Once I’m standing in Dad’s office, I allow myself a second or two to exhale and get my shit together, though the fact that I almost got caught and probably just saw a high-ranking Mog is hard to get past. The office has changed quite a bit since I was in it last, when Dad was dragging me out the night John was taken in. There are a few big boxes sitting in one corner that look like they’re full of all the files and papers that used to litter the place when it was my dad’s. The desk is tidy now—compulsively so—which is great for me because it means less to sort through.

I take a seat in the chair behind the desk and rifle through some of the papers and files. They don’t tell me anything. It’s all memos and bulletins that are the kinds of things that go up on the FBI website—public information. I’m looking for something a little more secretive than that.

Purdy’s laptop is sleek and black, like something out of a spy movie. I open it up while removing a piece of paper from my pocket that’s got all the things GUARD found written on it. Sure enough, the computer is password protected. I type in the one GUARD pegged as Purdy’s main access code and, just like that, I’m in. I’m on an FBI computer.

“God bless you, GUARD,” I whisper.

The desktop is littered with files. At the bottom of the screen are a few applications. I open up Purdy’s email, figuring if anything, it might be the easiest way of getting info on Sarah. The first password GUARD handed over is a bust, but the second one gets me in.

I type Sarah’s name into the search bar so fast that I misspell it twice. Finally, it goes through, bringing back over fifty emails containing her name. I shudder to think how many times my name might pop up in these emails, but that’s not what I’m here to find out. I sort through the newest ones first until I hit the jackpot.

Detainee Hart has been transferred to the facility at Dulce.

Dulce. I recognize the name immediately from back issues of They Walk Among Us and old posts on the blog. It’s a name that pops up all the time—a secret government base where weird stuff is supposedly always going down. A small-scale Area 51.

Sarah is being held in Dulce. New Mexico. Half a country away.

I have to go to New Mexico.

I start looking through other emails when I hear the station door slam shut, followed by a string of curses from what sounds like Purdy’s voice.