The car door creaked open, followed by the heavy thud of boots on the muddy grass.

A figure walked up the three wooden steps to my porch.

They did not knock immediately; they stood there, breathing heavily, their shadow blocking the porch light.

Then came three soft, hesitant knocks.

It was not the aggressive pounding of Arthur’s enforcers.

I opened the door three inches, keeping the chain lock engaged.

Gregory stood on the porch, his collar turned up against the cold, his face pale and wet with rain.

He looked ten years older than he had last week.

“Clara,” he said, his voice shaking slightly. “Please.”

“You are trespassing, Gregory,” I said.

“I spent three days looking for you,” he said, wiping his nose with the back of his wet glove. “Arthur is losing his mind. He hired the Vance Group out of Chicago. They couldn’t find a single trace of you.”

“I know,” I said. “I set their servers to loop back to a dummy IP in Shanghai.”

Gregory let out a dry, humorless laugh that turned into a cough.