“They found printed intel inside his belongings,” Ward said.

“Somebody planted it on him.”

“Your brother was framed.”

“By someone who knew exactly what they were doing.”

“Who?”

Ward stared at me.

“Someone who had access to the extraction route. Someone who knew his face.”

I felt the truth settle in my stomach.

“Voss.”

“Captain Adrian Voss,” Ward said, spitting the name like poison.

“Voss disappeared after Nightglass.”

“Voss is alive.”

“The papers—“

“They buried another body, Colonel.”

I stared at him.

“Like they buried your brother.”

Ward nodded slowly.

“That’s the point, isn’t it?”

I looked toward the car, where Noah was watching through the rain.

“Then why bring me here?”

“Because Voss is coming for you too. And I want to know—before I kill him—what else you know.”

The rain hammered the roof of the shack.

And I realized the man standing in front of me wasn’t the enemy.

He was the one piece of the puzzle I had never allowed myself to find.

“I don’t know anything else,” I told him.

“That’s the truth.”

Ward studied me for what felt like an eternity.

“Then we have a problem,” he said.

“Because Voss already told you something else.”

“Told me what?”

“He told you someone changed the route.”

I went still.

“How do you know that?”

Ward pulled out a small recorder.

“Because I recorded his calls. For eleven years.”

He pressed play.

A voice cut through the rain and static.

*“Tell Bennett the order was forged.”*

Voss’s voice.

I had heard it tonight.

Ward looked at me.

“That tape was made yesterday, Colonel.”

My blood ran cold.

“Then why are you telling me?”

“Because you deserve to know what you’re walking into.”

He stepped backward.

“Voss is using you. He wants you to trust him. He wants you to believe you were the victim.”

“And what do you want?”

Ward smiled.

It was the saddest smile I had ever seen on a grown man.

“I want you to finally look inside the coffin.”

Then he turned and disappeared into the trees.

Mercer stood beside me, unmoving.

“Claire?”

I looked down at the photograph in my hand.

And I felt everything shift.

“We’re going home,” I said.

“And then?”

“Tomorrow, I’m going to dig up Thomas Reed’s grave.”

Mercer’s face went pale.

“You can’t just—“

“I’m not going to just do anything.”

I walked back toward the car.

Noah rolled down the window.

His face was tired, but there was steel in it.

“Mom?”

I looked at my son.

“We’re going to need shovels.”

He blinked once.

Then nodded.

Because he understood.

We had spent years running from a ghost.

Now we were going to see what was actually inside the box.

The drive back was silent.

Rain streaked the windshield like tears that refused to fall.

Noah watched the rearview mirror the way I taught him—tracking every pair of headlights.

Mercer’s knuckles were white on the wheel.

When we finally pulled onto Juniper Hollow Drive, the streetlights were flickering on.

The neighborhood looked the same, but nothing felt the same.

Grant was standing at the end of my driveway, arms crossed.

Logan stood beside him, sling still hugging his arm.

I stepped out of the truck.

“Grant, you need to go inside.”

He ignored me.

“Tell me what happened.”

I looked at Mercer.

He shook his head slightly.

I said, “We found the cabin. We talked to a man who claims his brother was buried in Thomas Reed’s grave.”

Grant’s face went pale.

“Claims?”

“Tom Reed had a brother. The military never acknowledged him. Now he’s here, and he wants answers.”

Logan stepped forward.

“Do you have them?”

I looked at the boy in the sling.

“I have questions.”

“We,” I said, “are going to need shovels.”

—

Mercer made three calls before we left again.

The first was to a retired sergeant in Baltimore who owed him a debt.

The second was to a woman who worked in the Fort Carson records office.

She owed Mercer a different kind of debt.

The third call was to the cemetery office itself.

Mercer used a name I hadn’t heard in years.

He hung up.

“We’re in,” he said.

“How much trouble are we in?” Noah asked.

I looked at him.

“Everything we’ve done so far is trouble.”

He didn’t blink.

“Then we might as well wear it.”

I felt a flicker of pride.

Grant stepped in front of me.

“Claire, let me help.”

“I don’t need help.”

“You don’t trust me.”

I met his eyes.

“I trust you with Logan. That’s enough for tonight.”

Something in his face softened.

He wanted to be trusted with more.

But I was already walking to the truck.

—

The rain returned at midnight.

We drove through the foothills toward a nondescript cemetery outside Colorado Springs.