“I think you should go with your gut, and I’ll go with mine.”

I’ve known Quinn for two decades now and he hasn’t gotten any easier to read.

Chapter 5

JANA (THE ACTOR)

Oh, my dear Matthew.

You send other Stingrays to the sunny tropics, yet somehow I end up here, in snowy New Hampshire. Sometimes I think you have it in for me.

(Or is it that you wanted to keep me close at hand?)

Even worse: I’m at an elite New England prep school. I didn’t much enjoy school back when I was required to attend, and I’m certainly not in the mood to be here now.

But the two young ladies who invited Paige Ryerson to spring break have returned to St. Paul’s Prep, home to the high-school-age children of the international elite. Hannah and Brooke Clee have resumed their classes and are presumably showing off their tans and resuming their ordinary lives.

Unlike Paige Ryerson.

Today I’m playing the role of a midlevel federal agent pulling down $68,933 a year, so I have to dress the part. I want the Clee girls to feel superior to me but also fear me, because I could be one of those idealistic, low-paid FBI agents who can’t be bought. All of which means I have to pull a slightly hideous pantsuit out of my wardrobe—one I last wore in an off-Broadway production of Catch Me If You Can.

The things I do for this team!

After the usual bureaucratic nonsense (ID checks, phone calls), I make my way to the dorms, where I’m told the girls will be studying. The Clee girls share a room in Brewster, a girls’ dormitory known for the rooster perched over the entrance. This fowl theme is carried into the hallways, where each door is marked with paper roosters—made from the handprints of the students—that are adorned with the names of the residents. It doesn’t take long to find Hannah and Brooke’s door birds.

I knock, but there is no reply.

So much for studying, eh?

Five minutes later, I find the Clee girls perched on a short stone wall behind their dormitory, smoking pungent clove cigarettes that they quickly begin to hide when I approach.

“Feel free to keep them out, ladies,” I tell them. “I’m not ATF.”

One of the twins, whom I recognize as Brooke from her many social media accounts, smiles at me.

“You want one?” she says, offering up a square, elegant package of some hipster brand. Brooke Clee is shorter and stockier than her sister, and she’s far more social, based on her thousands of followers, friends, and fans. She is fond of late-night confessions and revealing selfies.

Hannah, meanwhile, eyes me warily. She holds up her cell phone like it’s a stun gun. “So where are you from? Who let you onto school grounds?”

I tell them my fake name, show them my fake credentials. “The Bureau sent me here for some follow-up questions. We’re all very concerned about Paige, and would like to find her as quickly as possible.”