Abby nodded. “Joe’s storage shed was half empty when we got here.”
“But mostly,” I finished, as if she hadn’t spoken at all, “what I really needed was time.”
I felt as much as saw Zach looking at the room, his eyes following mine, but I could tell he was seeing a different story.
Mom must have noticed it too, because she asked him, “Zach, what is it?”
Zach’s eyes slowly passed over the cabinets, the closet, and the bed. Then finally his gaze settled on the shelves of books.
“Those are out of order,” he said, pushing the books aside to reveal a small section of paneling that was looser than the rest. A second later, he had it open and was staring into an empty hole in the wall.
“What was in there, Zach?” Abby said, pushing past him to stare into the narrow opening in the paneling. “Was it weapons? Passports? Cash?”
“I don’t know,” Zach said, shaking his head. “He never showed me this.”
“Think, Zach! What did Joe—”
“Not Joe.” My mother stood perfectly still, her voice slicing through the crowded room. “That’s not Joe’s hiding place. It’s Matthew’s.”
My father had been there—I could see it on my mother’s face and feel it in my bones—not a memory, but an overwhelming sense of just knowing something, of feeling him, like a ghost inside the walls.
“I must have found it,” I said, my voice flat and even. “I found whatever he left and then…I lost it.” I looked at my mother, guilt and anger pounding through me. “I lost it. Just like I lost his journal and…” I didn’t say my memory. I didn’t have to.
“It’s okay, Cam,” Liz said, reaching for me.
But it wasn’t okay. Not really. My mother kept staring at the empty compartment as if we’d missed something and a part of my father was still in there, calling to her through the years.
The screen door slammed, and a moment later Zach’s voice came floating through the thin panes of the windows, saying, “I should have known she’d come here. I should have known.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Bex told him. “You aren’t the one to blame.”
And then I couldn’t stop myself. I needed fresh air in my lungs. I wanted to move, to feel my blood pumping, warming me. I longed to be free as my legs and arms worked independently from my mind.
I. Wanted. To. Run.
So I pushed open the door, darted around the corner of the cabin and started through the woods. Despite the throbbing of my ankle and the aching in my bones, it felt good to run. So I ran faster and faster until a twig snapped behind me, and I spun, my heart pounding hard in my chest.
“Sorry,” Bex said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s not an act, Bex,” I said. “I really don’t remember.”
She crossed her arms and cocked a hip. “Why you left? Or why you didn’t come back?”
“I know why I left,” I shot back.
“Really?” Bex asked. “Because I don’t.”
“What was I supposed to do, Bex? Keep going until you ended up in a coma? Until Liz ended up dead?”
“You didn’t have to go on your own,” she countered.
“Yes! I did.”
“CoveOps rule number twenty-one,” Bex said. “‘An operative should never enter a deep-cover situation without initiating emergency contact protocols.’”
“CoveOps rule number seven,” I countered. “‘The essence of Covert Operations is an operative’s willingness and ability to work in deep cover operations alone.’”
Bex cringed. “Don’t you quote Joe Solomon when he isn’t here to tell you you’re wrong.”