At 8:52 the next morning, I stood beneath the massive clock at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station pretending I was alone.
I wasn’t.
Rebecca had argued with me for forty minutes.
Then she had done what competent agents do when they realize a stubborn colonel is going to proceed anyway.
She built contingencies.
Two FBI teams were positioned outside.
Plainclothes agents occupied the concourse.
Thomas Vale was being questioned in New Jersey.
Mom had been moved to a protected location with Aunt Susan.
And I stood beneath the clock holding nothing but my phone and enough anger to power the building.
At exactly 9:00, a man sat on a bench twenty feet away.
Late sixties.
Gray hair.
Tan coat.
Newspaper folded across one knee.
He did not look at me.
My phone vibrated.
Sit.
I walked over.
“Daniel Reed?”
He continued reading.
“You look like your mother.”
I stopped.
That was confirmation enough.
I sat.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
I studied his profile.
I hated the fact that I could see myself in him.
The jaw.
The line between his brows.
Even the way he pressed his thumb against the side of his index finger while thinking.
“What am I supposed to call you?”
“Daniel is fine.”
“I already have a father.”
“I know.”
His answer came without hesitation.
Something inside me eased by half an inch.
“Is Raymond alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Safe for the moment.”
“Take me to him.”
“I can’t.”
I turned toward him.
“You have about five seconds before this conversation becomes unpleasant.”
He finally looked at me.
His eyes were tired.
Not frightened.
“You sound exactly like him.”
“Four.”
“Natalie, Meridian has survived twenty-three years because people keep believing there is one leader.”
“Three.”
“There isn’t.”
“Two.”
“It’s a system.”
“One.”
I stood.
Daniel caught my wrist.
I looked at his hand.
He immediately released me.
“Raymond asked me to protect you.”
I laughed.
“Interesting definition of protection.”
“I disappeared because staying would have gotten Eleanor and you killed.”
That stopped me.
“Mom knew?”
“She knew I was in intelligence. She did not know about Meridian until it was too late.”
Daniel looked toward the station entrance.
“Raymond was my closest friend.”
My stomach tightened.
“You knew each other?”
“We served together.”
Everything my father had told me about his uneventful Army years suddenly became questionable.
Daniel continued.
“I discovered Meridian’s first network while working as an analyst. When I tried to report it, someone inside our own investigation compromised me.”
“Rebecca’s father?”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“Rebecca’s father tried to save me.”
That matched what we knew.
“What happened?”
“I vanished. Raymond moved Eleanor and you. Legal identities were changed through a federal protection program that officially no longer exists.”
“So Mercer became my name.”
“Yes.”
“And Raymond became my father.”
Daniel smiled faintly.
“Raymond was already more of a father to you than I had ever had the chance to be.”
There was no bitterness in his voice.
That mattered.
“Where have you been?”
“Moving.”
“For twenty-three years?”
“Yes.”
“You could have contacted me.”
“No.”
“You watched me grow up?”
A pause.
“From a distance.”
Anger burned through me.
“Everybody in my life apparently watched me from a distance.”
Daniel accepted that.
“I deserve that.”
“Where is Raymond?”
“Before I tell you, you need to understand why he staged his death.”
“Then explain.”
Daniel folded the newspaper.
“Six months ago, Meridian activated something called Contingency Seventeen.”
The number again.
“What does that mean?”
“It means they began identifying everyone connected to the original investigation.”
“Why now?”
“Because someone is preparing to sell the network.”
“To whom?”
“We don’t know.”
My phone vibrated.
Rebecca.
I ignored it.
Daniel leaned closer.
“Raymond realized they were watching your family. He convinced Meridian he had recovered the original ledger.”
“What ledger?”
“A handwritten transaction record from the earliest years. Names, payments, dates.”
“Does it exist?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Daniel smiled.
“That is the problem.”
“Why?”
“Your mother has had it for twenty years.”
I stared.
“The music box.”
“Not the box.”
“The key.”
He nodded.
“The safe-deposit box.”
The missing key.
“Who stole it?”
“Someone who knew what it opened.”
“Thomas?”
“No.”
“You sound sure.”
“I am.”
“Then who?”
Daniel looked past me.
His face changed.
“Don’t turn around.”
Of course I wanted to.
“What?”
“The woman near the coffee stand.”
I used the reflection in the station window.
Mid-fifties.
Red scarf.
Glasses.
“She’s been watching us.”
“One of yours?”
“No.”
“FBI?”
“No.”
Then my phone rang again.
Rebecca.
This time I answered.
“Tell your agents not to move.”
“Natalie, we have a problem.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
Her voice was tight.
“The DNA from the blood at your parents’ house came back.”
I glanced at Daniel.
“Whose is it?”
“Walter Keane’s.”
The gravedigger.
“How?”
“We don’t know. He’s missing.”
My eyes moved toward the woman in the red scarf.
She had stopped pretending to drink coffee.
Daniel whispered, “We need to leave.”
Rebecca continued.
“And Natalie?”
“What?”
“There’s something else.”
I waited.
“The funeral home director is gone.”
My stomach dropped.
“Gone how?”
“His office was cleared overnight.”
Daniel stood.
The woman in the red scarf started walking.
Not toward us.
Toward the exit.
Daniel placed a subway card in my hand.
“Follow me.”
We moved through the station crowd.
Rebecca spoke quickly into my ear.
“Where are you going?”
“Finding Raymond.”
“Natalie—”
“I’ll call.”
I disconnected.
Daniel led me through a side corridor, down an escalator, across another concourse, and out toward a taxi line.
A black SUV stopped.
The rear door opened.
Walter Keane sat inside.
Alive.
Bandage around his forehead.
I stared.
“You’re supposed to be missing.”
Walter grimaced.
“You’re supposed to be easier to protect.”
I climbed in.
Daniel followed.
The vehicle moved.
“Where’s my father?”
Walter looked toward Daniel.
Daniel nodded.
“Pennsylvania.”
“The cabin on the map.”
“Yes.”
My heart accelerated.
For the first time since the funeral, Raymond Mercer was no longer a recording.
He was a destination.
The drive took nearly two hours.
We turned onto a narrow mountain road.
Then gravel.
Then a wooded lane.
A small cabin appeared beyond the trees.
Smoke rose from the chimney.
I opened the door before the SUV fully stopped.
“Natalie,” Daniel warned.
I ignored him.
The cabin door opened.
A man stepped onto the porch.
Gray sweater.
Jeans.
Bandage across one hand.
Alive.
My father.
Raymond Mercer stared at me.
I stopped twenty feet away.
For three days, I had believed this man was dead.
I had stood over his coffin.
I had watched my mother collapse from grief.
I had listened while soldiers praised his life.
And now he stood in front of me breathing.
“Natalie.”
I crossed the distance.
He opened his arms.
I punched him.
Not hard enough to injure him.
Hard enough to make the point.
He stumbled backward.
Walter muttered, “Fair.”
Daniel nodded.
“Very fair.”
Dad touched his jaw.
Then I threw my arms around him.
All the anger in me shattered at once.
He held me.
“I’m sorry.”
I cried against his shoulder.
“You let me bury you.”
“I know.”
“Mom thinks you’re dead.”
“I know.”
“She’s going to do worse than I did.”
“I know.”
I pulled back.
“You have no idea.”
A faint smile crossed his face.
“That’s the part I’m most afraid of.”
Then the cabin window behind him shattered.
Dad dropped.
I pulled him down instinctively.
Walter shouted.
Daniel dragged us behind the porch wall.
No second shot came.
Rebecca’s warning echoed in my head.
She has become the target.
Dad looked toward me.
His face had gone completely serious.
“They found us.”
And for the first time, I understood why Raymond Mercer had needed the world to believe he was dead.