Her father had been inconsolable at the death, however. To the point where he had spent a week sitting in a chair with nothing but a bottle of gin by his elbow.

And now she knew why. He believed he was wholly responsible.

As she watched him speak, she noted the age on his face . . . the wrinkling around the far corners of the eyes and the mouth, the slight droop of the jawline. He was still a handsome man and yet he’d never remarried. Was it because of the mess he was in? Probably.

Definitely.

Those signs of aging on him were not just a matter of time passing. It was stress and heartache and . . .

Shifting her focus to Isaac, his narrow and laserlike stare was intense, his pale irises positively glowing with a go-to-war light. Funny, he was nothing at all like her father in terms of background, education, exposure, experience. And yet they were identical in so many ways.

Especially united in the common mission to do right.

“Grier?”

Shaking herself, she glanced at her father. He was holding something out to her . . . a handkerchief? But why—

When she felt something hit her forearm, she looked down. A silver tear was collecting itself after the fall from her eye, coalescing into a little shimmering circle on her skin.

Another one dropped and messed up all its effort—but then the pair joined forces and the critical mass doubled.

She took the handkerchief and dried her tears.

“I’m so sorry,” her father said.

She mopped her face and refolded the fine linen, remembering him doing exactly the same when upstairs in the kitchen.

“You know what,” she murmured. “Apologies don’t mean a thing.” She laid her hand on the file he’d put on the table. “This . . . what you two are doing . . . this is everything.”

The only thing that could have made any of it right.

To cut off the conversation, she cracked open the cover. . . .

She frowned and leaned in. The first page was a printout of four mug shots. All men. All of whom looked like different ethnic versions of Isaac. Underneath the pictures, in her father’s handwriting, there were names, dates of birth, social security numbers, last sightings—although not every one was complete. And three of them had DECEASED across the bottom.

She flipped to the next page and the next. All the same. So many faces.

“I want to bring Jim Heron in on this,” Isaac said. “The more who come forward, the better—”

“Jim Heron?” her father said. “You mean Zacharias?”

“Yeah. I saw him earlier tonight and the night before. I thought he’d been sent to kill me, but it turns out, he wants to help me—or so he says.”

“You saw him?”

“He was with two guys. I don’t recognize them, but they look like they could be XOps.”

“But—”

“Oh, my God,” Grier whispered, moving one of the sheets closer. “That’s him.”