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good at it.”
    “Too good,” Murph said.
    “That’s right, Murph, too good. We were so good we got promoted to a special task force. A small task force. Elite, they call it. How many agents are on our task force again, Murph?”
    “Two.”
    “Two agents, me and my partner, Murph. I’d say that’s pretty freakin’ elite. We investigate the bank fraud cases where nobody can figure out what the fraud was, even the bank that got defrauded. That means that before we can start solving a crime, we gotta figure out if there was a crime at all. That’s why we’re here, Martin. To try to figure out if you’ve committed a crime.”
    They sat in silence for a moment.
    “Have you committed a crime, Martin?”
    Another silent moment passed.
    “No.”
    “Good! Glad to hear it,” Miller said. “Perhaps you can tell us how you managed to put five separate sums of money, totaling more than twenty-three thousand dollars, in your bank account without making a deposit or a transfer.”
    Martin had never stopped to add up all of the cash he’d created . “Wow, that’s a lot of money.”
    “Not really,” Special Agent Miller said. “Normally, it takes more than a hundred thousand to get our attention. It was the number of times money just showed up that made the bank suspicious.”
    This news did not make Martin happier. I’m screwed , he thought. The jig is up. All the way up. Even if I get out of this, they’ll be watching me for the rest of my life. My best-case scenario is that I get to go back to my life the way it was, only now I’m unemployed and gave all of my furniture to Goodwill. At least I can buy it back for cheap. It won’t come to that, though. They’ll pin something on me. I’m going to prison. I can’t see how I can get out of this.
    “So, you gonna tell us, Martin?”
    Martin had been so absorbed in his misery he’d nearly forgotten the men in the room with him. “Pardon?” he asked, startled.
    Special agent Miller smiled. “My partner Murph and I were wondering if you’d tell us how you got all that money into your account without depositing, transferring, or even earning it, as near as we can tell.”
    Martin perked up instantly. “Oh! I’ll do better than tell you. I’ll show you! Special Agent Murphy, will you please hand me my phone?”

Chapter 7.

    Martin materialized in his apartment with his thumb on the home button, the plastic bag containing all of his belongings in his other hand, and a big smile on his face. The smile faded as he fell to the ground, again landing directly on his tailbone. He cursed himself for not having the foresight to stand before he teleported. Luckily, the federal agents searching his apartment didn’t see him fall. They only heard him hit the floor.
    The agent sitting at Martin’s desk searching the new computer slowly turned around. He and Martin made eye contact for a moment, then Martin sprinted out the front door. As he passed the bedroom, another agent peeked around the corner. Martin raced out the door and made for the parking lot, cornering as best he could in his unlaced sneakers. He was happy to see they hadn’t towed his new car yet. He got in and tore out of the parking lot as quickly as he could, narrowly missing a bedraggled old man on a beat-up bicycle.
    He knew where he was going, and happily, it was only a couple of miles away. That didn’t leave him much time to think, but he’d have all the time he needed to think soon, possibly too much. Now was the time for action.
    He looked in the rearview mirror and was not surprised to see two dark, unmarked cars with flashing lights concealed in their grilles closing on him. He sped up, not even entertaining the notion of getting away. He just needed to keep them from getting in front of him. Martin knew he was going to escape. Where he was going to escape to and where he was going to escape from were the questions.
    He didn’t want to teleport out of a moving car. He’d made a big enough