The novel’s teenage protagonist, Brynn Gallagher, is waiting for her interview to start for an internship with Motive, a true-crime show. She’s wanted to be a journalist for years but is new to the true-crime genre. She’s surprised she was offered an interview because her application was risky. She sent a very brief email with a link to the very article that got her fired from her position as editor-in-chief at her old Chicago high school’s newspaper. She had left the door of the school newspaper room unlocked and someone went in and posted a collage of male genitalia pictures under her name. Likely, this mistake also led to her being waitlisted at Northwestern University.

Brynn reflects on her past and the recent move from Chicago to Massachusetts. Brynn’s father was transferred from Chicago back to his old job in Massachusetts, and Brynn was somewhat relieved to move away from the school and the scandal. Brynn and her family—her parents and her younger sister Ellie—have moved back to Massachusetts and are living with her father’s younger brother, Uncle Nick, who has been living in their old house since they had moved to Chicago.