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"The transcript thing was ridiculous," Gavin says. "I was in there for, like, four hours. None of that stuff was leaked to TikTok, of course. Not the parts where I was crying, where I was a mess. Just the parts where I came off like the unemotional, detached loser boyfriend. I mean, you have to know that they grilled me for forever even though they cleared me, right? I have an airtight alibi. A doctor's appointment in Scottsdale—cameras, time stamps, witnesses. All of it."

"Okay, but what about the docuseries?" I say. "I never heard about that from Evie. It felt…made-up."

We're sitting on his couch now and he's leaning all the way back into the cushions, arms stretched out on either side. I'm directly under the AC vent now, and I have the urge to drape a blanket over my lap, tuck my legs under myself, but it feels too intimate. Too comfortable.

"Well, it wasn't." He laughs. "We really were working on something. Something pretty cool."

"Right," I say, rereading the transcript in my head. "Vibes."

"Well, yeah." He laughs again. "But I lied when I said we didn't have a subject."

I shoot him a look that says: Explain. Now.

"Well, not a lie. It was mostly true," he backtracks. "We did have a lot of different ideas. We had just recently focused in on one. I mean, it wasn't even an official decision, we were just researching one subject more than the others. It was completely irrelevant to the interview, to what we were talking about…there was no point in going down that rabbit hole with him. It would have distracted us from actually finding Evie."

I stare at him again, my nails digging into the leather couch cushion beside me. "Why don't you tell me what it was, and I'll be the judge of whether it matters or not?"

"I'll tell you whatever you want, Hazel," he says, his voice dropping lower than it was a minute ago. "Under one condition. You tell me why you hate me so much."

It feels playful, like a challenge. For a moment I feel myself slipping back into whatever was happening in the kitchen, weighing how easy it would be to simply let it happen. But the blast of the air-conditioning has sobered me enough to know that I can't go there. Not now. Not if I'm ever going to figure out what happened to my sister.

"Fine," I say, eager to get answers from him, to escape the intensity of this charge between us again. "It was…I didn't want more of that world for Evie. More followers, more spotlight, more scrutiny…I wanted something normal for her. Boring. And you were…"

"Not boring?" His hands are folded in his lap now, and he's staring at them, but then he looks up and smiles.

"No," I admit. "Not boring. I wanted her to have something that looked a little…simpler. A life that was quieter for once. That was…"

"Like yours?" he says quickly, maintaining eye contact with me.

I'm taken aback. "I mean, in a way…I guess, yes. She needed that," I say, trying my best not to sound defensive.

"She knew that, you know," he says. "That you wanted that for her. That you thought that was best."

I hate that I can't tell from his tone if she resented me for it, and I hate even more that I'm afraid to ask.

"I think that was why I said that in the interview," he says. "I shouldn't have. I know she loved you, both you and your mom. Especially you. You know that. It was just complicated, to be on the outside watching it all. To see the pressure she put on herself to please everyone. It was impossible. At the time, I thought…her being gone had to do with that. It must. But I had never considered I might be part of it, too, so what do I know? Nothing, clearly."

I don't know what to say.

"So." He slaps the back of the couch with his hand, as if signaling the end of that part of the bargain, and the beginning of his part. "What do you want to know?"

"The docuseries," I say. "What was that?"

As soon as I saw the word docuseries in the transcript, I guessed the same thing everyone else on the internet seemed to, based on the comments: They were filming something about Evie. About how she had grown up on social media. I could picture it so clearly that I was almost mad that I hadn't thought of it first. An in-depth docuseries about what it's like to grow up in the public eye, online, what it's like to have your childhood mined for content regularly. A critical analysis of the failings of my mother, of her selfishness, her own success, maybe. I could see it all now. It would be genius.

"It wasn't about Evie, if that's what you think," he says. I make a mental note that the growing-up-online docuseries is still on the table, then. But what would the ending be?

"It was about this management company," he goes on. "It was all top-secret, like, a month ago…but I guess it doesn't really matter if I tell you now, now that the project is on hold or, I don't even know. I can't imagine touching it without Evie now. The whole thing was her idea in the first place. But, yeah, it was about an influencer management company that is…sketchy."

"Sketchy how?"

"They take advantage of people like Ev and me," he says. "They're called ReBrand. Like other agencies, they manage influencers, negotiate brand deals, take a cut. Whatever. Not a big deal. Evie told me about it first, that she had heard some rumor about it. And when they reached out to me to work together, I was skeptical at first, but the more I talked to them, the more interested I was."

I settle into my spot on the couch, comfortable for the first time since I got to Gavin's house.

"They reached out to me, right?" he says. "But before I knew it, it became like…I had to convince them that I was the right person for the agency. There were endless interviews. They'd call me out of nowhere, always from a blocked number, and just quiz me on everything. My life, my family, my goals, my dreams. It sounds nuts, I know, but the more intense it became, the longer it went on, the more I wanted to be part of it. I was invested, you know? It seemed like a real opportunity, something deeper than other agencies had offered, other partnerships."

His phone buzzes then, a phone call. He studies the caller ID and I can swear his face goes a shade paler for a second, but he sends it to voicemail.

"Anyway, after eight weeks or so of this, things started to get a little weird," he goes on. "Maybe I should have known it was weird all along, but I don't know…I get so many people in my inbox begging me to work with them, the fact that they were doing the opposite seemed somehow…meaningful. The final step to this thing was apparently this big, three-day-long meeting, a big pitch, where I'd finally find out if I made the cut. And I had agreed and everything. My flight to California was booked. And then they started asking me about my dad."

"About your dad?" I say. "What? About him being sick?"

"Yes," he says. "And the thing is, almost no one knew about the Alzheimer's other than the people closest to me. I know you probably think…the videos, the Dear Evie stuff…I know you think that I'd monetize anything. But this was different. There was a line for me. And at first, they asked around it…‘Are there any traumas you're processing at the moment?' and ‘Is anyone in your life going through a particularly hard time right now?' but I guess they didn't like the answers I was giving because by the end of it, they were flat-out asking me. ‘It must be hard, to know that someone you love won't even recognize you in a few years. Isn't life so fragile, Gavin?' Shit like that."

I suddenly feel cold again, like the weed has worn off out of nowhere.

"That's very weird," I say. "How would they know?"

"I have no idea. I still don't," he says, shaking his head. "But eventually it became clear what they were getting at. They wanted me to use it."

"What? What do you mean, use it?"

"They wanted me to share about it…to monetize it, really," he says. "I mean, they didn't say that exactly, but it was clear. They kept saying that the only way social media works is with humans behind it, and the only way you master your platform is if you continually remind people of that humanity. If you use that part of you to help the greater good. They had been saying some version of this from the beginning, that they're only looking for people who don't filter themselves, blah, blah, blah…but I thought they meant literal filters at first. Not…we want people who show the world everything. Every horrible thing."

He laughs, and it comes out bitter.

"From what Evie and I learned, ReBrand's whole thing was this idea of the Greater Good—capital G's—that they'd find people willing to share the darkest things that had happened to them, and when people inevitably engaged with that stuff, and more followers and bigger partnerships came…because, you know, they always do…part of the money we made would go back to people in need. Nonprofits. The Greater Good. It was included in their cut, they said—if they took 40 percent, then half of that would go to worthy causes, they said. They gave me some insane number, seven figures at least, and told me that that's what I could generate for Alzheimer's research if I signed up with them. I was freaked out and a little pissed, obviously, but I also thought, for a split second, that maybe this is how I make something good of all of this. Maybe this is my opportunity to really make a name for myself for something honestly, truly…well, good."

It sounds like a scam. Or an MLM. But I also see how the pitch would appeal to creators, especially those who are regularly categorized as shallow or dumb or problematic. A thing to point to and say, "Would I really do this if I was as vapid as you think I am?"

"By the time I realized what was going on, how fucked-up it all was…that they were using people's issues, their pain and sadness, to make themselves money…they were packaging it and selling it, I knew I wanted the world to know about it," he says. "People needed to know how wrong it was."

I wonder how people would react. I've been on the internet even longer than Gavin has, after all. I've seen the way people gain a following after tragedy—had experienced it firsthand. Once I saw it with my dad and my mom and Evie, I saw it everywhere. People sharing about their child dying or their spouse leaving or a terrible diagnosis and suddenly gaining a whole new audience, people who tuned in for trauma porn and then ended up sticking around. I know it says more, maybe, about the people following along—their inability to look away, to turn down the sick sort of relief that comes from a good cry, a sad movie, even if they know what they are consuming comes from someone else's very real pain.

But I understand the inclination to share, anyway. I know the desperation to feel less alone in your grief. On the fifth anniversary of my dad's death, I was twenty and having what felt like my best year of life yet. My classes were going well, and I had an internship lined up for the summer and a boyfriend who seemed promising at the time. For the first time in years, I felt like anything was possible. But I missed my dad in a way that felt bottomless, too painful to articulate even to myself most of the time. I found the words that year, though. I wrote paragraphs describing every horrible corner of grief and loss, to see if someone out there would recognize them. If anyone had been to those places, too. And though I rarely posted anything personal on Instagram, I shared it that day, pasted it all in a caption of a photo of my dad and me. I'm seven or eight in the shot, and we're sitting in front of the half-built reading nook on the bus, a book in my hands, a hammer in his. I hit POST and felt instantly lighter, as if the writing (and sharing it) had lifted something that had been sitting on my chest for years. It was one of the first moments that made me want to switch my major to journalism. Figuring out the truth and writing it all down. I could do that forever, I thought.

As it turned out, though, my mother had beat me to it—I knew she scheduled an anniversary post every year, with a still of the viral video of Evie and Dad and a caption about how life had never been the same since he died—and my stomach sank. It wasn't too dissimilar to my post, but it felt performative somehow. I wondered if people would think my post was performative, too. If our whole family was still trying to capitalize on our tragedy.

Based on how my family became famous, it shouldn't surprise me that some company out there had turned suffering into a business model.

"I had the skills. I had the cameras. I had the contacts. I had the perspective," Gavin continues, bringing me back. "I knew I could pitch it to Netflix for some serious money and honestly, I really wanted it. I thought it would be a great way to do something different, to prove that I could succeed doing something else…a different avenue within content creation. Something my dad could see before…before it all gets worse, and he would know I had tried to do something important."

I nod, thinking about what the docuseries would look like on my Netflix home screen. How quickly I would have hit PLAY. People would be skeptical at first if they heard Gavin had created it. But I also knew they would watch.

"And Evie knew about all of this?" I ask.

"One hundred percent." He nods. "She was all about it. Honestly, it was another reason why her leaving made sense to me. We were in this thing together. I was going to go meet up with them, she was going to produce it from here. We were going to pitch it to the streaming services as a joint thing. She was excited about it."

"So, what?" I say. "She was going to go with you to this big meeting? Join in and secretly film the whole thing?"

"No, that was the thing…she was never supposed to go," he says. "They actually didn't even want her. Evie even reached out to them. I thought surely they'll want Evie. Surely, they'll want this huge name. But Ev said they told her that unless she had something else to offer them, there was no more work for them to do. She'd already shared too much."

Something in me prickles with anger at the idea of some board room of people, somewhere deciding that my sister wasn't good enough for them. That her pain wasn't good enough.

"Or her mom had," I said. "Right?"

"Right. They said that Evie's trauma already seemed…hollowed out. Branded within an inch of its life. Those were their exact words, according to Evie. It made me want to expose them even more."

It was true that Evie always shared on social media about our dad, mental health, breakups…she was open about it all, the way people seemed to want her to be. The problem was that being open about so much also seemed to make people think that there wasn't still a line. That there weren't certain things that stayed tied down, even when you let everything else come to the surface.

"Anyway, I said no to the Alzheimer's pitch, and they ghosted me," he says. "Two weeks later, Evie went missing, so I haven't really thought about it since. I don't want to do the docuseries without her. At least not anytime soon. And by the time I get to it…well who knows what ReBrand will be, or if someone else will expose them first. So, that project is dead and gone. And Evie is just gone. And here I am."

"Here we are," I say quietly, still processing everything.

"You know, it's part of why I did the search party," Gavin says. "I thought, maybe I could honor Evie by still doing a docuseries—just not the one we planned."

I think back to Palm Springs, the way he had insisted on no cameras.

"I thought you didn't film anything there…"

"Well, I wanted people to be natural." He shrugs. "And, you know, focused, of course. On finding Evie."

Right. His main priority.

"The dashcam stuff only featured Ashlyn and me…and the drone was more of a B-roll situation, to be honest," he goes on. "At that point, it was all about leads, but now…I don't know, I thought I could use my vlogs, the footage from the search…all of it to create something about her legacy. I think she'd love that."

I shake my head. How had I not noticed the drone? How could I not have assumed that he'd have some kind of plan to capitalize further on this? It makes perfect sense. I can imagine the sponsors. The views. People would eat it up. God knows everyone is still clamoring for more of Evie, that there's a certain portion of the internet that feels the same way I do. Like we all deserve more answers. Like they're out there.

And then I remember another unanswered question.

"How did you even know about the car? About Palm Springs?" I ask. "The detectives said they didn't tell you. You weren't supposed to know."

He laughs, then looks at me expectantly, like he's waiting for me to admit that I'm joking—like there's some unspoken thing between us that I should already know. He waits for a minute and then clears his throat, shrugging.

"Well, I mean, look at the transcript on TikTok," he offers. "It's not like the investigation was exactly airtight."

"So, what?" I say. "You just wanted to use the information for yourself?"

"I just wanted to see if I could find her. And to show all the people who thought the other videos were fake. That I wasn't really crying, or upset, or that I didn't really miss her…that it was all a prank," he says. "Like it would signal I was doing something instead of just talking about doing something. Instead of just making videos."

It sounds less creepy this way. Less creepy than it looked, anyway. But it's also more calculated.

"I had to try," he adds.

Did he?

"I did care, Hazel," he says, staring directly into my eyes now. "I do."

I meet his gaze, and I'm surprised to find that I want to believe him.

"Why do you think that I only let the five of us go?" he presses. "That I said no to the people who reached out to me two or three or four times about joining? The people who claimed to know her so well, but I had never heard of? There were hundreds of them."

I had to give him that; he kept the location from Evie fans, true crime aficionados, journalists who must have wanted their own angle on the investigation. But who else had wanted to join? I had been so focused on the way Gavin was inserting himself in the investigation that I hadn't even thought to ask who else had.

"Like who?" I ask.

"So many people," he says, seeming relieved to shift the conversation. "Teenage girls. Older women. Dudes. A ton of people."

"Did anyone push harder? Really try to make a case for themselves, beg you?" I press.

"I mean, they were all kind of nuts…" he says, shaking his head slowly like he's trying to dislodge a piece of information. But then something seems to occur to him, and his eyes light up.

"There was this one guy…an older guy, I guess," he says. "He insisted he and Evie were close. That he had the privilege of watching her grow up for years and knew everything about her. That she was like his daughter."

"Ew," I say.

"I know," he says. "That was a hard no. I blocked him pretty quick and that was that. But man, he sent a lot of weird messages before that."

"Do you remember his name?" I ask, my brain whirring. "Or username?"

"Something with a C…" Gavin muses. "I think?"

Then I remember the message in my inbox. The person who had said it was a privilege to know Evie, to watch her grow older. And then I remember the other popular Reddit theory. The one about Evie's most-frequent commenter.

"Charlie?" I ask. "Was it Charlie?"

Gavin's eyes light up with recognition.

"Yes."