Fred clicks his fingers and points at me, like he’s shooting a pistol. ‘Perfect.’

Abbey Chapman was the young woman I rescued from Lux’s homemade prison. Lux was making videos of her and submitting them for the website. I have no idea what Fred thinks I know about her ‘background’.

We walk past a small greenhouse. It’s dark inside, but I can see red flowers—roses, or maybe poppies—touching the other side of the sweaty glass. There’s a vegetable patch here, too. A PVC pipe sticks out of the dirt nearby, maybe part of an underground composting system. On the other side of us there’s a chest-high chain-link fence. Something is breathing heavily from the shadows behind it.

‘Back,’ Fred commands.

When the dog moves, I see it. It’s a big boxer—short fur and a square black muzzle, with the kind of jaws that clamp down and never let go. Long, muscular forelegs, stubbier hind legs. It sits, little tail flicking back and forth as it watches me. I have enough experience with dogs to know that a wagging tail isn’t always a good sign. A second dog slinks through the shadows further away.

‘They’re friendly, once they get to know you,’ Fred says.

When the boxer growls, I smell raw meat on its breath.

‘You okay?’ Fred asks.

I cough. ‘Yeah. Just cold.’

‘Sorry. I know you’ve had a rough night. We can do this tomorrow, if you want?’

‘No, I’m good.’ I need to see the whole way around the house. There might be a way to sneak back to the car without anyone noticing.

Fred’s expensive hiking shoes leave faint patterns in the dirt. There are plenty of older footprints around in various sizes and facing various directions. Paw prints. Drag marks. Now the markings from my ill-fitting formal shoes are joining the mix. Everywhere you go, everything you say, everything you do leaves a trail. Those inspirational posts clogging up the internet—You matter! You make a difference!—are half right. Nothing matters, but everything makes a difference. The wrong person could notice those differences and decode them days or years later.

Which clues might lead the Guards to my real identity? The FBI never paid me with money, so there isn’t much of a paper trail to follow. The only agent I was ever close to, Reese Thistle, has quit, and fled from Houston.

But the FBI wasn’t my only employer. In addition to selling credit card numbers on Russian web forums and solving riddles for cash, I also worked for Charlie Warner, disposing of the bodies she left in her wake. Another of her employees might surface and blow my cover.