“Yeah. But the photo was only up for a day. And I told her never to do it again.” Alix knows Bonnie’s adopted, but she doesn’t know any of the details of Bonnie’s kidnapping a couple of years ago or why she’s so secretive about her whereabouts all the time. Bonnie told her that she left Toronto to spend time with her dad in Vancouver. Alix is her first friend—well, more than a friend, really—that Bonnie has who doesn’t know anything about her crazy past.

Lynn puts down her napkin. She looks worried. “Have you heard from Nora?”

“No. Her phone is off. She’s not answering any of my calls.”

Lynn pays the bill and they leave. She is still preoccupied. Still worried. They had gone through this after the kidnapping. Online safety one-OhMyGodThisIsSoBoring-one. Lynn had consulted a professional skip tracer who’d turned her skills from finding missing people to advising people how to stay hidden if they wanted.

“Listen to this,” said the woman who’d come by the house, back when they first moved to Toronto. She was in her fifties, dressed sharply with little cat-eye glasses perched on her nose and startling blue nail polish. She had the urgency of one of those evangelical preachers you’d see sometimes on TV. “You’re on a social media platform and you tag your location. Someone can look at that location and come find you. You keep tagging your locations and they know your whereabouts, what you do at certain times of the day. They can work out your schedules, your exercise routines. They know who your close friends are because those are the people in the photos with you, who are liking and commenting on your posts. If they can’t find you, then they’ll find one of your friends and work out where you are. They can get a snapshot of your school life, your home life. Be very careful.”

Lynn explained how Bonnie’s birth father had been able to find her using underground chat forums for adoptees. The woman nodded. She knew all about them. She pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose and tucked a strand of silver hair behind her ear. “Be careful of what your friends post about you, as well. If there’s someone who’s known to be your friend and their profile is public, you can also be in trouble. Don’t let people tag you in photos. Best not to get photographed at all.”

Both Bonnie and Lynn thought that was a bit much at the time, but now it seems maybe the woman was right.