The voice behind the door suddenly changed.
"That's enough, Lily."
There was anger in it now.
"You know what happens when you disobey me."
Lily's face went white.
I understood then.
She hadn't been afraid of the water.
She had been afraid of him.
The officer at the control panel shouted.
"Pressure is dropping!"
Bennett ordered everyone to stand back.
He tested the handle.
The lock clicked.
The door opened a few inches.
A hand appeared in the gap.
A man's hand.
The fingers were trembling, and the skin was pale beneath the grime.
Bennett raised his weapon.
"Step into the light. Slowly."
The man emerged.
He was thinner than the photographs suggested. His hair was almost entirely gray, and one side of his face was swollen. His clothes were soaked.
But I recognized him.
The notch in his left ear.
The narrow jaw.
The eyes that had appeared beside my mother in the photograph.
Adrian Cross.
He looked at me and smiled.
"You've grown up."
I didn't answer.
He glanced at Lily.
"Come here."
She stayed where she was.
"Don't make this difficult," he said.
Bennett moved between them.
"You're under arrest."
Adrian laughed.
"For what? Being trapped in a room?"
"For unlawful imprisonment, conspiracy, falsifying records, and whatever else we find in the documents."
"Documents?"
His eyes shifted toward the service compartment.
I saw the change in his expression.
He knew we had found the records.
"Where is Robert?" I asked.
Adrian looked back at me.
"Still chasing ghosts."
"Where is he?"
"Your father has always been very good at disappearing."
"Is he alive?"
Adrian's smile faded.
"Yes."
The word hit me harder than I expected.
"Where?"
Adrian looked at Lily.
"Ask her."
I turned.
She was staring at the floor.
"Lily?"
She swallowed.
"Robert came here yesterday. He gave me the original ledger and told me to get it out before Adrian found it."
"Where is he now?"
"He went through the eastern passage."
"To where?"
"To the old reservoir."
Adrian laughed again.
"He's going to make the same mistake he made in 1994."
Bennett tightened his grip on Adrian's arm.
"What mistake?"
Adrian looked at me.
"He thinks he can save everyone."
Then he leaned closer.
"But he can't save you."
Bennett handcuffed him.
Two officers escorted him toward the stairs.
As Adrian passed Lily, he stopped.
"You should have stayed dead."
She didn't answer.
He turned to me.
"Your father will tell you he did everything for the right reasons. Don't believe him. He made the same choices I did."
"What choices?"
Adrian's smile returned.
"We both decided that some people were expendable."
Then he was gone.
We found the original ledger in a waterproof container behind the service panel.
It contained more than transport records.
There were signed authorizations, chemical reports, photographs of the underground chambers, and a list of payments made to officials who had approved the construction.
Several names appeared repeatedly.
Arthur Harrow.
Edward Mercer.
Martin Cole.
And Robert Hale.
I stared at my father's name.
"He signed these?"
Lily nodded.
"Some of them."
"Why?"
"He was working for the company at the time. He believed the shipments were ordinary construction waste. When he discovered what was really being moved, he tried to stop them."
"But he had already signed."
"Yes."
I looked at the dates.
The first signature was from June 1994.
The last was from September.
My father had been involved for months before he understood what was happening.
"Why didn't he go to the police?"
"He did. The report disappeared."
"Then why didn't he go somewhere else?"
"Because Daniel was still alive. Robert believed he could get him out."
I looked at her.
"Did he?"
Lily nodded.
"Not in time."
I felt the weight of the answer.
"What happened to Daniel?"
"Adrian moved him through the lower passage. He was badly injured and couldn't walk. Robert found him in the holding chamber, but Daniel died before they reached the surface."
"Did my father tell Margaret?"
"He tried. She refused to believe him."
I looked down at the ledger.
"Then why did she say Daniel might still be alive?"
"Because she needed to believe it."
Lily turned away.
"She waited for him for years."
Bennett approached with a radio in his hand.
"Search teams are moving toward the reservoir. We have a possible location for Robert."
I looked at him.
"How?"
He showed me the final page of the ledger.
A handwritten message was tucked beneath the cover.