Jackson swallowed.
“He told me to keep you safe.”
Aria stared at him.
“And then?”
“He disappeared again.”
“You never looked?”
“I spent twenty years looking.”
The door opened.
Cross entered.
“This meeting is over.”
Jackson turned toward him.
“Tell her.”
“Commander—”
“Tell her what your people found in Anchorage.”
Cross froze.
Aria looked between them.
“What happened in Anchorage?”
Nobody spoke.
Aria stepped toward Cross.
“What happened?”
Cross's silence answered before his words did.
“We found a photograph.”
The photograph had been taken six months earlier.
A security camera outside a small shipping facility in Alaska.
Snow covered the parking lot.
A truck stood near a loading bay.
Beside it was a man.
Older.
Gray hair.
Beard.
Heavy jacket.
His face was partly turned away.
The image quality was poor.
Aria stared anyway.
Something about the posture hurt.
Not because she recognized the face.
Because she recognized the way he stood.
Weight slightly back.
Right shoulder lower than the left.
A stance she had seen in old family photographs.
“No,” she whispered.
Cross slid another photograph beside it.
Closer angle.
The man was entering a vehicle.
On his hand was a scar.
A white line crossing the thumb.
Aria remembered tracing that scar as a child.
Her father had told her he'd cut himself repairing an engine.
Her knees weakened.
General Harper caught her elbow.
Aria pulled away.
“When?”
“February.”
“You've had this since February?”
“We couldn't authenticate it.”
“It's September.”
“We needed confirmation.”
“So today's demonstration—”
Harper said, “Was not planned by us.”
Everyone looked at Jackson.
He shrugged bitterly.
“I got tired of waiting.”
Aria stared at Cross.
“You were watching me.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
Cross said nothing.
“How long?”
“Since 2018.”
The room became painfully quiet.
“That was before my first deployment.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because someone else was watching you first.”
A cold sensation traveled down Aria's spine.
“Who?”
“We don't know.”
Aria did not sleep that night.
She sat on the narrow bed in temporary officers' quarters, staring at the Alaska photograph.
Her father.
Maybe.
Alive at sixty-two.
She tried to imagine calling her mother.
Could not.
Tried to imagine what explanation could justify twenty-three years of silence.
Could not.
At 2:14 a.m., someone slid an envelope beneath her door.
Aria was on her feet before it crossed halfway into the room.
She waited.
Listened.
Nothing.
She opened the door.
The corridor was empty.
The envelope had no writing.
Inside was one sheet of paper.
Three words.
TURN THE KEY.
Aria's pulse hammered.
Below it was a sequence of numbers.
Coordinates.
And one sentence.
YOU HAVE UNTIL 0600. COME ALONE IF YOU WANT THE TRUTH.
Aria stared at the clock.
Three hours and forty-six minutes.
She called General Harper.
Then stopped before pressing the button.
Come alone.
It was exactly what every security briefing told people never to do.
It was also exactly what someone would write if they wanted to isolate her.
Aria photographed the note.
Sent it to one person.
Rodriguez.
His response came eight seconds later.
Where are you?
She typed:
Room.
His next message:
Don't move.
Two minutes later he knocked.
Aria opened the door.
Rodriguez entered wearing sweatpants, a T-shirt, and the expression of a man who had been hoping for one quiet night in his life and had once again been denied.
He read the note.
“No.”
“I haven't asked anything.”
“No.”
“It might be him.”
“It might be someone who knows three words from your childhood.”
“Nobody knew those words.”
“Jackson did.”
Aria paused.
Rodriguez continued.
“Cross probably does now. Harper. Ward. Anybody listening today.”
She knew he was right.
“I still need to go.”