An engineer.
A procurement officer.
A former Air Force attorney.
A systems contractor.
People who could have known something.
Emily looked at me.
“He’s been hunting witnesses.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
Thomas stood.
“My father would have been on that list.”
Keller nodded.
“He was.”
Thomas stopped breathing.
A flight from Phoenix to Denver seven years earlier.
His father had been scheduled to travel on it.
He canceled because of illness.
The aircraft later experienced a severe control-system malfunction during taxi and never departed.
Thomas sank into his chair.
“My father didn’t die naturally until four years later.”
Keller said nothing.
He didn’t have to.
The implication was enough.
Victor Shaw hadn’t just buried Wraith.
He had spent decades making sure it stayed buried.
Then Emily noticed something on the final page of the notebook.
“Mom.”
She pointed.
One line was circled.
SEATTLE — SATURDAY — EMILY MITCHELL WEDDING
I stopped moving.
Her wedding.
Two days away.
Underneath were three initials:
V.S. / D.M. / P.
Keller immediately took the notebook.
“What does P mean?”
I knew before I answered.
“Phoenix.”
Emily whispered:
“He was going to come to my wedding?”
“No.”
I stared at the page.
“He wanted me there.”
The flight hadn’t been random.
The invitation had drawn me out of hiding.
Someone had known Emily contacted me.
Someone knew I would fly.
And somehow, Victor Shaw had boarded the same aircraft under the name of Daniel Mercer—the dead engineer whose death had destroyed my career.
It was theater.
A message.
A thirty-two-year-old grudge.
Keller ordered protection around Emily and the wedding venue.
I wanted the ceremony canceled.
Emily refused.
“I lost fifteen years with you because of these people.”
“Emily—”
“I’m not giving them my wedding too.”
That was my daughter.
Stubborn.
Terrifying.
Mine.
The next morning, Keller woke me at 5:17.
“We found the rental SUV.”
“Where?”
“Abandoned outside Vancouver, Washington.”
“Victor?”
“Gone.”
Then he paused.
“But there was something in the trunk.”
A metal case.
Inside were copies of Wraith documents that even Charles Reed’s files didn’t contain.
And one photograph.
Me.
Taken at Edwards in 1992.
Standing beside Victor Shaw.
Daniel Mercer was in the background.
On the back, someone had written:
ONLY ONE OF THEM KNOWS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED BEFORE TAKEOFF.
Keller showed me the image.
“Who wrote this?”
“I don’t know.”
He pointed toward Daniel Mercer.
