MY DAUGHTER FINALLY TOLD ME WHAT HER MOTHER HAD HIDDEN—AND EVERYTHING CHANGED

Albany's federal building rose gray against an overcast sky.

We arrived at nine.

Exhausted.

Running on gas station coffee.

Agent Diane Coyle met us in a small conference room.

Late fifties.

Silver-streaked hair.

A handshake that told me exactly why Sarah had trusted her for six years.

She listened without interrupting.

The package.

Hollow Creek Road.

Elias Marsh.

The Continuity.

The case, now sitting closed on the table.

"You're certain this is the original file," Coyle said.

"I sealed it myself, six years ago," Sarah said. "Nobody else knew where it was."

Coyle was quiet.

Something in her stillness rang a small alarm in my chest.

"Sarah, when you testified against the Moretti syndicate, the case was handled through a joint task force. DOJ. FBI. A liaison unit from Treasury's financial crimes division. That unit was dissolved eighteen months after your relocation. Officially, budget restructuring."

"Unofficially?"

"Three internal investigations were opened over the following two years. All quietly closed. I only know because I requested two of them myself, after evidence I'd flagged kept disappearing before it reached a grand jury."

The room went still.

"You think the Continuity had someone inside your own task force," I said.

"I think it's possible they had someone inside every task force that ever touched Victor Vance," Coyle said. "Which is why I need to ask something uncomfortable. When you called my direct line yesterday, who else knew?"

"No one. A burner phone. Exactly the way you told me six years ago."

Coyle slid a folder across the table.

"This arrived on my desk this morning. Twenty minutes before you walked through that door."

Inside: a photograph.

Sarah, Marcus, and me, outside the farmhouse.

Taken from a distance.

Low light lens.

A typed note.

"Agent Coyle. Your witness is compromised. Recommend immediate containment before further exposure. — A Friend of the Continuity."

"Someone wants me to distrust you," Sarah breathed. "Or wants you to distrust me."

"Both, possibly," Coyle said. "It means they're worried enough to try dividing us before we act. I want to bring in two people to review this file. People I've vetted myself. No task force. No chain that could be compromised."

"And if it goes all the way to the top?" Marcus asked.

"Then we'll deal with that when we have proof. Not before."

As we gathered to leave, my phone buzzed.

A number I didn't recognize.

A single photograph.

Ruth's house.

Porch light glowing.

Lily's bicycle leaning against the steps.

No message.

None was needed.

"Richard, what is it?"