“Wylie Lang?” Riel asks, her confusion reasonably convincing. Though it’s hard to know how Klute is taking it. “It’s just me and my boyfriend here.”

“Well, we have reason to believe that she is here,” Agent Klute says.

“And I have reason to believe you are wrong,” Riel shoots back, standing her ground. It can’t be easy. Agent Klute is intimidating.

“How about we come in and take a quick look around to be sure?”

“You have a warrant?” Riel asks.

“A warrant?” Klute asks, like she has inquired instead whether he has a unicorn in his pocket. There is silence. I imagine Riel glaring at him. I imagine Agent Klute glaring back. “Wylie is in serious trouble. Criminal trouble. I don’t think your grandfather would be happy to hear that you’re mixed up in something like that. If I were you, I wouldn’t get in the way.”

“So I’m going to take that as a no on the warrant,” Riel says. “And so I’m going to close this door now. You feel free to knock again when you’ve got that warrant. I’ll be right here, waiting. Bye-bye.”

Agent Klute is still saying something when the door closes. The sound of the dead bolt thuds across the entire house. Then I hear Riel walking, calm and cool toward the back, surely for the benefit of Agent Klute, who might be watching through the front windows.

She sprints, though, when she finally hits the dark hall out of sight.

“Come on, let’s go,” she says when she turns into the office. She freezes when she eyes Jasper’s phone on the table. She points at it. “Fucking seriously?”

“I thought it was off,” Jasper says, pained. And I am so grateful to be able to read him—otherwise I might be suspicious. But there is no doubt, leaving the phone on, allowing us to be tracked, really was an accident. “I don’t know what happened.”

Riel takes a breath. She can also read him, of course. However dumb, she knows, too, that it was an honest mistake.

“Come on, you can’t go out the front,” she says. “And leave the phone, might make them think you’re still in here. The way you’re going, you won’t be able to use it anyway.”

WE RACE AFTER Riel down the hall to a set of French doors. My heart pounds as I get ready to run. I think about where the bridge is, how we will manage to keep out of sight on the expanse. What we will do when we get to Route 6. Hide in the woods? Try to hitchhike?