Chapter 9: Raw Files

Cassidy lived on the third floor of a brick building on Pine Street, in a one-bedroom I had helped her paint.

I had picked the green for the kitchen.

I stood in the hall outside her door on Monday evening and listened to my own pulse.

Soren was parked at the curb below with the engine off.

I had told him to stay in the truck, and he had looked at me for a long moment before saying, "I'll be here."

I touched my phone in my coat pocket.

Then I knocked.

The door opened on the chain, and Cassidy's eye appeared in the gap.

"Han."

"Open it."

"Is anyone with you?"

"No."

She let the chain drop and stepped back.

She was in leggings and a gray sweatshirt, with no makeup, and her eyes were swollen from crying.

The apartment was the same.

The couch with the cream throw, the shelf of little plants, the framed prints on the wall that I had given her for her birthdays.

On the coffee table sat two laptops and a third monitor with the cassidyandbrady page open.

"I'm so glad you came," she said. "I wanted to call you. I didn't know how."

"You knew how to call a gossip account."

"I didn't send that photo."

"Somebody did, within an hour. With a caption."

"Han." She sat on the arm of the couch and pressed her palms against her eyes. "I never wanted this. I need you to understand it started small."

"When?"

"Last Christmas."

I did the math in my head.

Last Christmas I had cooked dinner for the three of us because Brady was on the road. Cassidy had brought wine and stayed over on the couch.

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