Every time he had hold of something, it evaporated, as if he were chasing a ghost. He was starting to think that’s what Bradley Slavens was—somebody who’d fallen off the grid and died and nobody noticed. At least nobody on the Net. An unnoticed death, however, was not as likely as somebody’s concerted effort to disappear—if so, Havoc’s gymnastics coach/assistant had done a hell of a job of it. Up and vanishing was no easy task, in this world of forms and security cameras and voter ID. So much out there could give you away—an ATM card hung onto a little too long, a cell phone not thrown away, credit cards, car registrations, a forwarded check for a damage deposit… so many ways to slip up. To accidentally exist. That meant Levi had to painstakingly track each such lead as best he could, and every time he hit a dead end, he recalled how frustrating it was to be a kid in an arcade who got killed on his last quarter. Still, he had diligence on his side, and odds were Slavens had missed something somewhere—most everybody did.
