I read on. “There is no medical justification for the hospitalization of these young women. Holding them at Boston General Hospital so that you can conduct some kind of investigation for personal gain is both immoral and unethical. There is insufficient scientific evidence of PANDAS infection or even underlying strep. If you do not inform their parents immediately of your limited basis in fact and give them the option to leave, I will go directly to the press.”

“And then this last,” Riel says, scrolling some more.

“Dr. Alvarez, your contract as a research associate has been terminated effective immediately. You must report to hospital security upon receipt of this messasge. If we find you have breached your confidentiality agreement we will pursue legal action.”

So that was where Dr. Alvarez had gone, and why she’d been so upset—she’d been fired.

“So I kept looking and eventually I found this in Dr. Cornelia’s email contacts.”

With a few more keystrokes, an email address pops up. It ends in @dia.mil.

“What is that?” I ask.

“Someone at the Defense Intelligence Agency,” she says, tapping her keyboard once more. She stops and points at her screen. “Here’s their website.” And then she begins to read: “We provide military intelligence for warfighters, defense policymakers, and blah, blah. Warfighters? I mean, how is that even a word?”

“My dad thought the military had their own research project about the Outliers that was similar to his.”

“Looks like maybe they’re kind of territorial,” Riel says. “Oh, and speaking of your dad . . .”

She heads back to her bag and pulls out a sheet of paper, handing it to me.

“What is it?”

“It was attached to one of the first emails from Cornelia to Dr. Haddox,” she says. “Seems like that’s how they found all of you. Or, at least, all of them. Your dad has a serious knack for losing important shit.”

At the top there is a handwritten note: Phase II Outlier Exploratory, Not for Publication or Distribution. A note that is definitely in my dad’s handwriting. But it’s a photograph of the actual note, not a document.

“Somebody broke into our house,” I say. Though already I know the timing doesn’t make sense. We were all in the hospital by then. Whoever had the list had it much earlier than that.

But I know for sure my dad wouldn’t give them our names. And I am not going to get roped into being suspicious of him like I was back with Quentin and the camp. My dad is a victim here, like us.

“I thought maybe we were all Dr. Shepard’s patients?” I go on then, consider explaining who Dr. Shepard is before realizing that, of course, I don’t need to explain because Riel must already know. Also, I never even got proof that was true. Teresa was the only person who ever said anything about Dr. Shepard.