But overnight he checked the Just Deserts website, and some other similarly themed places on the Internet, and in came a reported sighting of Jeremy Pilford in Kingston, New York. Some couple had spotted him in a hotel lobby.

Once Cory had dealt with some other unexpected matters, he got in the van and drove to Kingston.

He searched the parking lot of the hotel where Pilford had been seen, but he could not find that Honda. Maybe, he thought, they’d realized they’d been spotted and gone elsewhere. He wandered the lots of other area hotels, and around five in the morning got lucky.

Now that he’d located them, what to do? Follow them, he figured, and wait for an opportunity. But he had to admit to himself he had no plan. He was, to say the least, rattled by other events that night. In addition, he no longer had an assistant. But as he sat in that hotel parking lot, trying to formulate a strategy, something happened.

Some dumbass couple rammed a car while trying to snap a photo of Pilford. Cory knew that was going to draw the cops, so he took off. But he took a spot just down the street, and before long, an ambulance went past, followed by the Honda. The car was left a block away from the hospital, and it was at this point that Cory really caught a break.

It had been left unlocked.

This time, he’d come better prepared, and he only needed thirty seconds. He opened the driver’s door, dropped down, his knees on the pavement, and reached under the front seat. Clipped the small mike and transmitter into place. Closed the door and got out of there.

All he had to do after that was listen.

Back in his car, he put on the earbuds that were attached to the phone-like device that carried the app that was linked to the bug that lay in the house that Jack built!

What an amazing world we live in!

He heard Pilford and the old guy—turned out his name was Weaver—talking about a lot of things, but the one really important thing he heard was their destination.

Cape Cod.

Big place to search, but then he heard Weaver repeat the address. North Shore Boulevard in East Sandwich.

Bingo.

He filled the tank up with gas and was on his way to Massachusetts before Pilford. That gave him time to check in with one of the local rental agencies and find himself a place to stay. A super-cheap cabin, about twenty by twenty feet, a quarter of a mile down the road from where Pilford and Weaver were staying. There was no water view—it was on the other side of the road from the beach houses. That was okay. He wasn’t here to sightsee.