While she waited for a response, she went to listen to her father’s voice.

That quickly, confusion set in. It was the only voice mail she had saved, so it should be right there. But it wasn’t.

For a second she couldn’t breathe and she wondered if she’d ever be able to get her lungs to work again. Her rib cage felt cemented in place, her heart trapped. Had she deleted it accidentally somehow? When her phone was in her pocket?

She tapped the “Deleted Messages” folder, but the voice mail wasn’t there either. So it couldn’t have been an accidental swipe.

Maybe Marwan was right to be paranoid.

Was it the device who’d done it? A sort of spiteful last move in their game?

Marwan’s text said, Broadway.

Air pushed into her. She could deal with this. She’d find out who had been controlling the device, and she’d track them down and get it all back. She would not crumble, not now, not like this.

She wrote back, There in 20.

And finally answered Mark: Yes, destroyed.

Ilanka

ILANKA

A text from her mother said, Why aren’t you in school?

Ilanka always forgot about that, the robocall to the parents when you didn’t show up. She texted back and lied, My ID must not have swiped. Will go to the office.

She’d been sitting in a café for about an hour, after having gone to her father’s office block and seen a black SUV parked maybe two doors down with two guys in it. Official-looking guys. And not Russian looking either, she didn’t think. Not friends or associates. More like cops.

So she’d chickened out on the idea of going in and was just about done with her chai latte. The café was filling up now, making it a less pleasant place to be. A toddler boy with a runny nose seemed to be giving her the stink eye. She sipped loudly through her straw—sucking up empty—to try to annoy him. A hipster-type guy probably in his twenties—trendy glasses and a T-shirt that said SPACEMAN, so probably some obscure music or TV reference—was staring meaningfully at his laptop screen, no doubt writing the great American novel, while caressing his coffee mug.

The urge to post about him was strong, but then people would know where she was.

Svetlana had also texted, Where are you?

It was nice to know she even noticed Ilanka wasn’t at school, but suddenly Svetlana’s approval of her didn’t seem to matter quite so much.

It was weird and annoying that her text to the others about the misunderstanding about the accident hadn’t gone through. They were likely mad at her, but of course the device hadn’t somehow caused an accident and killed Svetlana. She felt foolish now for even believing it herself.