Please trust me, little cousin, I begged in my head. I promise if you are in the hands of baddies, I will not jeopardize your safety. But if you are hiding and scared, let me clear this up. I’m putting my best person on it.

Of course, I, too, could be traced through my cellphone. Piece of cake, for a sophisticated crew. I called my voice mail and left a message that I would be off cellphone for a while and gave the number of my answering service for people to call. I took out the battery and stuck it in my briefcase.

Five buses had stopped while I’d been churning over what I knew or didn’t know. I boarded the next one, a Number 6, that lumbered over to Michigan and slowly took me up to the hotel where I’d left my car this morning. When I handed my ticket through the cashier’s window, I was told someone had already paid for my parking. I asked to see the receipt, sure there was some mistake, but when the attendant found it it was for cash. No one could remember what the man looked like who paid the bill, but he’d described the car, told them the ticket number, even paid a lost-ticket premium.

Strangwell, or Homeland Security, wanted me to know they could find me and deal with me whenever it suited them. I drove home slowly, meandering along the side streets, not because I wanted to check for the tail that was surely behind me but because I was too tired for speed. They could find me and stomp me out. Why hadn’t they done so already? Maybe because they thought I had whatever it was they were looking for. As soon as I produced whatever it was, they would dispose of me. Sister Frankie’s head, full of flames, appeared in front of me, and I shuddered so violently that I had to pull over to the curb until it passed.

The hunt, with a full pack of hounds closing in on a lame and limping fox and her brash and ignorant cub, that was my cousin and me just now. I went back to my burrow because I didn’t know where else to go. But I didn’t feel safe, reaching home.

I took my neighbor and the dogs into the backyard, away from any possible surveillance, and explained the situation as best I could, given how little I understood of it myself.

“You don’t think Peewee’s pa is really in on this!” Mr. Contreras was horrified.

“I think he knows what his pals are looking for, and he’s a frightened man indeed, but I don’t believe he knowingly put his kid in harm’s way.”

“So where is she?” the old man fretted.