Swipe

him at some playground. Apparently she followed the instructions.”
    “Why would she have done that?”
    “Beats me. She took half the note with her, and the part that remained was charred, like it’d been burned up. DOME could only make out part of it, but the rest must have made a pretty compelling argument. Anyway, that was the last anyone saw of her.”
    “Did Peck kill her too?”
    “Hard to say. They haven’t found a body.”
    Logan cursed under his breath.
    “According to these documents, DOME’s pretty convinced Peck’s done this a few times. They’ve found burned notes in the past, but this is the first with any traceable evidence on it. Coupled with the DOME agent’s testimony, it’s launched the full-scale investigation that brought my dad here.”
    Logan swallowed. “And you think I’m next?”
    Erin frowned, scanning the papers she and Logan had strewn about the floor. “I dunno,” she said. “Not if we find him first.”
    9
    Before Logan could respond, his tablet rang and his dad appeared on the screen. “Dinner’s cold, buddy. This is the second night in a row now. I look out and you and Dane are gone. You got an explanation?”
    All at once Logan remembered he was still a twelve-year-old kid with twelve-year-old responsibilities, like letting his parents know where he was and being home in time for dinner. Problems very far from those he’d been worried about over the last hour.
    Logan apologized, laying it on thick on account of this being strike two for him. He said he’d run into his new friend Erin on the sidewalk—which was, of course, true—and promised he’d be home in just a few minutes.
    But when he ended the call, Logan was entirely back to business. “We need to go to your dad,” he told Erin.
    “And tell him what? You have no evidence.”
    “I have my testimony. It’s consistent with what’s known about Peck—”
    “Logan, what’s known about Peck is confidential . I could be arrested for showing these papers to you. I could be arrested just for having looked at them myself!”
    “I would think they’d make an exception if it led to the capture of—”
    “And how exactly would it do that, Logan? How exactly would it lead to anything other than two kids with wild imaginations and a treasonous curiosity? DOME doesn’t mess around with this stuff. I’m not even allowed to know what my dad does every day.”
    “Yeah, but under the circumstances—”
    “The circumstances are speculative. Do you know where Peck lives? Could you pick him out in a lineup? Do you have fingerprints? DNA evidence?”
    “Well, no—”
    “No, that’s right. You have nothing. We have nothing. But that’s going to change. We’re going to make sure of it. And when it does, you have my word, we’ll go to my dad.”
    “And I’ll be safe again?”
    Erin nodded. And I’ll be on my way back to Beacon . “In the meantime, this is our secret. We tell no one, right? Not a soul.”
    “Okay,” Logan said, a little uneasy about it.
    “And if you notice anything—call me.” She gave Logan her phone number, which he keyed into his tablet and stared at reverently. Too bad he couldn’t tell Dane.
    “Get out of here,” Erin said. “And be careful.”
    She gave him a hug just before he left, and Logan tried to be casual about it.
    It was the first time he’d ever been hugged by a girl.
    10
    Ten minutes later Logan ran up the spiraling staircase outside his house, not willing to wait for the elevator’s street door to open. He raced up the first flight of it and pounded directly on the door to his kitchen. “Mom, Dad!” he called. “Let me in!”
    Nothing had happened on the way home. The night was cool and peaceful. But Logan’s heart had not slowed since he’d found the tin can.
    “Hello, Logan,” Mrs. Langly said.
    In the five years since his sister’s Marking accident, Logan had never once heard his mother raise her voice. She spoke exclusively in slow, breathy whispers, often with great pauses between them, which complemented the delicate pace of her steps. Each movement of an arm or hand was small and distracted, and she even blinked with a speed that suggested an infinite, drowsy calm. In the past few years she’d aged quickly, with deep wrinkles sketching the years on her face. She opened the door now as if in slow motion and said, “Your dinner is cold. I was worried sick.”
    “Hey, buddy!” Mr. Langly said, bounding over from the kitchen table with