Brandon Hale.
Tyler Whitmore.
Their families practically owned Port Mercer.
Richard Cole controlled enormous construction contracts.
Senator Margaret Hale could make government officials reconsider their careers with a single telephone call.
And the Whitmore family had donated millions to Bellwether University, where Lily was studying environmental engineering.
Every camera overlooking the walkway outside the science building had stopped recording for precisely seventeen minutes.
I knew what that meant.
Somebody had arranged an absence of evidence.
At 2:14 that morning, I stepped into the hospital corridor and called the one number I had memorized but never used in nineteen years.
Elias Rook answered immediately.
“Daniel?”
His voice cracked.
Then he whispered, “Adrian?”
Elias had once been my closest adviser, the only man who knew where all my secrets were buried.
“Someone hurt Lily,” I told him.
A terrible silence followed.
“Tell me what you need.”
“The truth.
Every piece of it.”
“And when you find the people responsible?”
I looked through the glass at my daughter.
“I haven’t decided.”
“Then be careful,” Elias said.
“The Ghost could destroy those families before sunrise.
But Daniel Walker still has a daughter who needs him.”
