“I just can’t remember ever seeing it,” she said. “Even the one time I came here with him—although I’m pretty sure I took a long hike in the woods by myself, while you two talked.”

She went quiet, frowning. “No,” she said at last. “There was no binder like that in his house when he died. I would have looked through it. And I’m pretty sure the contents would have jumped out at me.”

Dryden turned to Danica. “What if he didn’t keep it in his house? When you told me he died, you said he was still with the Bureau. He hadn’t retired yet.”

“Yeah.”

“So maybe he kept the binder at work. Secure storage in an FBI field office would be safer than his house.”

“But I still should have seen it. The Bureau sent me a box of his personal belongings from the office, everything he—”

She stopped herself, looking almost embarrassed.

“Right,” she said.

Dryden nodded. “They would have checked all of his things before giving them to you. For any agent, there could be sensitive material there. And in his case, if they found a binder of notes about all this stuff—the things we’re talking about…”

He trailed off, thinking. He imagined Richard Ellis’s superiors going through his personal effects after he died. Saw them finding that binder: pages and pages of military secrets he had gathered, off-duty and against the law, all while he had worked under their supervision as a federal agent. What would they have done?

He could see Danica thinking about it, probably along the same lines. Possibly coming to the same conclusions—or guesses, anyway.

“Look, maybe they never saw the thing,” Dryden said. “Maybe your dad kept it in a safe-deposit box, and it’s still sitting there. But if his superiors did find it, it should have scared the hell out of them. They should have worried that if anyone found out about it, they’d get dragged in front of Congress and grilled. Why was one of your agents digging into stuff like this? Why didn’t you know what he was up to? They’d probably expect to get fired just for being there, so the public could see a few heads roll. That stuff happens all the time.”

“So what would they have done with it?” Danica asked. “Burned it?”

“Maybe. Or just sat on it and hoped no one ever came looking for it. Either way, it wouldn’t be hard for us to figure out who could have seen it, inside the Bureau. Anyone assigned to review your father’s belongings would need to have at least his level of clearance, and they’d have to know his caseload. I’m guessing it would just be his boss, or his boss’s boss.”