I hesitated. I could see better from up here—then I understood: if she’d looked up here for me, Jack was likely doing the same. He’d check for my shape at the window before he got near Wilkes. If I wasn’t ready, better that he shouldn’t see me at all and know something was wrong.

With one eye and my gun aimed at the door, and both ears on full alert, I pulled the tarp off my gear and stuffed it into my rucksack. Then I unloaded the rifle and slung it across my shoulder—dismantling it was too loud and too time-consuming.

I hurried to the door and peered out. All clear. A pause, a deep breath, another check, then I sprinted down the hall. Keeping an eye out for the junkie and anyone else, I retraced my steps down to the first floor and out the back exit.

I never should have left that window. I never should have left that window.

Even as I beat myself over the head with the chant, I knew if I hadn’t left my post, I could have been seen. There had been no way to know it was only a junkie until it had been too late. What I should have done was arranged an emergency alert plan, told them that if I had to leave my window I’d stick a piece of paper on the pane, so when Jack looked up he’d know he was unprotected.

From the door, I headed into the back alley. As I ran, I stripped out of my gear and haphazardly wiped the camouflage makeup from my face, then stashed my rucksack and rifle behind a trash bin and kept going.

As I stood at the junction of the sidewalk and alley, a float rolled past. The men’s swim team, clad in Speedos and goose bumps, enduring the cold as they basked in the hoots and catcalls of the students and alumni lining the street. My face had to still be streaked with paint, but I attracted no more than a casual glance. If there were near-naked young men on a float, then a face-painted alumna on the sidelines didn’t look out of place.

I strained to see over the crowd and, for once in my life, wished for high heels or platform shoes, anything that would help me spot that pink hat bobbing along in the mob. When Jack had vetoed the use of cell phones, I should have insisted we have something for emergency communication.

“I hate backup plans,” Evelyn had said. “If you have one, it makes it acceptable to screw up the original.”

Maybe that was true, but under these circumstances, a fallback plan wasn’t an escape hatch, it was a safety net.