened to him?”

“I don’t. Because Ricky Hannigan is the only camper to not have a file.” My face deflates over yet another dead end, but Darcy remains steeled. “But his file has to exist because there was a big, empty space where it should’ve been.”

“Somebody stole it?”

Darcy nods. “And when I asked about who Ricky was, the Reverend terminated my job at his office and I was shuffled to waitressing. And I didn’t hear Ricky’s name again until the night you showed up, talking about how you’ve actually met him.”

This confirms every hunch that’s been kneeling on my gut for a week—the Reverend is covering up whatever happened to Ricky…and the FBI wants to find out. “So, what else do you know?”

“Nuh-uh. It’s your turn to tell me something I don’t know.”