That was when I saw a tiny metal circle underneath the desktop. It was about the size and shape of those silvery gadgets that come in sewing kits to help you thread a needle, but this one had an orange circle in the middle and a minute piece of wire where the threading arm would be. I started to reach my free hand up for it, then lay back down.

Colonel Baggetto had been sitting at this desk eating his pizza. No wonder he’d been happy to talk to me in my room instead of at a restaurant. Of course, a guy with his skills could have broken in anytime, planted any number of devices in the room, but the homeowner might have come in on him, wondering why a stranger was in her house. So much easier to do it while asking if I was a vegan.

Peppy gave a short, angry bark: Was I going to get that chicken bone or not? I pulled it out and got to my feet but annoyed her no end by taking it outside to the trash—this time with a jacket over my nightshirt.

“You deserve a special reward, my mighty huntress,” I said while we were still outside, out of mike range—I hoped. “Just not that bone.”

Back inside I gave her some peanut butter, then cleaned chicken grease and floor dust from my arms and went back to bed. The mike made me feel vulnerable, overexposed, but I wanted to leave it in place. Better Baggetto not know I’d discovered it.

To my surprise I slept soundly, despite the ear underneath the desk. I should ask Baggetto if I snored. None of my lovers has ever complained, but chivalry might have been trumping annoyance. In the morning I put my iPad on the desktop and tuned in to WFMT radio in Chicago, high volume, while I did a full workout. Baggetto and his sidekick, AKA Marlon, deserved a chance to listen to Haydn.

I wondered if I had malware on my phone, perhaps in my computer and iPad as well. It would be prudent to assume the worst, which would mean Baggetto and his army computer sidekick had access to all my case notes, including the photos August had taken. Which meant anything new I learned, I needed to write by hand. They say writing by hand makes the brain expand, so this was a good thing. I should send the colonel a thank-you note—handwritten, of course.

I sat cross-legged on the floor, eyes shut, trying to remember last night’s conversation with Cady Perec. We were inside when we discussed whether something like a radioactive gas leak had made her mother roar off without her. It wasn’t until we were outside that we’d talked about trying to get into the Sea-2-Sea field. We were safe, sort of.