>>If you haven’t picked up groceries, I will.

Helpful husband. I looked at that ordinary text like it came from Mars.

There was an earlier text I’d missed.

>>Will need help with homework tonight.

Raised eyebrow. When had my daughter ever asked for school help from me? Never. That felt like a trap, too.

Not thinking straight. I was still missing details. Fusk could wait. I needed calm. I needed to go home.

Only then did I recognize that my hands were shaking.

[46]

But I had another problem: the go-bag. I didn’t want to leave it in the trunk of the car. That felt like mixing sanctuaries or solutions. It needed to be separate—the whole reason I’d stored it at the gym.

A couple of Silvina’s other properties I’d already looked into at the start of my research seemed promising. One was basically an abandoned shack, a twenty-minute drive away. On the edge of an environmental easement. Maybe it wasn’t the clearest thinking, but I needed to stash my stuff somewhere.

The detour made me even jumpier, so I took a bigger risk. About ten minutes from the shed, I found a fringe of tall weeds abutting a few conifers. I pulled over, waited until there was no traffic, and I took every electronic device out of Shovel Pig, put them in a smaller purse, and shoved it among the weeds, out of sight. Then I rechecked my car for tracking devices. It was an older model, which I was thankful for. I didn’t think it’d be easy to track from an internal GPS.

Then I went on to the property. The shed, more like a tiny house, had a fallen-in, slanted roof and a lock on the ramshackle door. Someone a long time ago had painted it jaunty bright reds, greens, and blues, as if to contrast with the yellowing grass.

Around back, a rusty shopping cart and just as I’d relaxed—the loud sound of a body, a crack.

I turned, fast, in time to see a raccoon run off. There had been reports of Japanese raccoon dogs roaming the area, escapees from a zoo. But, no, this was just the usual. As I watched, the raccoon slowed, stopped, watched me from the long grass. Funny. I couldn’t meet its gaze. Not while breaking into the shed. Furtown’s atrocities against raccoons had been hardwired into my head.

How many of these run-down properties did Vilcapampa companies own? Too many, but maybe if you had that much capital, the small stuff became forgotten. Best way to live off the grid: in the amnesia zone of large corporations. Until the day they woke up and routed you with dogs or drones.