“I’d say that was Carl, my stepfather,” Danica said, “except he retired years before my dad died. I don’t know who any of his superiors were, at the end.”

“We could sure as hell find out,” Dryden said.

“Are you saying we should go to the FBI?” Danica asked. “Tell them everything, and put ourselves in their hands?”

Dryden thought about it a moment longer, then exhaled deeply; the sound of it betrayed his own anxiety. “Christ,” he said. “I don’t want to. Without knowing who’s after us, it’s like chaining ourselves to a stake.”

“Would the FBI even take us seriously?”

“They already are,” Dryden said. “Or at least they’re taking you seriously.”

Danica looked puzzled.

“They’ve got a crime scene with four dead bodies in Thousand Oaks,” Dryden said. “One of those, your stepdad, is a former FBI agent. Another one’s a cop, and the last two are hired killers who probably have damned interesting records. Then there’s your car outside, with out-of-state plates, and no sign of you. Right there, I can think of at least two reasons the FBI would take charge of that scene, and I’m sure you’re at the top of the list of people they’d like to speak with.”

She was nodding, taking it in.

Dryden went over the logic of it himself—the idea of showing all their cards, and entrusting their lives to the FBI. Earlier in the day, when he had first seen the scrub file in that basement in Thousand Oaks, his instinct had been to run—he simply hadn’t believed the police could handle the situation, whatever the hell it was. It had seemed suicidal to go into their custody while someone out there—someone powerful and connected enough to know about scrub files—wanted them dead or captured. It had made sense to stay mobile until they had more information.

Now they had it. They knew about Ashland, and they had the date of the accident in 1989. They knew there had been a military investigation. They knew about the binder, and they could push for the names of whoever might have seen it, within the Bureau.

All that stuff added up to strings that could be pulled—but he and Danica couldn’t pull any of them. The FBI could.

He looked at her and saw her wrestling with the idea. She looked up and met his gaze.

“What if the people after us are in the government?” she asked. “We’re both wondering it. What if they have friends in the FBI?”

“Then we die. This move is risky as hell. Trust always is.”

Danica looked nervous but in control.

“As if we’re not taking a risk being on our own, right?” she said.

“There’s an FBI field office in Phoenix,” Dryden said. “We can be there in a couple hours.”