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I laugh, but even I don’t buy it. “I’d do it, but apparently signatures have consequences."

Serena’s mouth twitches. The faintest ghost of a smile. “Do you really want to?” she asks.

I think about it. I think about all the lives that have been reduced to soundbites and narrative arcs, and how I’ve always been able to justify the means because the ends were always, at minimum, better than the alternative.

“I want to do this right,” I admit. “But I don’t want to be the guy who turns Casey into content. Or you, for that matter.”

She shrugs, easily moving past the confession. “Then don’t.”

She moves over to her backpack, which is more of a portable library than anything. She hauls out two battered file folders and a Ziploc full of loose index cards. She spreads them on the table next to the tapes.

She goes about it like someone pathologically committed to the idea that if you physically arrange the world, the rest will sort itself out.

She doesn’t say anything about my own lack of movement. She doesn’t ask for help. She just keeps organizing each thing she pulls out of her backpack one by one.

After a minute, I say, “Do you think I’m part of the problem?”

She’s sorting photographs by year, her hands moving in a robotic motion. She pauses. “That depends.”

“On?”

“Whether you’re asking about true crime generally or you specifically.”

I turn the tape over in my hands. “Me specifically.”

She goes back to the photographs. “You ask permission.”

“That’s a pretty low bar.”

“It is.” She slides one photograph into place. “You also accept no as an answer. You correct misinformation when it would be more interesting not to. You don’t speculate about things you can’t substantiate. You’ve had enough material for an episode for days, and you haven’t released it.”

My thumb stills against the edge of the tape. “You're keeping tabs on the show?”

“Obviously. I’m in possession of the uncomfortable knowledge that there is an entire episode about me somewhere that I have not been permitted to hear.”

“I didn’t take you for someone who enjoys hearing herself talk.”

“I contain multitudes.” She finally looks up. “You asked if I think you’re part of the problem. I think you work in an industry with significant ethical problems. Those are not the same statement.”

Something in me eases.

Serena studies me for another second before adding, “You worry about doing harm, Baryn. In my experience, the people most likely to cause it rarely spend this much time wondering if they are.”

I let out a breath. “That sounds dangerously close to you thinking I’m a good person.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She returns to the photographs. “I said you demonstrate ethical awareness. There’s insufficient evidence for anything more ambitious.”

I smile despite myself.

A photograph appears in front of me.

Casey and Serena, maybe fifteen, squinting into the sun with their arms around each other.

Serena taps it once. “You can use that one.”

I look at her.

She’s already reaching for the next photograph.