“Pretty much,” Franklin replied, sounding deflated.
“Wow,” Cassidy said, trying to focus on the facts. She could ask the other questions later, like how does someone decide to have sex with more than one guy? and how would you record it? “Is there any way to find out when the video was made?” she asked.
Franklin muffled the phone. Cassidy could hear a female voice talking, and Franklin answering.
“I need to call Alice,” Cassidy said, more to herself than to Franklin.
Franklin came back on the line. “She just arrived,” Franklin said. “Here.”
“Dr. Kincaid?” Alice’s voice said.
“Yes,” Cassidy said, recovering from the surprise. Everything is happening so fast, she thought, trying to ground herself by rocking back and forth on her feet.
“Have you heard?” Alice asked. “Holy shit, I can’t believe Izzy would do something like this. I mean, why would she do this?”
“Hold on,” Cassidy said. “We don’t know if it’s her.”
“I do,” Alice said, her voice sounding strange. “And I also know who she was with.”
Cassidy’s throat clamped shut. She thought of Charlie and braced herself.
“Cody and William.”
Cassidy felt the ground tilt and had to grip the side of her Subaru. “Are you sure?” she asked after the trees stopped swirling.
“Yeah,” Alice said scornfully. “I’m sure.”
“Fuck,” Cassidy breathed, feeling time slow down. The traffic humming on the road seemed suddenly louder, the scent of the asphalt and pine boughs took on a sharpness that made her feel sick. She wanted to doubt Alice, to tell her that she was wrong. Her brain just couldn’t accept it. But Alice seemed convinced, and she wasn’t the kind of person to make incomplete conclusions.
Cassidy thought back to two nights ago when, according to Alice and Franklin, Izzy, Cody, and William had walked back from the lake together. Alice and Franklin, who were ahead, couldn’t identify when the threesome returned to camp. Cassidy searched her memories of the past three weeks: Had she seen Izzy with Cody and William before—in the field, mapping, or in camp? Or in the van when they drove to and from the field area? When they took day trips, or did grocery runs? No, no, and no, Cassidy thought. I would have noticed. That last night in the resort’s bar, when the three of them danced together had been the first time.
Suddenly, Cassidy’s rational mind swam to the surface. “Wait, this can’t be right.” She tapped the curb with her toe. “Franklin said it looked like a hotel room. We’ve been in tents all summer.”
The line went silent, and Cassidy’s thoughts tumbled through a million irrelevant questions. If the video been made before field camp, why was it circulating now? If it had been made during field camp, where had they done it? Of course, there was the resort, which had rooms, but students didn’t stay in them. Cassidy mentally scanned the code of conduct each student signed when registering for field camp: NO DRUGS. NO CHEATING. QUIET HOURS 10 P.M. – 7 A.M.
With dismay, Cassidy realized the form lacked a rule against reserving a hotel room. It had never occurred to her to add it. But the hotel was booked months in advance. How could Cody and William have scored a room at the last minute? A cancellation, maybe? Or had one of them reserved a room months ahead of time, planning for a night of comfort—or privacy?
Cassidy shook her head. In her experience, young people had no capacity to plan ahead. No, this was done on the spur of the moment—possibly they’d lucked out with a cancellation.
Suddenly, she thought about Preston Ford. Had he seen the video? “Oh no,” she gasped out loud. “Is there any way to get the video taken down?” she said, her lungs feeling wrung out. “Like, report it as slanderous, or something?”
“I don’t know,” Franklin said, and Cassidy realized that she was on speaker. “Uh, it’s not like these sites have a customer service line or something.”
“Who posted it?” Cassidy asked.
“Uh,” Franklin said. She waited through a pause. “Looks like someone under the name Farley Bucker 699,” he added after a pause.
“Well that’s a dead end,” Cassidy sighed.
“Looks like it was posted two days ago.”
Cassidy lowered herself to the curb so she was eye level with her tires, which smelled of rubber and something scorched, like an empty pot heating on the stove. She cradled her head with her free hand. A scandalous sex video featuring Izzy is posted on the same day that she decides to disappear. She could practically hear Bruce’s voice in her head: definitely not a coincidence.
“Did she and William or Cody interact at all during the drive home?” Cassidy asked. She remembered the way William and Cody were glued to a screen as they hunkered down in the van that last morning at field camp. The thought that they could have been watching Izzy—watching themselves—made her feel sick.
“Could they have made this using a phone?” she asked suddenly.
“I guess,” Franklin replied. “Though I really wouldn’t know,” he added.
“Yeah, it’s possible,” Alice said.
Cassidy’s phone buzzed with another text. This one was from Martin. “Martin knows about the video,” she said after skimming his message.
“I can’t believe Izzy would do this,” Alice said.
“It’s not like she needs the money,” Franklin added.
“How do you know she did anything?” Alice said, her voice harsh. “Those assholes.”
“Wait, you mean Farley Bucker or whoever are getting paid to post this?”
“Yeah,” Franklin answered.
Cassidy frowned, thinking back to the night at the bar. Izzy had looked perfectly in control of the situation, dancing and flirting with Cody and William and probably whoever else was in her orbit.
“Could they have posted this video without Izzy knowing?”
“I wonder if she even knew they were making a video at all. Guys do shit like that.”
Instantly, Cassidy wondered if any of her partners had ever done something like that. “Ugh!” she spat, standing suddenly as the skin on her arms and legs sizzled with a raw, burning heat. No,
