A job in a gallery. Interesting. And I hadn’t found anything interesting in weeks. I used to work in a museum, designing exhibitions, but a gallery would be nice. There’d be art, maybe some acquisitions, maybe some shows. I could start building a new résumé, a new life. But my heart was still beating too quickly, and the little flame of hope flared into panic. Any job would want my references, my history.

I pulled out my phone, about to do something I’d promised everyone—my therapist, Michael, my mother—that I would stop doing. But I couldn’t resist the awful pain of picking a scab, so I typed Kacy Tremaine into Google, the same way any diligent employer would.

And the familiar words jumped out: disgraced employee, missing art, real-life Goldfinch?, declined to press charges, and gross misconduct. That was me, the art thief who’d had a change of heart, the girl who was lucky she wasn’t in jail. I didn’t have a conviction, but I did have an arrest warrant. Even dismissed charges were part of your permanent record. I looked guilty, even though I wasn’t. I will find a job. So much for that affirmation.

Could I just go back to my maiden name or pretend to be someone else? Sure, if I also wanted to drop evidence of my degree, my work history, any of the things necessary to actually get a job in my field. Either I was myself—with the skills and experience and baggage of my past—or I was no one. At least I wasn’t a liar. Not now, and not back then when it all went down.

I typed another name into the Google search, Aimee McFadden, my former best friend. And among the dozens of hits, I found her like I always did. New posts, new pictures; her life was clicking along right on track. She had everything she wanted.

She’d just had to ruin me to get it.

CHAPTER

2

ALL THE BOOKS were on the study shelves, our clothes were hanging in the closet, and I was in the car on the way to dinner with one of Michael’s new colleagues. And his wife. They lived in the same planned community as us, Bluebonnet Skies, but in a different neighborhood that would take us twenty minutes to reach. Plenty of time for me to freak out.

I will make new friends.

Fear bubbled in my stomach, and I glanced at Michael. Under the passing streetlights, his face looked relaxed, happy even. I didn’t tell him I was freaking out. No special key or self-help book or magic phrase could make my issues disappear like a magician whisking away a cloth. All the white rabbits in my brain were dug in and panicking.