If nothing else, she knows Anna had the camera trained on her the night before she died, Maeve’s last dance in the lobby. The footage is worth a look. But there’s also whatever Sadie was doing with it. Secretly, with or without Sim. If Karo thought the thing was causing trouble, she must have had good reason. And that reason is likely on film.

There are two extra battery packs in the side pocket, one drained, one showing a 40 percent charge. Maeve slips the juiced battery into the camera and hits Play on the first card.

There’s a blast of sound and she almost jumps out of her skin—the volume is way up. She hits Stop, looks all around, then takes a breath. Turns the sound down. Starts again.

The dance footage is the first thing she sees. It’s the last thing that was recorded. The normalcy of watching herself dance on the little screen feels, at first, like a reprieve. But there’s a strangeness to the way it’s filmed—it goes in and out of focus, as though Anna were distracted, as though she were holding the camera but really watching something else. There’s some ambient noise and Maeve nudges the volume up a little. She can see herself and also a shadow reflection in the window. There, it’s not only Maeve in the frame but Sim too—his image growing larger in the glass until she sees the real Sim enter the shot, skirting the edge of Maeve’s space. He disappears where the mezzanine stairs begin, and a moment later, Maeve watches herself fall.

The screen goes black.

Maeve removes the card and pockets it, like a souvenir she can take home. She plugs another one in. There are a million little files, all numbered, no names, and she sets them up to play through. The first few groups show a different High Water: full sun, leaves on the trees, people she doesn’t know. A lecture, maybe, or a tour, outdoors in summer. The season changes. She’s waiting to see the clip of Dan out in the snow, the one where he loses his temper and takes the camera from Justin’s hands—but it’s missing. Justin must have deleted that one, scrubbed it clean. She scrolls and tries again, scrolls and stops cold.

More and more, what she sees is Anna. It’s like he tried to capture her in her worst moments, Maeve thinks. The ugliest angles, bad light, her face red with cold.

“Girl, he sure hated you,” she murmurs aloud. She can almost feel Justin’s resentment in the clips. Once, he accidentally captures Dan walking into the moment, reaching out to prod teasingly at Anna’s shoulder, to bug her, then suddenly taking her hand. He must have thought they were alone. The clip cuts off.

When she pulls out the card this time, a row of thumbnails pops up. Maeve realizes there are files temporarily saved to the camera itself. Scrolling back, she sees Anna again and hits Play.