In the midst of our mind-altering discovery about the lockbox, an email notification popped up on my phone. It was from Andrea. I glanced apologetically to Zac on the FaceTime screen. "Shit. Hold on, baby. My stepmom just sent me an email with my dad's medical forms. Do you mind if I take a look real quick?"

His jaw dropped. "Wait, hold the fuck up! What stepmom? Did your dad get married again?"

I blinked rapidly. I could've sworn that I told Zac about Andrea at some point. Guess not. "Yeah, I thought I mentioned her to you before, but, for some reason, I suppose she never came up in our conversations?"

Zac nodded with a dumbfounded expression on his face. "Okay... wow. I'm shocked anyone would actually wanna marry a guy like your dad, but... carry on. You should check that email. It sounds important."

"Thanks, baby. I promise this won't take long."

Frantically, I opened up Andrea's attachments and started dragging my eyes across the contents of each document from the first page to the last.

Patient Name: Charles William Hayes II

Age: 52

Primary Care Physician: Dr. Deepti Rawal

Secondary Physician: Dr. Vince Samson (Oncology)

Oncology?

Fuck.

As I scanned through the forms, almost everything my dad said about his diagnosis seemed to check out. He was indeed suffering from Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma cancer. He started chemotherapy about two months ago.

The furrowed concern on my face must have prompted Zac to ask, "Is everything as bad as you expected?"

"Almost," I replied glumly, "but..."

"But?"

There was a small detail that raised a trickle of doubt in my mind. On the very first page of my dad's diagnosis, the fine print clearly indicated that my dad had been diagnosed with stage one and not stage four of the disease. Obviously, I needed to do more research on the survival rates of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma cancer before jumping to any conclusions, but, even with my lack of medical knowledge, I was pretty sure that the prognosis for stage one patients were probably far rosier than stage four ones.

Why would my dad tell me that he had stage four cancer and then send me forms with a stage one diagnosis?

Granted, the forms Andrea sent me were a few months old.

Was it possible for NHL patients to progress from stage one to four within a few months?

I sighed. "My dad might have lied about having stage four cancer. His diagnosis states that his cancer is only in stage one. The forms are a few months old, but it's still a bit suspect, don't you think?"

"You should ask him about it. Just to be sure."

"Yeah, I'll do that."

I turned my attention back to Mr. Mazur's lockbox and the flashdrive sitting inside of it. "Have you plugged in that flash drive? What's saved on it?"

Zac averted his gaze for a minute. "I was gonna do it, but then... I chickened out last minute. A part of me is scared of what I might find."

"Did you want me to look at it for you?"

"No, no. I'll definitely get around to it tonight. I'm just trying to work up the courage, I suppose. What if my dad ends up being guilty as fuck?"

My eyes shone with sympathy as my heart went out to him. "Aw, baby. Try not to think about that right now. Just focus on doing things one step at a time so we can get closer to the truth."

"Yeah, you're right."

"Maybe we should sleep on it. I can come over and look over everything with you tomorrow."

He cleared his throat gruffly. "No, it's okay. I don't wanna wait. I doubt I'll be able to sleep much, anyway. Not after everything that has happened today. If I have time, I'll see if I can start working on hacking into Lily's laptop. Have you decided on what you wanna do about her, by the way?"

At the mention of the she-devil's name, all the rage that I could no longer direct towards my dad suddenly reverberated in her direction.

Fuck that bitch!

I almost forgot how much I wanted to destroy with everything else that was falling to pieces in my life. I scowled deeply. If I was going to be leaving Wellesley for good next semester, then I wasn't going to disappear without giving Lily a proper goodbye.

I narrowed my eyes sharply. "Hell, yeah. I've made up my mind."

"Oh? And what's the verdict?"

"I want you to hack that bitch's shit so we can put her behind bars."

Zac gave me a mock salute through the phone. "Your wish is my command, my queen."

"Let me know if you find anything on that flash drive. I'm pretty sure that I won't be doing much sleeping tonight, either. I think I'll go comb through some more of Mr. Sinclair's data. See if there was anything important that I missed."

"Sounds good, baby. Let's get to work."

"Will do."

"Love you."

"Love you, too."

After Zac and I said our goodbyes, I thought our plans were set in stone. Despite all the risk and uncertainty surrounding us, I felt confident in our ability to get shit done. Too confident. What I hadn't been counting on was for Dr. Williams' advice to me suddenly wriggle its way back into my conscience. In a way, her words became an eerily accurate self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts for both Zac and me.

Our lives aren't meant to be solid matter. It's liquid. Always in flux and, once you leave school and enter the real world, you'll begin to see that the best-laid plans rarely go as expected, and people won't treat you with the respect you deserve, and, yet, somehow you still have to remain good and make peace with all the indignities that try to bring you down.

Funny how much can change within a few short hours. Funny how much can fall apart once the human consciousness is exposed to truths that it's not prepared to process. I imagined such dark, wrenching vendettas were purposefully kept from seeing the light of day for these very reasons.

Once I set down my phone, I began scrolling once more, mindlessly and half-heartedly, through the countless number of files my boyfriend had stolen from Mr. Sinclair's computer. I'd worked my way towards the man's most recent documents, the ones that were dated and created after Mr. Mazur was sent to prison.

Finally, around 2:00 am, after three hours of wasted time and effort, a suspicious-looking folder titled "Ed Bilson" captured my attention. I remembered my dad had been talking to someone named Bilson back in the townhouse. I was about to click on the folder when Zac called again. I accepted his FaceTime request. When his handsome face appeared on my screen, however, I knew instantly that something was very, very wrong.

There was a hollow, haunted look in his golden eyes that frightened me to the core. In a rasping, broken voice, he croaked, "You're never gonna believe what I found on that flash drive, Cate."

I was almost scared to prompt him, but curiosity drove me to do it, anyway. Anxiety gripped at me like a snare. "What did you find, baby?"

Without saying a word, Zac tilted his phone camera away from selfie mode and directed it instead towards his laptop. A vertical video, as though it had been taken from someone's cell phone, had been pulled up on his laptop. Zac pressed play. I didn't think much of the clip at first. It featured a rather tame-looking cocktail party with a bunch of middle-aged men in expensive suits and ties. Some of them were drinking. Some were smoking cigars.

This was when the person who was holding the camera began to move through the room. Eventually, the camera zoomed in on a dark-haired man standing off to the side and away from the crowds. A red-headed girl also came into view, no more than twelve or thirteen years old. She was clinging to the dark-haired man's legs, whom I could only assume was her father, as though her life depended on it.

The girl turned her head. I caught a glimpse of a very pretty face and cat-like green eyes. My jaw dropped.

It was Lily.

Another older man with graying salt-and-pepper hair walked over to them. His entire demeanor reeked of authority and power. I recognized him. Harvey Waldron. He was the CEO of Wyman & Rimmel.

Mr. Waldron chuckled as he glanced down at Lily. There was something predatory in his gaze that left a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach. "Is this your daughter, Wally? Pretty thing, isn't she? I love me a redhead."

"Thank you, Harvey," Mr. Sinclair responded. Then, he pried Lily off of him and nudged her towards the other man. "Don't be rude, Lily. Say 'hello' to Uncle Harvey. He's daddy's big boss from work."

In a shy, uncertain voice, so unlike the smiling, fearless she-devil I knew, Lily whispered, "Nice to meet you, Uncle Harvey."

Mr. Waldron smirked as he took her small hand into his much larger one and pressed a kiss on the back of her hand. It made me want to vomit. "This party must be boring for a sweet princess like you. I've got some books and movies upstairs. Why don't you come with me? I'd be happy to show them to you."

Lily glanced at her father beseechingly. It was clear that she didn't want to go with Mr. Waldron, but Mr. Sinclair simply smiled and said, "Go on, girl. Don't be shy. I'm sure you'll have more fun with Uncle Harvey upstairs. I'll wait for you down here until you guys are done."

Mr. Waldron grabbed Lily's hand and began to pull her away from her father. This was when the video cut out.