Chapter 18 - My Father's Last Lie

"Tell me the truth," I said.

My father looked at everyone standing in the alley.

"Not here."

"You've had twenty-two years to pick a better place. Here works."

He flinched.

Good.

"Three months ago," he said, "Hale contacted me. He offered to give up the names of everyone still active in Project Harbor."

"In exchange for what?"

"The original master ledger."

Eleanor stepped forward. "Daniel, you told me that ledger was destroyed."

"I lied."

Vanessa laughed bitterly. "We have a theme."

My father ignored her.

"I agreed to the exchange because the ledger is incomplete without a cipher key. I planned to give him a copy and arrest him at the meeting."

"Why didn't you?" I asked.

"Because Martin disappeared with the operation schedule. Hale never showed."

Martin lowered his head.

"Where is the master ledger now?" Adrian asked.

My father looked at me.

I hated that look immediately.

"No."

"Naomi—"

"Do not say my name."

He took a slow breath.

"Your mother has it."

Everyone went still.

I turned toward her.

She looked exhausted.

"Mom?"

She reached into the lining of her coat and pulled out a thin leather notebook.

I almost laughed.

All the guns, fires, hidden rooms, and shell companies.

And the thing everybody wanted had been inside my mother's coat.

"Daniel gave it to me the night he disappeared," she said. "I kept it in a bank box for twenty-two years. I took it out yesterday after the house was searched."

Vanessa stared at the notebook. "That can end this?"

My father nodded. "With the cipher key."

"Where's the key?"

He looked toward Eleanor.

She closed her eyes.

"Thomas had it."

Vanessa's face dropped.

"My father is dead."

"Yes," Eleanor said. "But he left you a letter."

Vanessa suddenly reached inside her coat.

The letter from room 1704.

She unfolded it again.

We had all read the words.

None of us had looked at the margins.

Tiny numbers were printed beside certain lines.

Page. Word. Letter.

A book cipher.

Adrian whispered, "What book?"

Vanessa looked at Eleanor.

Eleanor's face changed.

"The Great Gatsby."

Vanessa blinked. "Dad read it to me when I was a kid."

My father took out his phone. "We can decode it."

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