Mara leaned back.
“There are references to a second archive all over Ethan’s files. He didn’t have it. He only had pieces. But Richard…” She looked at my father. “You had the original.”
Dad pressed both hands against his head.
“I don’t remember.”
“Try,” I said.
He closed his eyes.
Rain tapped against the windows. Somewhere in the building, a pipe groaned. Leo sat very still beside my mother.
Dad whispered, “A locker.”
My heart jumped.
“What locker?”
“I don’t know. Metal. Blue door.” His breathing quickened. “There was a number. I can almost see it.”
Mara grabbed a notebook.
“Was it at the plant?”
“No.” Dad shook his head. “Somewhere public. Somewhere they wouldn’t look.”
His eyes opened.
“The bus station.”
Mara stood.
“The old Greyhound station?”
“It closed eight years ago,” Mom said.
“No,” Dad said. “Before it closed, they moved unclaimed storage to the county depot.”
Mara was already typing.
“County property warehouse. Opens at eight.”
“We can’t wait until morning,” I said.
Mara looked at me.
“Anna, breaking in is not smart.”
“Neither is sitting here while someone who knows about Ethan calls my parents’ house.”
She had no answer.
Dad stood.
“I know a man who worked there.”
“Can you trust him?” Mara asked.
Dad’s mouth tightened.
“Ten years ago, I would have said yes about a lot of people.”
That was not comforting, but it was all we had.
We left Leo and my mother in Mara’s apartment with instructions not to open the door. Leo hugged me before I went.
“Mom,” he whispered, “was my dad brave?”
I kissed his forehead.
“Yes.”
“Are you?”
The question nearly broke me.
“I’m trying to be.”
Outside, the rain had softened to mist. Mara drove this time, while Dad sat beside her and I sat in the back, gripping my phone. Every passing car felt suspicious. Every shadow seemed to turn its head.
The county depot sat behind a chain-link fence near the old rail line. A single yellow light burned above the entrance.
Dad called his former coworker, a man named Calvin Price. To my surprise, Calvin answered on the second ring.
When Dad explained, Calvin was silent for a long moment.
Then he said, “I wondered when this would come back.”
Twenty minutes later, an old pickup truck rolled up to the gate.
Calvin was thin, gray-bearded, and nervous. He unlocked the gate without greeting us.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
“We know,” Mara replied.
“No,” Calvin said. “You don’t.”
He led us into the warehouse, past rows of labeled shelves and stacked crates. The air smelled of dust and damp cardboard.
“After the station closed,” Calvin said, “everything went into section C. Most of it got auctioned off. Some lockers stayed sealed because of missing records.”
Dad looked around, pale and sweating.
“Blue door,” he murmured.
Calvin stopped near a row of old storage units.
There it was.
A narrow locker with faded blue paint.
Number 317.
Dad stared at it.
“That’s it.”
Calvin handed him bolt cutters.
Dad hesitated, then snapped the lock.
Inside was a cardboard box.
Nothing more.
My heart sank.
Mara lifted it carefully and placed it on the floor. Inside were old newspapers, a broken flashlight, and a child’s red scarf.
Then Dad reached beneath the cardboard lining.
His fingers found a slit.
He pulled out a sealed plastic pouch.
Inside was a flash drive.
Black.
Unmarked.
For a moment, none of us breathed.
Then a sound came from the far end of the warehouse.
A door closing.
Calvin’s face went white.
“We need to leave,” he whispered.
Mara slipped the drive into her pocket.
We turned back toward the entrance, but footsteps echoed between the shelves.
Slow.
Unhurried.
A man stepped into the light.
