The family home where we lived before my father’s research took over our lives.

Before he supposedly died in that empty New Jersey grave.

The government had seized the land years ago, but the house still stood, decaying in the woods.

There was a subterranean bunker beneath my father’s old study.

He had built it during the Cold War scare, but he kept using it for his private, off-the-books files.

If there was any evidence left to destroy Voss, it would be down there.

I squeezed the dead monitor in my hand, my fingers cold and numb.

I had to get to Maryland before dawn.

I walked out of the marsh, back toward the gravel lot.

Mara’s keys were still in the ignition of our stalled sedan.

I climbed into the driver’s seat and wiped the rain and sweat from my forehead.

As I reached for the keys, the dashboard screen flickered.

It wasn’t connected to my phone anymore.

But a single line of text appeared across the digital navigation display.

It was a message from an unlisted number.

“He is still breathing, Natalie,” the text read.