35

CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION

When Will finally walked up the cobblestone path to the house, his Land Rover was gone. So was his father.

His mother was perched on the edge of the living room couch. She looked up when Will entered the room.

“Mom?”

“It is done,” she said stoically.

Silence hung between them. He wanted to ask, needed to ask how his father had responded. But he waited instead.

“No one said doing the right thing would be easy,” his mother whispered at last. Pushing herself off the couch, she headed unsteadily down the hallway.

“Do you need h—”

She paused but didn’t turn. “No,” she murmured, “I need to do this by myself. Alone.” She reached for one of the brass handles of her bedroom suite and opened the door, then shut it firmly behind her.

He moved back to the living room. That was when he noticed the item that had been next to his mother’s seat. One of his parents’ wedding pictures, in his mother’s favorite frame, was upside down on the couch.

There was nothing more Will could do. The inertia nearly overwhelmed him.

Instead, he did the only thing he could.

He prayed.

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

The man peered at the door of his study to ensure it was locked. Satisfied, he reached under his desk to unlatch the hidden drawer with the false front that he’d used over the years. He removed a small, lumpy package, laid it carefully on his desk, and stared at it.

The contents were more dangerous than a ticking bomb. They always had been.

But they were safer here, with him, than in anyone else’s hands.