“Uh, Vic, uh, I can’t do that thing for you that you asked me.”

“Petra! I can barely hear you. What’s going on?”

“I can’t talk to you now.”

She was still speaking in almost a whisper. I answered sharply that I needed some answers from her at once about what she’d been doing in my apartment.

“I wasn’t there,” she said. “Except when I went to make your bed and stuff.”

“You didn’t look around for that baseball you wanted?”

“I did look in the trunk, but I put everything back again. So don’t get too mad at me, please, Vic. I can’t talk right now, I’ve got to go. And I can’t find those guys for you.”

She whispered so fast before hanging up that I couldn’t squeeze in another word. I walked to the front window and frowned down at the street. I’d told my cousin the other night that I was an expert at detecting line spinners, but I’m not sure how true that boast was. Someone very skillful was spinning me around, but whether they were using Petra or she was a willing participant or even just a bystander I couldn’t make up my mind.

I flicked the cord on the blinds and realized I was standing in such a way that anyone on the street could see me if they wanted to aim a gun or a bottle at me. Whatever Petra might or mightn’t have done, it was impossible to picture her throwing a Molotov cocktail at anyone. Or even the smoke bomb that had driven the family out of my childhood home last weekend. Mr. Contreras was right. She was exuberant and careless, not mean-spirited or cruel. That was how I would write her up at her performance review.

I heard the dogs whining and scratching at the back door and went to let them in. I knelt to talk to them. “I’ll take you guys for a good walk tonight after the sun goes down, but this is it for now.”

I dressed carefully, in a high-necked T-shirt and loose-fitting linen trousers and jacket that covered my arms and chest. I put on the white cotton gloves I needed to protect my hands and found a wide-brimmed straw hat that I sometimes wore at the beach. When I was finished, I looked like Scarlett O’Hara protecting her fragile skin, but it couldn’t be helped.

To complete my protective gear, I went to the safe in the back of my bedroom closet. My intruders had shaken out my wardrobe, but they’d missed the safe, which is built in behind my shoe bag. Occasionally, I have a document so sensitive, I don’t want to leave it in my office overnight. Otherwise, all that I keep in it is my mother’s diamond drop earrings and pendant and my Smith & Wesson.