“There is, but perhaps not the kind you might be expecting,” Quinn says.

Clee sets his jaw and frowns, then shows Quinn to a chair on the other side of his massive desk. Other clients might place Quinn on the office couch and take a seat nearby, as if to imply, Hey, we’re in this thing together. But this seating arrangement says something different. I’m the boss, you’re my employee. Now impress me.

“Go on,” Clee says.

“None of the four major suspects you gave me did it. My team cleared them all.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Salese, Halsey, Kurtz, and James—none of them killed Paige Ryerson. That I can guarantee.”

“You guaranteed closure, Mr. Quinn,” says Clee. “I’m paying you people a lot of money to end this nightmare. For my girls’ sake, and for the poor Ryersons’ sake.”

“The Ryersons will have closure. Because we found the killer.”

“Well, who is it?”

Quinn gestures: May I? Since Clee has no idea what he means, Quinn walks around the other side of the desk and helps himself to Clee’s desktop computer, which has an absurdly huge display. A few clicks, and he’s bypassed Clee’s password and connected to the Stingrays’ servers. Clee is about to protest, but then digital footage begins to play.

It’s his daughter Hannah, who looks like she’s hungover. The ghosts of mascara lines run down her cheeks.

“Yes, I killed her.”

An unseen voice demands, “Who did you kill?”

“Paige Ryerson, our hallmate. But you have to understand…she was such a snitch! I swear, it was like she was keeping notes on Brooke. You should have heard her—that’s a violation of the St. Paul’s honor code, that’s a violation of the honor code, honor code, honor code, blah blah blah.”

Paul Clee’s jaw drops. Quinn watches him carefully—especially the man’s eyes. They reveal everything.

“She threatened to turn Brooke in?” asks the unseen interrogator, though Quinn, of course, knows this is Kate speaking.

“All the time! So we figured it was time for that honey and vinegar thing. You know, sweeten her up, get her to change her mind. So we invited her to the island. We showed her a really, really good time. And that little snitch had fun!”

“So why kill her?”

“Because around two in the morning I found her sitting on the beach, alone,” Hannah says onscreen. “She must have sobered up a little because she started saying all of this nasty stuff about the two of us, pointing her finger in my face, saying that we were bribing her and it would never work. That’s when I realized this little ungrateful bitch would never quit.”

“So you killed her.”

“No! I didn’t mean to. I pushed her down, to show her she couldn’t mess with me. But then she tried to push back, so I punched her in the face. And she hit me back and started screaming and I knew Brooke would be coming along any minute and I wanted the little bitch to stop so I grabbed a rock and I…”