I hand the photos I’ve found to an increasingly alarmed Thistle and keep digging. There are dozens of women in hundreds of photos. All the women look semi-conscious, and all the pictures were taken in this office from the same high angle.

I look around the room and walk over to Luxford’s bookshelf. The fish on the top shelf catches my eye. The glass eye is swollen and dark. I can see the camera lens behind it.

The lens expands as I get closer, adjusting to the changing light. I look back at the photos in Thistle’s hands. I don’t think they’re photos—I think they’re screenshots. This is a video camera. And it’s running.

In the corner, the lights on the router are flickering furiously. Information is being transmitted.

And Luxford should have been back by now.

I glance out the window just in time to see him walking across the courtyard towards the parking lot.

‘Thistle! He’s on the move.’

‘On it.’ Thistle runs out the door.

I don’t follow her. By the time she gets down the stairs, he’ll be gone, and we won’t see which way he went.

The window is locked. I open one of the desk drawers, where I saw the two keys. One of them fits. I push the window open and climb out onto the ledge.

The drop is maybe fifteen feet. No time to think about it. I push myself off the ledge and plummet down towards the garden of shrubs. There’s a moment of sickening weightlessness, the air rushing in my ears. I hit the ground hard and collapse, the shock numbing my legs. The branches take deep gouges out of my arms. I scramble to my feet and take off after Luxford.

He has a head start, but he’s not running as fast as I am. He doesn’t want to call attention to himself, and doesn’t yet know he’s being pursued.

He turns a corner into a wide tunnel between two buildings, breaking my line of sight. When I turn the corner, there he is again, headed for the parking lot. Faster now.

At first I’m fifty feet behind his back. Then forty feet, blood dripping from my arms. Thirty. My heart is going to burst. I’m not in the best shape.

He may not have noticed me yet, but someone else has. ‘Yo, Shannon, watch out!’

Luxford turns his head, sees me, and says, ‘Oh, shit!’

He puts on a burst of speed. I’m older than him, and malnourished—I don’t have a hope of catching him. Especially when someone else comes out of my blind spot and crash-tackles me.

I slam into the cold concrete, hard. The impact pulps the flesh of my left shoulder, but my head doesn’t hit the ground.