“Yes,” I agreed, and took a bite of my cookie, to give me a second before I had to say anything more. It was a great cookie. I love my grandmother’s cookies. But she was right. We needed a plan, and we needed one five minutes ago. I swallowed and said, “I don’t think it was a coincidence that the two eliminated dancers were killed right after the end of the show. They’re sort of the definition of ‘won’t be missed for a few days.’ Everyone assumes they were embarrassed and left immediately, or got swept away by the producers. Whoever they have waiting for them back at home will assume they’re sad and going radio silent for a day or two.”

Alice looked momentarily wistful. “It must be nice to have the sort of life where a few days of radio silence doesn’t mean that something has gone horrifically wrong.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. I knew that sort of life existed. I’ve never had the chance to have one, and neither had she. “I checked the Twitter feeds for the dancers who’ve been eliminated. There’s been some activity, but it all feels . . .” I stopped, struggling for the words that would explain the impression I’d gotten from their pages.

“Like camouflage?” offered Alice.

“Yeah,” I said, relieved. “It’s all generic. ‘Sad to be eliminated, glad to be home,’ and ‘good luck to the remaining dancers.’ No personal messages. Nothing like ‘oh, I love you’ or ‘vote for my friends this week.’ It feels static and wrong.”

“So maybe they didn’t make it home at all,” said Alice. “Can people tell lies on these ‘feeds’?”

“Grandma, if I try to teach you about Facebook and social media, we’re going to be here all night,” I said. “Just believe me when I say you can’t trust anything you read on the Internet until you confirm it.”

“Fair enough,” said Alice. “Now what?”

“Now we get moving before Dominic freaks out and decides we’ve gone off to fight something without him.” I’d feel better once I’d seen him, and verified with my own eyes that he was all right—and that my grandmother wasn’t going to kill him for being Covenant. Alice’s sense of family responsibility was sometimes second only to her protective streak, and she did not like the Covenant. Given the way they’d treated Grandpa Thomas, I couldn’t exactly blame her for that. I just didn’t want her taking it out on my husband.

“I’ll get my keys,” said Alice, tossing me the baggie of cookies as she walked out of the kitchen.

I trailed after her. “Keys?”

“To the motorcycle I bought,” she explained. She grinned at my expression. “Sweetie, I know you want to grow up to be Batgirl, and I think that’s a very respectable life choice, but I’m an old lady. I might break a hip if I tried traveling the way that you do.”

“Yeah, right,” I said, with a snort. I considered reminding her that Batgirl had traveled via motorcycle for most of her career, and that calling me “Catwoman” might be more accurate—or better yet, Spider-woman—but decided I had more important things to focus on. “You bought a motorcycle? From whom?”

“Someone who was selling a motorcycle,” she said. “I had money. She wanted it. She had a motorcycle. I wanted it. Some things are universal. I don’t know what I’m going to do when people stop believing in newspaper ads. I can’t keep up with the Internet and all those gadgets you kids use to keep in touch.” She stepped into the back bedroom. The curtains were open, providing a clear view of the empty parking lot behind the apartment complex.

“I can never tell if you’re joking when you say things like that,” I said.

“That’s the intention,” she replied, and opened the window.

We slithered through the narrow opening and out into the warm night air, which smelled of hydrangeas and exhaust fumes. Alice led me across the lot to a hole in the fence. She squeezed through, and I followed, onto a narrow, weedy cul-de-sac where the houses were more rundown than anything that had been visible from the fence’s other side. A little girl with grayish skin was sitting in the yard of the nearest house, playing tea party with her dolls. She went still when she saw us.

Alice said something in what sounded mostly like French. The little girl brightened, nodded, and flashed a sharp-toothed smile before she went back to her party. I gave my grandmother a questioning look.

Alice smiled. “I rented a part of their garage for the bike. I just told her I was the weird day-walker who paid her grandfather enough for her new doll, and everything was fine.”