Chapter Forty

Lilian McMann looks surprised to see me, though I called to let her know I was coming. Or maybe she’s just surprised by how bad I look. Catching sight of myself in the mirror mounted behind the reception desk, I get a sudden thrill of the unfamiliar: a girl with hollow eyes, blue-tinged skin. A stranger who bears only a passing resemblance to the reflection I remember.

It probably doesn’t help that I’m still wearing a pair of paint-splattered jeans and my dad’s work vest.

“Come in,” she says. “Can I get you anything? A water? Tea?”

I accept a water. I’m still a little buzzy from the beer, and I need to clear my head, need to focus. As soon as she sits down again, I get right to the point. “I’d like to talk to your daughter about what happened to her before you left IDEM,” I say, and she freezes with her water bottle halfway to her mouth. “I need to ask her about the messages she received, and about whether she knows of anyone else—any other girls—who were targeted.”

She lowers her water without drinking. For a moment she sits there in silence, and I’m worried she’ll say no. But she simply says, “You believe me, then? You think she was targeted deliberately?”

“I think Optimal has been using girls. I think they’ve been using them for entertainment. For bribes. They’ve been trading pictures, for sure. But I’ve heard rumors of parties, too, that some of the girls attended as part of the scholarship program.” I can’t think about what might have happened to them when the camera lens was turned away. “That’s how Optimal got so many people to protect them. It wasn’t just money. It was girls. Everyone is implicated. Not bribery.” I swallow. “Blackmail.”

For a long time, Lilian sits in silence, gripping her water tightly. And now, in the silence, I can hear my heart beating. I’m worried she won’t believe me.

“How?” she asks finally.

“I think Misha Jennings, the vice principal, got the idea from her friend Kaycee Mitchell, ten years ago,” I say. “It was a game she and her friends played when they were in high school—a very sick game they invented. They preyed on younger girls, underclassmen, people who wanted to belong. Invited them to parties, got them drunk, convinced them to pose. Then they ransomed the photos back, or threatened to release them.”

I can hardly stand to look at Lilian. Her face is cold and tight and furious, and I can’t help but feel she’s blaming me—for bringing the news, for failing to stop it. “But the photos were never returned. I understand that it might sound crazy, but I think that through Kaycee’s father, they found a revenue stream and exploited it. Some Optimal execs were hunting around for young girls.”

If Misha proposed selling the photos through Mitchell’s store, Kaycee might have tried to stop it. Not out of moral duty, but because that was like her: to change her mind, to want something one day and then stop wanting it as soon as other people agreed. Plus, she hated her father; maybe she saw this as a chance to stand up to him. Or she was simply afraid of getting caught. But I can’t remember that Kaycee was ever afraid.

And if Condor is right about Frank Mitchell, that leaves only Misha with a strong enough motive to kill her: Misha, who always had a thing for Kaycee’s boyfriend; Misha, the crueler, coarser, uglier version of her best friend; Misha, who lied to Brent about speaking to Kaycee on the phone; Misha, who tried to focus my attention on Kaycee’s dad by hinting to me in the community center; Misha, who only plays dumb.

Misha, who might be the smartest of all of us.

I wonder if Annie Baum and Cora Allen suspected what happened, or whether they even helped. It might explain why they’ve spent the past decade trying to drink or drug themselves into forgetting.

That leaves the question of whether Brent knows, too. But I just can’t believe it. No matter what he says now, he must have loved Kaycee once. He’s been trying to help me, even though it must pain him. He’s been trying to help Misha, too. And I can’t believe he would help her if he knew she was a monster.

“I think Misha kept the Game going all this time,” I continue, “changing the rules, using the scholarship money as incentive—and insurance.” I remember the day I visited, how her secretary was collecting phones, turning them over to Misha as punishment for texting in class. Likely targets for a much bigger operation.

Lilian stands abruptly and moves to the window. There’s no view to speak of: just a half-empty parking lot.

“We transferred Amy to a private school after it happened,” Lilian says. “She doesn’t know anything.”

“She might know more than you think.”

“She put all that behind her.” Lilian’s voice breaks. “It nearly killed her. She’s finally happy…”

“This is bigger than just her,” I say, as gently as I can.

To her credit, Lilian doesn’t cry. I see the urge move through her, bucking her spine and shoulders. But when she speaks again, she sounds calm.

“Should we call her together?” she asks. “Or would you prefer to speak to her alone?”

In the end I opt not to speak to her by phone at all. Culver Boarding School, where Amy has stayed on for a summer arts immersion course, is two hours north of Indianapolis; it’s early evening when I arrive and though I haven’t been sleeping I feel more alert than I have in weeks.

It takes me fifteen minutes to locate the student center where she has agreed to meet me for coffee. I worry she’ll have lost her nerve in the time it took me to drive up here.

But she’s there. She stands and shakes my hand firmly, making me feel a little like she’s the adult and I’m the kid who just arrived for an interview. Even as I’m working out how to explain why I’ve come, she beats me to it.

“My mom said you wanted to talk about what happened sophomore year?”

“Not exactly. I’m here about the photos,” I say. “Not just yours. Other photos of girls your age. Circulated. Sold, too.”

She looks away. “None of my friends did that kind of stuff.”

“But did you ever hear about it?” I ask her. “Did you know other girls who did?”

“People tell stories,” Amy says slowly. “I don’t listen. Half of what people say is a lie, and everyone would rather believe the lies sometimes. Like, how come if a guy has sex he’s a hero, but if a girl does everyone says she’s a slut? It’s not fair.”

“It isn’t,” I say, hoping that will prompt her. But she just picks at the corner of the table with a chipped nail, avoiding my eyes. “So you never heard about something called the Game?”

Amy looks up. “Sure, I heard about it,” she says. She sounds genuinely confused. “But that had nothing to do with the pictures.”

I stare at her.

“The Game was about the scholarships,” she says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“What do you mean?”

“Mrs. Jennings is the one who recommends students for the scholarships.” Misha. “But everyone knew it didn’t always work that way.” She looks embarrassed. “There were…parties. Events for the girls who wanted to be considered.”

Tatum Klauss’s words in the hospital come back to me. The parties were only for the girls.

“There were always people from Optimal there. You know. Older people.” Her eyes briefly lift to mine.

“Older men,” I say, and she nods.

“So that was the Game,” she finishes. She chips at the edge of the table with her fingernail. “To try and get selected.”

“How?” My throat is so dry I can barely get the words out. “What do the girls do to get chosen?”

“I never went,” she says. “I wasn’t pretty enough.” A sad smile skates briefly across her face. “I guess that’s why when the whole online thing happened, I was flattered.”

“So the Optimal Scholarships aren’t about grades,” I say, trying to keep my voice neutral.

This makes her bark a laugh. “Are you kidding? Half the girls who get scholarships are barely passing until they get special tutoring through the program.”

I can picture it now: Misha and the parade of girls in trouble, girls who see this as their only chance. I close my eyes, gripping my chair, finally understanding: how she might then have controlled them, used proof of these past mistakes to manipulate and intimidate.

“Besides, have you seen them? They’re always the prettiest girls in school.” Amy shakes her head. “You know how they call the scholarship kids the Optimal Stars? Some of the guys in school had a different name for them.”

“What?” I ask, even though half of me wants to cover my ears, to beg her not to say anything more.

She smiles grimly. “The Optimal Skanks,” she says.