"When your father disappeared, did he leave anything else behind? Letters, photographs, a phone, anything that might help us understand where he went?"
Caleb hesitated.
Then he reached into the backpack and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
"I forgot about this."
Victor accepted it.
The paper had been folded into a small square, and its edges were soft from being handled repeatedly. When Victor opened it, he found a simple drawing of a lighthouse standing on a rocky shore.
Beneath the drawing were four words.
The light remembers everything.
Victor stared at the page.
Mason had returned to the doorway and stopped when he saw Victor's expression.
"What is it?"
Victor held up the drawing.
"Do you recognize this?"
Mason came closer.
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then his face changed.
"Daniel drew that?"
Caleb nodded.
"He used to draw it on envelopes. He said it was a place where people could go when they needed to think."
Victor turned the paper over.
There was a faint mark on the back, almost invisible beneath the folds.
A number.
17.
Victor looked at Mason.
"Route 17."
Mason nodded slowly.
"Tom's crash."
Caleb leaned forward.
"Does that mean my dad is there?"
Victor studied the drawing again.
"I don't know, son. But I think he wanted us to look."
He placed the paper beside the notebook.
Then he made a decision.
"Mason, Bear, you're coming with me. The rest of you stay here. Nobody talks to anyone outside this building unless I approve it."
Bear looked toward Caleb.
"And the boy?"
Victor considered the question.
Caleb was already shaking his head.
"I'm not staying here."
Victor turned to him.
"Caleb—"
"My dad told me to find you. My mom told me to find you. I did what they asked. Now you're going to find out what happened, and you're going to leave me here without knowing whether they're alive."
His voice broke.
"I'm tired of everyone deciding what I can handle without telling me anything."
The words struck Victor harder than he expected.
He saw the boy's fear, but he also saw something else beneath it: the exhaustion of someone who had spent nearly a year being treated as though the truth were too dangerous for him to hear.
Victor pulled out the chair beside Caleb.
"You're right about one thing. You deserve honest answers."
Caleb looked at him.
"But that doesn't mean you need to stand in the middle of danger to get them. We're going to look for your father. We're going to find your mother. And we're going to tell you what we discover."
He paused.
"You have my word."
Caleb looked down at the drawing.
"How long?"
"I can't promise a time."
"Then promise you'll come back."
Victor held the boy's gaze.
"I promise we'll do everything we can to come back."
It was not the perfect answer.
But it was honest.
Caleb slowly nodded.
Victor stood.
Before leaving, he turned to Frank, the club's oldest member.
"Stay with him. If anyone comes to the gate, call me. Don't open it until you know exactly who you're dealing with."
Frank nodded.
"Understood."
Victor glanced at Caleb one last time.
"Eat something before you fall asleep. You need your strength."
The boy tried to smile.
"I already ate."
"Then eat again in the morning."
Victor followed Mason and Bear out of the room.
Behind them, Caleb watched the door close.
For the first time in eleven months, he had given someone a reason to search for his father.
Now he could only hope the search would not uncover a reason to stop.
The road to the old courthouse wound through the oldest part of Blackridge, past shuttered shops and brick buildings whose windows had been dark for decades. The rain had weakened to a mist, but the streets still shone beneath the lamps.
Victor drove his pickup, with Mason beside him and Bear in the back seat. None of them spoke much.
At the first intersection, Mason checked his phone.
"Nora hasn't answered."
"Try again," Victor said.
"I've called three times."
"Then send her a message."
Mason typed quickly, then slipped the phone into his pocket.
Bear leaned forward between the seats.
"I don't like this."
Victor glanced at him in the mirror.
"Which part?"
"All of it. Daniel disappears. His kid shows up with a key and a notebook full of names. Laura calls us from somewhere she won't identify, then the line goes dead. Now we're heading toward a courthouse where somebody has apparently been hiding evidence for fifteen years."
He paused.
"And Tom's name is in the middle of it."
Victor tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
"I don't like it either."
"Then tell me what we're doing."
"We're following the one piece of information that hasn't been taken away from us yet."
Bear sat back.
For several minutes, the only sound was the steady rhythm of the engine.
Then Mason spoke.
"There's something I haven't told you."
Victor glanced at him.
"Go on."
"After Daniel disappeared, I went through his repair shop. The police had already searched it, but I found a loose floorboard behind the workbench. Underneath it was a photograph."
"What photograph?"
"Tom Reed standing beside a truck. The same truck that went over the embankment."
Victor frowned.
"Why didn't you mention this earlier?"
"Because I didn't understand what I was looking at. The truck in the photograph was parked in front of a warehouse on the east side. I thought it was just an old work picture."
"Do you still have it?"
Mason nodded.
"In my garage."
"What's on the back?"
"I never checked."
Victor exhaled slowly.
"After tonight, we're going to check everything Daniel left behind."
They reached the courthouse at eleven forty-seven.
The building stood on a small rise overlooking the town square. Its stone facade was blackened with age, and a row of columns framed the main entrance. A bronze plaque beside the doors listed the names of county officials who had served Blackridge over the previous century.
Graham Whitmore's name appeared near the bottom.
He had been county commissioner for sixteen years.
Sixteen years of ribbon-cutting ceremonies, public speeches, charity dinners, and promises to protect the people who trusted him.
Victor parked two streets away.
"There's a service entrance around the back," Mason said. "I worked on the heating system there about eight years ago."
"Can you get us in?"
"Maybe."
Bear looked at him.
"Maybe?"
Mason gave him a tired look.
"It's a courthouse, Bear. Not a gas station."