Lucas. They are setting you up for Apex. I have the files. Trattoria Rossi. Thursday. 10:30 AM. Come alone or you go to federal prison. — E.M.

The next morning my heart hammered like a trapped bird. At 10:14 I stood in the kitchen in my pajamas, holding a half-empty mug of cold tea. Maria bustled near the counter.

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get that, Mrs. Mercer. Just stay right there,” Maria said, in that sickeningly sweet, patronizing voice, and stepped out the service door.

The second it clicked shut, I dropped the mug in the sink, grabbed a trench coat I’d hidden behind the pantry door, slipped on loafers, and bolted — not through the door, but through the low pantry window I’d unlatched the night before.

I hit the soft grass of the side yard, scrambled over the low stone wall, and ran into the dense treeline between our estate and the main road.