Chapter 2

In more than four years of living in hiding, she's become more cautious. So when she stretches on the porch railing following her run on the beach, and then opens the door to her house, she can sense there is a presence inside. There are the books on her coffee table that she'd left neatly stacked, now skewed at their corners. There is the kitchen light she's fairly certain she turned off. There is what sounds like one of the house's circa-1930 floor beams, creaking overhead.

Although she registers none of these things specifically, they are altogether enough to send her hypothalamus into a state of deeply instinctive overdrive: time for flight, run, run, run.

She spins on her heel and takes off sprinting down the stairs and then the street, the pavement harder on her feet in their Vibrams than the beach was, but she ignores the pain. Jessica usually runs six miles every morning, but with the storm clouds rolling in she'd cut her run in half today, and she's got plenty left in her legs. Running, running, and at first she can hear someone behind her, and she finds a little more speed with the adrenaline surging through her body, cutting down side streets, through back yards. The wind picking up and finally the storm catching her, a thick chilly downpour, but she's grateful for the cover.

By the time she reaches the LIRR station, the rain still swirling around her, whoever it was is gone. She pulls her debit card from her runner's armband and withdraws the limit at the station ATM — $600 isn't much, but it will be enough to hide for awhile.

She rides the train into Grand Central, buys an I Heart NY ball cap and sweatshirt from one of the sidewalk vendors outside the station. Pulls the sweatshirt over her now-chilled skin, shoves the ball cap down on her head, and contemplates her next move.

Well before she reaches the station, Reese has cursed his choice of attire and given up the chase. Usually, his suit-sans-tie and dress shoes with a subtle tread are perfect for the work he needs to do — great for blending in the city, for a short sprint after men larger and slower than he is.

But Lisa Williams, even without the crowds and chaos of Manhattan, is easily faster than him in her running clothes and shoes. He stops at an intersection, contacts Finch to say he's lost her, but Finch tells him she's just used an ATM at the Stony Brook LIRR station, so at least they know she's likely to flee Long Island.

"She was wearing running clothes, no hat," Reese says. "We might be able to get a better picture of her face, if there's video."

"I'm on it," Finch says. Harold Finch likes order, likes things that organize themselves the way they should, and a number with an identity this difficult to acquire bothers him more than he will ever admit to Reese.

When Finch finally pulls up the video, his first reaction is complete shock. Followed immediately by his brain shifting into overdrive, trying to work through the various permutations of how and where he should show Reese what he sees.

He was well aware of Jessica Arndt when he recruited Reese. The man's guilt over not being able to do anything to save her, he'd thought, would make him more likely to join Finch's cause, and ultimately he'd been right. But the video feed is relatively good, as ATM video goes, and this woman is clearly Jessica Arndt.

Finch could tell Reese to come in, show him the video up on his computer monitor, in a more controlled environment. He could try to prepare him over the phone, just send it, risk that Reese will see it and lose control, do something reckless. Or he could simply keep Reese in the dark, keep him in the field, out chasing this woman, let Reese find out — if or when he catches her — exactly who she is.

If Jessica Arndt has been posing as Lisa Williams, though, and Lisa Williams' number has come up, it means her life is in danger. And if Reese can get to her faster by knowing who he's chasing, Finch needs to send it now.

"I have the ATM feed," Finch says. "I'm going to send you a still of it now. Mr. Reese, I want you to be prepared that what you're going to see will be a shock."

He hits send, and there is silence on the phone.