“Dr. Shepard?“ Riel asks. “I don’t know about her. But I know for sure your dad was also advertising on campus for volunteers for his follow-up studies.”

She looks away then, but if she actually feels ashamed of all the time she spent trolling around our private electronic lives, she hides it well.

“And none of this says what they are planning to do to the girls,” I press. “Or why they have them in the first place. Did you find anything else?”

“Hey, it wasn’t easy to figure out this much in a few hours,” Riel says, defensive. “These people don’t exactly hang out a sign. And then I got a call from Leo saying some random girl had Kelsey’s book, which was kind of distracting, you know.”

“Also, she doesn’t work for you,” Leo snaps as he comes back in. “If your dad hadn’t tried to cover everything up to begin with—”

“I know, he messed up!” I shout. “No one is saying he didn’t! But that doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

“And she doesn’t owe you anything,” Leo goes on. She’s not obligated.”

But all I can think is: yes. Yes, she is obligated. Being an Outlier makes her obligated to help other Outliers. I don’t say that, though. Maybe I’m wrong. And I’m afraid suggesting that will make Riel angry.

“Listen, my dad definitely made mistakes, and Quentin exploited them, and if you ever talk to my dad”—my voice catches on the if—“he will be the first to take full responsibility for all of it. But he was trying to protect me—and he thought he was protecting Kelsey and whoever the girl is who gave me your book. He was afraid of this, something like what’s happening right now, happening to the three of us. But he isn’t hiding anything anymore. He’s trying to get all of this out into the open. He went to DC to meet with the NIH to get public funding for his research and—”

The NIH. Dr. Frederick Mitchell. That was one lead I didn’t give Riel. One place she couldn’t have searched.

“What?” Riel asks when I stop talking midsentence.

“Dr. Frederick Mitchell from the NIH,” I say. “Can you try to find something between him and Dr. Cornelia? That’s who Kendall said he was. I think there might be a connection.”

It’s a feeling. An instinct. And luckily, that’s not something I have to explain to Riel.

She nods as her fingers move fast over the keys. “Getting into the NIH system is even harder than the Department of Defense,” she says. “And not because of security. Their system is so old it’s barely an actual computer. This might take a minute.”

I stand behind her as her fingers fly over the keys.