Most likely Ruthie tried to reach me to tell me I’m on my own tomorrow night. Briggs won’t be on the panel with me. So it’s not really a panel anymore because that leaves me alone onstage. But I’ll manage, and it occurs to me that were I to step outside the mobile command center I could see the imposing red-brick complex from here, tucked behind trees.

The Kennedy School backs up to the park, and I can’t help but think about how everything seems weirdly linked and familiar. It’s as if I’m traversing a landscape that’s turned out to be an intricate maze, and I don’t know how big it is, what it connects or how to get out.

I’m not going to learn anything further about why Briggs has had to cancel until I talk to him, assuming I can reach him. He also could have been deployed somewhere, and I know how much he hates to let anyone down, especially me. Big Army man that he is, he’ll duck a confrontation if it includes being the bearer of bad news. I redial his and Ruthie’s home number. No one answers, and I hear a peculiar clicking on the line.

“Ruthie, it’s Kay. I’m sorry I missed you,” I leave her a voice mail, and now I’m hearing an echo as if two of me are talking on top of each other. “For some reason my phone didn’t ring. I’m working an outdoor scene and may be in spots where the signal is bad or I can’t answer. But please keep trying me.”

Then I send a text to Harold and Rusty, making sure that one of our transport vans is on the way. It may have to wait awhile but let’s go ahead and get it here, I tell them.

10-4, Boss. Moving slow. Unavoidable. Stay cool ALAP, which is Rusty speak for as long as possible, and he includes a frowning, red-faced emoji.

On the right side of the trailer, beyond the galley, is a deep stairwell that leads outside. My Tyvek-covered shoes thud down the metal steps, and at the bottom I open the door. I emerge outside in the hot night and am blinded by blazing HID headlights. I hear the guttural rumble of a powerful engine. I smell high-octane gasoline exhaust that can’t be coming from the mobile command center’s auxiliary diesel generator. Then everything goes silent and black.

“Hello?” A thrill of fear touches the roots of my hair as I hear the swish of grass, of someone walking fast. “Who is it? Who’s there?”

A lean figure materializes in the night like a ghost rushing toward me.

“AUNT KAY, IT’S ME. Don’t be startled,” Lucy says, but it’s too late.