At precisely ten o’clock on the date of this message, your apartment door buzzer will ring. When it does, you are to go downstairs, where you will find a waiting car and driver. You must then do as he asks. Guaranteed, you will not be harmed. But if you want answers to your questions, then you will comply with this request.

Do not try to determine the source of this message. I have taken the necessary precautions to safeguard my anonymity.

If you are willing to do as I request, please respond to this email with the word WILCO in the message body.

Please, you must help.

The message was unsigned. Lou knew that WILCO was a military term meaning, “will comply,” but that did not mean the message sender was government. He looked up the Web site, anonymousspeech.com, from which the email had been sent. According to the site, which Emily would probably understand better than he did, the service provided the message sender with guaranteed anonymity by constantly moving its Web servers, which were located outside the United States, to different countries, while ignoring all government requests for subscriber information.

Lou felt more curious than apprehensive. A trap of some sort seemed possible, but if so, it was a clumsy one.

You will not be harmed.

At least whoever had written him admitted knowing that there had been trouble.

The people who had followed him before the nightmare in Kings Ridge knew his name and where he lived. They were resourceful and violent. If they were set on harming him, warning him to the contrary made little sense.

No, Lou concluded as he sent the WILCO message and then headed off to shower, this was not a trap.

At 9:15 he toweled off and changed into comfortable jeans and a tan canvas L.L. Bean polo shirt. Then he folded some turkey, sliced tomato, and horseradish mustard in a wrap and finished it with a handful of chips, a can of Diet Coke, and a Kosher dill. At 9:40 he called Emily.

He wanted her to hear his voice as much as he needed to hear hers.

Their conversation was nothing out of the ordinary for them—school, weekend plans, and life at home. It pleased him to learn that the tension with Steve had lessened, and that a conversation with him, one on one, had resulted in his agreeing to allow her to use her computer in her room.

“I’m really proud of the way you’re handling this, honey,” he said.

“Thanks. I was a little surprised when he caved in. It turns out he was just trying to help Mom, who was worried about a report from Ms. Sternweiss that I wasn’t checking over my math homework.”

“But you’re doing better at it?”

“Starting to.”

“That’s great, Em. Just great.”

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

Lou nearly stumbled on his reply. “Of course I am. Why would you ask?”