“There.” She points at a holly tree, at a white pine with motion sensor cameras and lights on them. “Several times now they’ve been activated by movement but there’s nothing there. The cameras aren’t picking up anything.”

“I’ll ask what I have before,” I reply, and I realize why she’s brought me here. “Couldn’t an animal be to blame?”

“I have the sensors set to react to anything moving that’s at least three feet off the ground like a deer, a bear, a bobcat,” she says as I stand very still, bearing most of my weight on my left leg. “Something that size and the cameras would pick it up. But they didn’t.”

Lucy is putting on a show. Whatever she has in mind is the go screw yourself grand finale, and any minute now the fireworks will begin. She deliberately dressed in FBI sweats and if that wasn’t enough she’s about to do more. But it doesn’t explain the strange object I’m noticing so close to her feet she’s about to step on it. At a glance it could be a tiny raindrop on top of brown leaves beneath a mountain laurel. But it’s not raining yet.

“Don’t move,” I say under my breath.

I hold her stare, making sure she understands and she does. I steady myself next to a clump of sassafras trees, grabbing on to a smooth trunk. Mitten-shaped pale green leaves brush against me, and I casually comment that in another month or so they will turn yellow, coral and orange. Lucy’s property will be fiery with fall colors, I say good-naturedly for the benefit of eavesdroppers, and then the snows will come, and there can be no invisible intruders because they’ll leave tracks.

“Unlike whoever has been here,” I say not just to Lucy but to the FBI. “And I know someone was,” I continue to announce as I dig in the pockets of my cargo pants and find a pair of fresh gloves.

Pulling them on I steady my balance as I bend over, moving as little as possible so I don’t disturb the underbrush or leaves and lose what I’m trying to collect. The small bit of what looks like quartz sticks to my gloved index finger, and I cup my other hand under it to make sure it doesn’t fall or sail off on a gust of wind. I can’t help but think it miraculous that something no bigger than a grain of rice was plainly visible, and I suspect it hasn’t been out here long.

“Unless you’re the source,” I say to Lucy, “then someone has been in this spot. Probably very recently.”