From personal experience, she knew the government was often careless, often even stupid. But it wasn’t crazy. It wasn’t actually malevolent. There had to be some rational explanation.

But she had to do something, didn’t she?

She suddenly stopped and began jogging in place to let a minivan back out of a driveway.

Once she got back, she thought, as she began running again, she’d bite the bullet and call up Wally and ask again about Mark.

Her thighs were starting to burn on an upslope of her return loop five minutes later when her phone vibrated. She took it out of her waist pack and blew her sweaty bangs out of her eyes to look at the screen.

“Hey,” she said, relieved to see it was only Lori.

“You okay?” Lori said, sounding sleepy.

“Of course. What’s up? Is Ally okay?” Ruby said as she slowed and stopped.

“Yes, yes. Fine. Did you forget your key or something?” her sister said.

“What? No. I’m not home yet. What is it, Lori?”

As she stood listening, she heard baby Alice start crying.

“Somebody is knocking on the door,” Lori said. “That’s not you?”

Ruby sprinted across Penton and up to Lori’s corner on Norton Street.

And saw them—all of them—there in front of the house.

34

Midway down the street in front of Lori’s little house were a half-dozen vehicles. They were gray unmarked cop cars, and they were parked sideways out in the street, completely blocking it.

Alongside them stood half a dozen figures in blue raid jackets.

Ruby gasped when one of them turned and she spotted the three impossible-to-miss frightening Day-Glo yellow letters scrawled across the back.

FBI? Ruby thought.

There was a roar of a diesel engine and then from the other end of the street came some kind of armored van. It was a giant gunmetal gray SWAT truck and from its running board hung a team of tactical officers. They had shaved military jarheads and khaki-colored ballistic armor and military rifles that looked like something out of a middle schooler’s video game.

Then it happened. As the heavy armored FBI SWAT van mounted the sidewalk in front of Lori’s house, the reality of what she was in the middle of finally slammed into Ruby like a wrecking ball to the chest.

She suddenly remembered the reporter’s words.

They are real, Ruby. There really is a They.

“Ruby, what should I do? Someone’s knocking hard now. What the hell is this?” Lori said in her ear.

Ruby stood there speechless. She stared mutely at the agents, at the houses around her. There was no one around. No one to notice the world going nuts.

Move, dammit! she thought. Snap out of it! Do something!

Ruby ripped her eyes from the cars and mayhem down the block and took a deep breath and quietly crossed the intersection. When she made the other side, she looked at her phone and saw that Lori’s call had dropped off.