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“Conrad told Kate the impostor’s name,” Raisa said. “He told her where to find the person.”
“Maybe,” Kilkenny hedged, like his instinct was to be the voice of reason, but the leaps in logic were too easy to make.
“You really think Conrad would go to his grave knowing the second author, the person who turned him in, was out there free to live out the rest of their life?” Raisa asked. “Does that fit with your profile of him?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “No. He plotted some way to make sure the impostor paid for what they did.”
Kilkenny grimaced. “Yeah. But . . .”
“But what?”
“Is Kate really a killer? Because that’s what we’re getting at, right?” he asked. “Why would she do that for Conrad? It’s not ambition driving her to do it. The series is already going to be successful.”
“And that’s a fairly unhinged way to gain fame,” Raisa added.
“Right.”
Raisa thought about Isabel. She’d used the podcaster persona as camouflage to get close to the investigation, but she’d alsobeena podcaster. She’d laid the groundwork with an entire earlier season so that she’d been legitimate. And she’d been good at it.
They kept thinking about this whole case backward, their preconceived views shifting everything out of focus.
“What if the documentary wasn’t ever the point for Kate?” Raisa asked slowly. “What if her whole goal was to get close to Conrad?”
“Maybe. And what better way to entice him than with the idea of that kind of renewed infamy?” Kilkenny said. “But why?”
“To get the name of the impostor,” Raisa said, bringing them full circle. “She promised him a documentary—a promise she was able to bring to the table because of her schooling. He gave up his secret before he died. That secret, that’s what she cares about.”
“But why?” Kilkenny repeated, a little helpless, a little confused.
“I don’t know. But I think that’s what we have to figure out.” Raisa chewed her lip and stared at the now-closed door that hid Conrad away from them. “I don’t think he’s going to give us anything else. I think he was trying to delay us as much as possible so that we didn’t interfere with his plans.”
Kilkenny followed her gaze. His whole body went still, and she wondered what he was thinking. Would he go back in there for one more look at the man who had dominated his thoughts for fifteen years? Did he need that closure and hate himself for it?
This would probably be his last chance to talk to Conrad, to put any final questions to rest.
She wouldn’t judge him no matter what he decided.
“You’re right,” Kilkenny said. “And I’m done listening to him talk. He’s as irritating in person as he was in those goddamn letters.”
Despite the tension thrumming through her, Raisa snorted out a laugh.
“He is unbelievably tedious,” she agreed.
The corners of his mouth ticked up, and when he met her eyes, his expression softened slightly. As if letting her know he was grateful for her support. She nodded once and then cleared her throat.
“We have to find Kate before she gets herself killed,” she said, because she was a professional, and even cocky documentarians who put themselves in danger still deserved to be saved from themselves.
“I think that means we need to figure out who the second killer is ourselves,” Kilkenny said, grim again. That wasn’t exactly an easy ask.
Raisa checked her phone and then realized she hadn’t had time to fill Kilkenny in on the Vigenère code. She motioned for him to follow her back to the library as she explained everything as quickly as she could.
He didn’t once look back at the interrogation room, and only mentioned Conrad when he stopped to let a guard know that they were done with him.
“I’ll be surprised if we don’t hear from Delaney soon,” Raisa said when they got back to the room with the whiteboard.
There was something smug in Kilkenny’s smile despite the chaos they’d been dropped into. She was pretty sure the psychologist in him thought it would be good for Raisa if she bonded with her newfound sister. The onenotin jail.
“Speaking of your sisters, I can’t figure out where Isabel fits,” Kilkenny murmured, staring at the board like it held the answer. “It makes me wonder if figuring that out might lead us to our second killer.”
“Conrad says they were pen pals,” Raisa offered. “Maybe she got the ball rolling on all this?”