“I don’t know,” Moss said. “Neither did Richard, but he knew that was the reason they used the drugs on you. He got that from more than one source, later on. You two witnessed some specific event—something none of the rest saw. Whatever it was, it was worse than the accident. The military sure as hell thought it was worse—or more important to keep secret, anyway. They were willing to risk your lives to hide it.”

“When you say this was … something no one else saw,” Danica said, “you don’t mean some totally unrelated thing, some other event that happened by coincidence—”

Moss shook his head. “No, it was part of the accident itself. That’s how Richard understood it. Some terrible little wrinkle of the thing, that had to stay secret at any cost. And getting to that secret—that was what he wanted. He was obsessed with it, I think. He was taking big risks looking for the answers, talking to anyone he hoped he could trust. People like me, and people he’d served with in Ashland. That went on for years. Sometimes he’d come here just to show me a personnel photo he’d gotten hold of, and ask me if I’d seen that face at the command center, near that roadblock. He’d do anything just to get one more little scrap of info.”

Dryden saw something settle into Danica’s expression. The weight of some ugly idea that had just come to her. She shut her eyes like someone fighting a headache.

“You alright?” Dryden asked.

She nodded, opening her eyes again. “I just always thought—” She turned to Moss. “I thought my father helped you get back on your feet because you were a friend. But the way you make it sound…”

She trailed off, as if she didn’t want to say the rest.

Moss seemed to understand.

“Please don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I think your father was a good guy. He probably would have done that for a friend, just to help. But I wasn’t a friend. I was a source. I’d like to believe he helped me turn things around as some kind of, I don’t know, repayment for the information I gave him. But if I’m being honest with you, I think he just found me useful, and it would have run against his interests if I overdosed in a ditch somewhere.”

The impact those words had on Danica was subtle but unmistakable—like a shove off balance, but taken in stride. Some heroic image of her father had just been put in stark relief, revealing imperfections. She blinked a few times and seemed to move past it for the moment.

Dryden turned to Moss. “Did Richard ever tell you things he’d learned? About this other thing Danica and I saw?”