Knox’s instincts told him that a man like Carr, with proven killing skills, would’ve made a productive member of Triple Six. Many of their members had come from the military. And right around the time Carr had vanished from public record was when Triple Six had been at the height of its activity. That had raised more questions than answers.

He reached his house and pulled into the garage. A moment later his daughter, Melanie, opened the door to the kitchen. She’d earlier phoned him to say she was coming over to take him to dinner. After he’d gotten the summons from Macklin Hayes he’d called her back saying he couldn’t make it, so he was surprised to see her.

The aroma of a cooked meal reached him from the kitchen. She gave him a hug and ushered him in, taking off his coat and hanging it up.

He said, “I didn’t think busy lawyers in private practice had time to cook for themselves, much less anybody else.”

“Reserve your judgment until after you’ve eaten it. I don’t watch the Food Network and I don’t hold myself out as any sort of cook. But the intent was honorable.”

Melanie had taken more after Knox’s deceased wife, Patty, than she had her father. She was tall and lithe with reddish hair that she usually wore pulled back. She was a graduate of UVA Law School and a rapidly rising young star at a D.C. powerhouse legal firm. The older of his two children—his son, Kenny, was currently in Iraq with his fellow Marines—Melanie had taken it on herself to make sure her father did not starve or wallow in pity over the recent death of her mother and his wife of thirty years.

The meal was eaten in the sunroom where they shared a bottle of Amarone and Melanie filled him in on the latest case she was handling. Over the years his children had quickly learned that their father never discussed his work with them, or anyone else. They knew he traveled the world, often on very little notice, and was gone for long periods of time. This was explained as him serving his country in a minor capacity with the State Department.

He had once told Melanie, “I’m unimportant enough to where they can call on me whenever they like, and I just go.”

That line had worked all the way through middle school. But once his precocious daughter had reached high school Knox could tell she no longer believed it, though she never tried to uncover the truth. His son had just accepted his father disappearing from time to time as the way life was. Now, as a Marine lance corporal serving overseas and trying to stay alive day by day, Kenny Knox had more on his mind, his father hoped, than worrying about what his old man did for a living.