Petra texting. She’d been texting at the Freedom Center. Petra leaning in the doorway to Caroline Zabinska’s apartment, her hands busy in front of her. I’d been ninety percent unconscious, and she hadn’t thought I’d notice, but maybe she’d summoned the person who collected the bag of evidence I’d been gathering, those pieces of the Molotov cocktail bottles I wanted to send to the Cheviot Labs to test what kind of accelerant had been used.

The FBI and Homeland Security had both been watching the Freedom Center building, but they’d claimed they didn’t have any record of the person who’d broken in to get my evidence bag. So they knew who’d gone in and didn’t care. Or someone who had very big clout persuaded the feds to look the other way. They had photographed me going in that night, but not Petra. And not the person who’d stolen the evidence bag. And then, the very next day, the apartment was taken apart by some tame construction company, paid for by a man who wanted to make a donation to the sisters for the Freedom Center. Very cute.

Brian Krumas had said something critical during the meeting. It had only registered at the time as a faint puzzler, and now, playing back what I could remember of the conversation, I couldn’t put my finger on it. It was something about his relationship with my uncle, something that connected my uncle to Sister Frankie, but the more I pushed on it, the further it retreated from my mind.

Petra wasn’t a drug user, I was sure of that despite putting the question to Peter. As for gambling or some other expensive vice, I couldn’t picture it. But I wouldn’t have pictured her breaking into my office, either.

I was tangling myself up like a bowl of cold spaghetti. Assume, for sanity’s sake, that Petra was an unwitting or unwilling partner in Strangwell’s machinations. She was an overgrown puppy, not a malicious schemer. If she was in over her head, I needed to help her out. If she was trying to hide out in this big, bad city, or if she was hitchhik ing to her friend Kelsey’s, Homeland Security, or even George Dornick’s Mountain Hawk Security team, could track her easily. I needed to warn her. They know when you’re sleeping, they know when you’re awake, and, if you’re texting, they can find you so fast it will take you completely by surprise.

I pulled out my phone. I didn’t have the nimble thumbs of a twenty-year-old, but I tapped out:

Petra: wherever u r, stop texting, calling. Take battery out of phone: disconnect. U can b traced by GPS. Lay low until I send all clear.

Trust me. Vic.