“I told you that I wouldn’t,” Bales continued. “I told you that some things weren’t worth the cost, but I loved Ash, too, and eventually, I broke. I called in favors that I never should have called in. I paid a price I never should have paid, and I went down there.”

“You should have told me.” Cady shuddered. “If I’d known…”

“You would have insisted on coming with me,” Bales said. “I couldn’t let that happen. So I went alone. And when I came back, when I told Ness that there was no trace of her boy—not a body, not rumors, nothing—she accepted it. She let go. She moved on.” Bales swallowed. “And she started spending more and more time in the park.”

Ash had been gone for eighteen years. I thought of the hash marks on the tree. Days since he went missing? I wondered. Weeks?

I tried to make this—any of it—make sense. “She didn’t start burying people who died in the park until recently,” I said. “Four years ago—or five.”

“What changed?” Free asked.

“Five years ago,” Bales Bennett said finally, “I broke down and hired a private detective to find my daughter.”

“Five years ago”—Mac laid a hand on Cady’s shoulder—“she realized that you had a son. She would have thought Jude was Ash’s. She always thought that someday, for you, it was going to be Ash.”

I couldn’t tell how Mac felt about that—any of it.

“I told her the truth yesterday,” Cady uttered desperately. “I told her that Ash and I weren’t…that Jude wasn’t…” She shuddered. “What if she takes that out on him?”

“Jude is yours, Cady.” Mac drew in closer to her. “And he’s mine.” That acknowledgment sucked the air from the room. “Whatever she’s gone through—whatever she’s going through—Ness wouldn’t hurt him.”

“She won’t hurt the boy.” Bales sounded infinitely surer of that than I felt. “But if we don’t find her before the authorities do, she might hurt herself.”

The deafening sound of a chopper drowned out Cady’s reply. Bales strode toward the door.

“Let me guess,” Mac called as we followed Bales out and saw a massive military-grade helicopter landing on the lawn. “You called in another favor.”

Saskia pressed to my side the moment my foot hit dirt. Up ahead of us, Cady didn’t tell her father that she was coming with him. She just climbed onto the chopper, calling Pad to her as she did. Mac followed but ordered his K9 to stay.

“Come on,” Free told me, grabbing hold of my arm and pulling me toward the chopper. I signaled for Saskia. Duchess hesitated, reluctant to leave NATO to come to Free.

“You two stay here,” Cady yelled over the sound of the blades.