At three in the afternoon, Institute staff had mobilized entirely after Luke Ellis’s escape, but search teams in the woods and sweeps through the village and employee quarters yielded nothing. No vehicles or golf carts were missing, and contacts in Dennison River Bend—including two local police officers—had been alerted without any sightings of Luke.

Meanwhile, news emerged regarding Maureen Alvorson. Zeke Ionidis, demonstrating initiative beyond the IT staff, used Google Earth and a phone locator to contact Alvorson’s Vermont neighbor while posing as an IRS agent. The neighbor reported that Alvorson had recently executed cease-and-desist letters concerning her husband’s credit cards, assisted by a female lawyer, and had looked very ill. The neighbor believed Alvorson was addressing debts tied to her husband.

Mrs. Sigsby considered that Alvorson, nearing the end of her life, was attempting moral cleanup and likely avoided organizational loans to keep the Institute out of her atonement. This reinforced Sigsby’s belief that Alvorson helped Luke escape as part of that atonement, but Alvorson’s suicide insulated her from questioning.

Facing the lack of progress, Mrs. Sigsby contemplated using the Zero Phone to alert higher command about the unprecedented escape, anticipating a harsh response. She forced herself to think through overlooked leads and realized a key clue had been present since they found the hole under the fence.

Reviewing surveillance video of Maureen Alvorson meeting with Luke Ellis and Avery Dixon at the snack machines—where Alvorson had said the microphone did not work—Sigsby reinterpreted Avery’s behavior. Instead of merely fidgeting as Stackhouse once remarked, Avery’s scratching and nose-yanking suggested covert communication or complicity.

Acting on this insight, Mrs. Sigsby halted thoughts of the Zero Phone and ordered Avery Dixon brought to her office immediately by Tony and Winona, intending to extract information about Luke’s escape.