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He better have that key card.

The bottle girl has taken a liking to Alyssa, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear while I’m trapped between Franco and Daniel in the booth. I don’t know where Felicity has wandered off to. I try to subtly get Alyssa’s attention so she can go find them, but it doesn’t work. Franco won’t shut up. He’s a big fan of Dad. No, not like that, he insists—and he’s not a true crime guy, either. It’s a fascination with the dark side of humanity, he says. What we’re capable of doing to each other. The intellectual side of it. The sociopolitical understanding of it all.

I think he’s just saying words to sound smart.

“And you’ve been working with Danny for the docuseries?” he asks, leaning on his knees with drink in hand. “It’s got to be hard, talking about everything again. How’s it been going?”

Good—the topic I need us to be on. At least Franco is useful for something.

“Not exactly how I thought I’d be spending my senior year,” I say flatly, “but we’re making it work.”

“You should think about expanding your brand,” Franco says. “A limited series can only tell us so much, and there’s a lot you could capitalize on.” He pantomimes an invisible screen. “You’re young, you’re pretty, you have a face for social media. You should be getting on podcasts and making a name for yourself. You have the wildest branding opportunity imaginable. The betrayal. The shock. The horror.”

I say, “I guess—”

Franco takes my hand, turns me a bit in the booth, maneuvering me like I’m a doll. Somewhere behind me, Daniel laughs. “Because it must have been terrible,” Franco says, “the moment you figured it out. Right? Finding the body. Realizing you’d been raised by a monster all along. Everything changing at once. What was it like, coming to terms with that? Did you want to believe it?”

Beside him, Magnolia rolls her eyes. “Franco. You’re high. Let her go.”

I can’t tell a talk show host that there was nothing to come to terms with. There was nothing to adjust to that I hadn’t already been desensitized to by first grade. Franco wants to hear about the moment where it all turned upside down, but that doesn’t exist. It was always like this. There was never a time in my life where I wasn’t this.

And it makes me so angry. I’m seventeen and too smart and too autistic and too pretty and too mean. Either I’m social media bait or a rabid animal. I’m a muse and a monster and Graham Nathaniel Slaughter’s daughter. I am incapable of existing outside my father’s shadow, and everything I have—Alyssa, money, dead eyes—and everything I don’t—privacy, a safe place, a working brain—is all because of him.

Will Jane Doe close this for good? Be the last piece of the puzzle that is my dad’s reign of terror? I’ll find her and it’ll be done. Here. Take it. I’m not him. Leave me alone.

But I have to play the game a bit longer, and Alyssa’s still distracted and Felicity’s still gone. When Franco laughs awkwardly at Magnolia’s chiding and lets go of me, mumbling an apology, I retreat to Daniel. Sidle up, convince the tipsy part of his brain that I’m a pretty girl looking for an anchor in the noise and commotion. That I need him right now.

“I’ll pass on the branding,” I say, “really. I’m getting everything I want out of the documentary.” I let my cheek rest against Daniel’s arm in a show of affection. “Daniel and I have a deal. Isn’t that right?”

Daniel, three drinks deep, laughs. The tips of his ears are red. “We sure do. I keep an eye on her, she helps me out with that producer credit. We’ll get it one way or another.”

Franco frowns. “The recording didn’t do the trick? Shit. I really thought you had it in the bag.”

The recording. Of me and Dad.

All the pounding sounds of the club and my own heartbeat erupt into a dull, inescapable howl.

He put the audio recorder there. It wasn’t a mistake or the producer’s fault. Daniel did it on purpose.

This motherfucker.

“Apparently I did not have it in the bag,” Daniel grouses. “Got a pat on the back from Greg and fuck-all else. I need another angle.” He nudges me like I’m not about to scream. “Sorry you did all that for nothing. Got any other ideas for that deal of ours?”

“Maybe,” I say with a coy smile, cobbled together muscle fiber by painful muscle fiber. “It depends. Is the production going to spend any time at the penthouse?”

“Of course we are. Wouldn’t turn down that footage for the world.”

Daniel takes out his wallet and flashes the Potomac Loft Living key card in all its black-and-gold glory.

My mother’s voice hissing against my ear: You’re a cunt when you’re sober.

I need to get that card. I need to be Daniel’s perfect girl. So I have another drink.

In the VIP booth, Franco puts another shot in Alyssa’s hand even though she shakes her head.

“Can I get some water?” she says.

“Come on,” Franco says. “You’re fine.”