While I was on vacation with my cousins, my phone buzzed with a single message: “Get on the next flight home NOW! Don’t tell your parents you’re coming.” When I landed, an attorney and two investigators were already waiting at the airport. Minutes later, they revealed a truth so devastating that my legs nearly gave out beneath me.

The drive to Tacoma was a blur of gray highway and lashing rain. The sky had opened up, turning the afternoon into a dark, watery twilight.

Daniel drove with aggressive precision, weaving through the heavy Interstate 5 traffic while Luis and Sarah, who had successfully escaped the hospital, kept us updated via secure radio.

"We have Elaine’s confession recorded and backed up on three different secure servers," Luis reported. "And we’ve dispatched a federal unit to secure Arthur Pendelton’s residence in Oregon. But if Martin gets to the Tacoma archives first, he can destroy the physical logbooks from 2003. Without those, his lawyers can argue that the digital records were tampered with by our investigators."

"We're twenty minutes out," Daniel said, his eyes locked on the road. "Tell the Tacoma police to secure the municipal building."

"We can't," Margaret Shaw’s voice broke through the radio from her office in Seattle. "The current Chief of Police in Tacoma was Martin’s former partner in the narcotics division. If we call them through official channels, there’s a high probability someone will tip Martin off, or the 'evidence' will accidentally catch fire before we arrive. We have to catch him in the act."

My hands gripped the edge of my seat. The rain hammered against the windshield, the wipers scraping a frantic, rhythmic beat. I looked out at the passing trees, the wet asphalt, the gray fog rolling off the Puget Sound.

This was the same highway.

Twenty-three years ago, my biological parents had driven down this very road, laughing, listening to the radio, holding their baby girl. And somewhere just off the exit ahead, their lives had ended in a scream of metal and glass.

"Exit 132," Daniel muttered, steering the SUV onto the off-ramp.

The Tacoma Municipal Archives was located in the basement of an older, brick courthouse downtown. The building looked imposing and gothic against the stormy sky, its dark windows reflecting the flashing neon of nearby streetlights.

As we pulled into the parking lot, my heart seized.

Martin’s silver Ford was parked crookedly near the basement entrance. The driver’s side door was left slightly ajar, rain soaking the gray fabric of the interior.

"Stay in the car, Claire," Daniel ordered, pulling a Glock from his underarm holster. "Luis and I are going in."

"No," I said, unbuckling my seatbelt. "I'm coming with you."

"Claire, it’s a crime scene—"

"He won't shoot me," I said, my voice surprisingly steady. "He spent twenty-three years trying to keep me. He won't kill the only thing he has left. If he sees me, it will distract him. It will give you the time you need."

Daniel looked at me, assessing the calculation in my eyes. He knew I was right. Martin’s obsession with me was his greatest weakness.