“Built on protection.”
“Don't.”
Cole nodded.
“Fair.”
A truck approached the farmhouse.
Cole immediately stood.
Then he relaxed.
Lena climbed out.
Behind her came Ray and Marcus Vane, another Iron Raven.
Marcus looked nervous.
Cole noticed.
“What's wrong?”
Ray shut the truck door.
“We know who talked.”
Silence.
Marcus looked at the ground.
Cole's face hardened.
“Marcus?”
“No.”
Marcus shook his head.
“Not me.”
Ray said, “Troy.”
Claire didn't know the name.
Cole did.
Troy Garrison had belonged to the Ravens for eighteen years.
Treasurer.
Trusted.
He had attended Daniel's funeral gathering even though there had never been a body to bury.
“Why?” Cole asked.
Ray handed him a folder.
“Debt.”
Troy owed nearly $190,000 from a failed trucking business.
The company holding most of that debt was controlled indirectly by Pike Logistics.
Claire understood.
“They bought him.”
“Looks that way,” Ray said.
“Where is he?”
“Gone.”
His apartment was empty.
Phone disconnected.
Motorcycle missing.
Martha arrived an hour later with better news.
The FBI agreed to examine Daniel's evidence.
But she warned them that twenty-four-year-old documents did not guarantee immediate arrests.
Claire slammed her palm against the kitchen table.
“They shot at us last night.”
“And that case is current,” Martha said.
“So arrest whoever did it.”
“We need to identify them.”
“They're working for Pike.”
“Believing that and proving it are different.”
Claire hated that sentence.
Martha understood.
“That's why people like Pike survive so long. Layers. Companies. Employees. Contractors. Nobody gives orders directly.”
Cole asked, “What do we do?”
“Nothing.”
Claire laughed.
“No.”
Martha looked at her.
“Claire.”
“They followed me. They walked into my workplace. They shot at us.”
“Which is why you're staying here.”
“No.”
Cole said, “She has a point.”
Martha glared.
“You are the last person who should encourage this.”
“What if Troy still has contact with Pike's people?”
“He probably does.”
“What if he thinks we still need something?”
Martha became suspicious.
“What are you suggesting?”
Cole looked toward Claire's pendant.
“A bluff.”
The plan was simple in theory.
Dangerous in reality.
They would allow Troy to learn that Daniel's evidence was incomplete.
A final ledger existed.
Without it, the tapes were supposedly useless.
Claire had the ledger.
She would trade it for information about her father.
Martha hated the idea.
So did Ray.
Cole initially refused to let Claire participate.
She reminded him that nobody got to make choices for her anymore.
Eventually, federal investigators approved a controlled version of the plan.
The message reached Troy through a mutual acquaintance.
His response came five hours later.
He wanted to meet.
Alone.
Claire laughed when she heard that condition.
“Of course.”
They chose an abandoned roadside motel outside Salem.
Federal agents positioned themselves nearby.
Claire wore a concealed microphone.
Cole waited in the room next door.
“No hero stuff,” Martha warned him.
“I don't do hero stuff.”
Ray coughed loudly.
At 11:13 p.m., Troy arrived.
He looked exhausted.
Unshaven.
Terrified.
Claire sat at a small table.
Troy entered.
“You're Daniel's daughter.”
“Yes.”
He looked around.
“Where's the ledger?”
“Where's my answer?”
“What answer?”
“My father.”
Troy laughed nervously.
“I don't know anything about your father.”
“Then why are you here?”
Silence.
Claire leaned forward.
“You sold out people who considered you family.”
Troy's eyes hardened.
“You don't know anything about me.”
“I know you sold their location.”
“They were supposed to scare you.”
“They fired guns.”
“That wasn't the deal.”
Claire believed him.
Not because he looked innocent.
Because he looked horrified.
“Who hired you?”
Troy shook his head.
“Ledger.”
Claire placed an empty envelope on the table.
“Name first.”
Troy stared.
Then whispered, “Nicholas Pike.”
“Harrison's son?”
“Grandson.”
Claire hadn't expected that.
“The old man doesn't run things anymore?”
“Hasn't for years.”
“What does Nicholas want?”
“Whatever Daniel kept.”
“Why now?”
“Because someone found an old file when Arthur Vale's estate was being cleared.”
“What file?”
Troy swallowed.
“A photograph.”
“Of what?”
“Daniel.”
Claire stopped.
“When?”
Troy looked directly at her.
“2012.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Claire forgot the microphone.
The agents.
Cole next door.
Everything.
“My father was alive in 2012?”
Troy nodded.
“Where?”
“Mexico.”
Claire stood so fast the chair fell.
“Where is he now?”
“I don't know.”
“Don't lie to me!”
“I don't!”
Troy backed away.
“The Pike family thought he was dead too. Then the photograph showed up.”
Claire's heart pounded.
“Why didn't they find him?”
“He disappeared again.”
“Was Mom told?”
“I don't know.”
“Who has the photograph?”
“Nicholas.”
Claire moved closer.
“Get it.”
Troy stared.
“That's impossible.”
“Then this meeting is over.”
She reached for the envelope.
Troy grabbed her wrist.
The door exploded open.
Cole entered.
He slammed Troy against the wall before Claire could blink.
Federal agents rushed in seconds later.
Troy shouted.
“I wasn't going to hurt her!”
Cole's forearm pressed against his chest.
“You've made several poor choices lately.”
Claire grabbed Cole's shoulder.
“Stop.”
He released Troy.
Agents handcuffed him.
Claire stood shaking.
Not from fear.
From hope.
Her father might have survived.
Not one year.
Not two.
At least eleven.
As Troy was taken away, he looked toward Claire.
“There's something else.”
She stopped.
“What?”
“The photograph wasn't the only thing.”
“What else?”
“A message.”
Claire's pulse raced.
“What message?”
Troy looked at Cole.
Then back at her.
“Daniel Morgan asked whether the Raven still watched the nest.”
Cole's face lost all color.
Claire stared between them.
“What does that mean?”
Cole whispered the answer.
“It means he was looking for me.
The phrase had meaning only to two people.
Cole and Daniel had called themselves the Raven and the Fox when they were teenagers.
Stupid nicknames from an even stupider road trip.
Nobody else knew.
Not Elaine.
Not the club.
Not even Lena.
If Daniel had used the phrase in 2012, then the message was genuine.
Claire spent the next two days searching.
The photograph eventually reached investigators through a warrant served on Pike Logistics.
It showed a street café in Mérida, Mexico.
The man in the background was older.
Thin.
Bearded.
But Cole recognized him instantly.
Daniel.
Claire stared at the image for almost an hour.
Her father had been alive when she graduated high school.
Alive when she started college.
Alive when she turned twenty-one.
Alive while her mother was still waiting.
“Why didn't he come home?”
Nobody could answer.
Federal investigators contacted Mexican authorities.
Records were searched.
The café owner remembered an American named David Moran who repaired refrigeration equipment.
David.
Daniel.
Moran.
Morgan.
He had rented a small apartment for approximately three years.
Then disappeared in late 2013.
Again.
Claire almost collapsed beneath the weight of unanswered questions.
Then Lena found something.
Elaine's old storage unit.
Claire had closed it after her mother's death but never sorted everything.
Near the bottom of a box marked TAXES sat a birthday card.
Never sent.
Addressed to Daniel.
Claire opened it.
Inside was a letter from Elaine dated 2012.
You were right not to come back.
They still ask questions.
Claire is beautiful and stubborn and angry at a father she thinks abandoned her.
I hate myself every time she says it.
But anger keeps her from searching.
Stay away until it's safe.
She loves photography.
She burns pancakes.
She got your laugh.
I hope wherever you are, someone is telling you these things.
Claire sank onto the storage-unit floor.
Her mother had known.
Daniel had contacted her.
Maybe not directly.
Maybe through intermediaries.
But Elaine knew he was alive.
Cole sat beside Claire.
She handed him the letter.
He read it.
“Why?”
Claire's voice cracked.
“Why wouldn't she tell me?”