was still about family now.
Kate could hardly work the following day.
She did her best to put it aside: the assault of questions brought on by her father’s photo from the night before. She peered into the scope, recording the rate of stem-cell division, the phagocytic cytosis of Tristan and Isolde. But all she could see was his face in front of that gate, that chilling name.
Kate understood now that much of her life had been a terrible lie.
After staring at the photo, Kate had looked up the town of Carmenes on the Internet. It wasn’t in Spain, as she’d thought. It was in Colombia.
Colombia. Where the Mercados were from.
In that instant everything in Kate’s life changed. She wanted to believe in him, to think of him as he had been. But for the second time, she saw her father as someone different than the person she always thought she knew. Not as a victim but as someone with a past—a past unconnected to hers. With a terrible, powerful secret to hide. A secret that changed everything. And it scared her. Terrified her.
Her family’s life had been ruined, her best friend shot. People had been killed in the protection of that lie.
What are you doing in front of that sign, Daddy?
Did the WITSEC agents know about this? Did her mother? All these years? Was everything just a lie, every story of his past, his work, the trial? Every time he put his arms around her?
She remembered her mother’s voice: “There are some things I’ve been holding back for a long time now that you need to know …”
What things? Kate stood up from the scope.
What were you trying to tell me, Mom?
The previous night, when Greg finally came home, he could see in her face immediately that something was wrong.
She was leafing through a stack of old e-mails and letters she had received from her mom and her brother and sister over the past year. She needed to feel close to them. Mom had let Emily go to her first concert alone. Third Eye Blind, Em’s favorite group. Kate could almost feel Em’s excitement. She was on cloud nine.…
“What’s wrong, Kate?”
Kate handed him the photo of her father she had found.
At first he didn’t seem surprised. Or even angry. As he focused on the letters above her father’s head, his eyes opened wide.
“I don’t understand.… There has to be some reason, Kate.” An uncomprehending look crept onto his face.
“What reason, Greg? What sort of reason could there possibly be? That he’s a liar. That he’s been hiding something from us all my life. That he’s actually connected to these awful people. How is it possible, Greg? That he actually did those horrible things.…
“I’m sorry,” Kate said. “I just can’t hide from this anymore. I have to know.”
“You have to know what, Kate?” He put the photo down and sat at the table across from her. “That your father wasn’t who you supposed he was? This is our life now—not his. I don’t know what he’s done, but I do know you’re not going to find out by looking under a scope. This is dangerous, Kate. These people outside—we need them. I can’t even think of what happened to Tina happening to you.”
Greg is right, Kate knew, staring out at the lab. The answer isn’t under a scope.
It was real and scary, and she didn’t know how to go about finding it, or what she would find there when she did. Or even whom she could trust.
But she had to know. The picture changed everything.
Because the name on the gate that sickened her—Mercado—meant it was no longer just about him, her father. The name on that gate was about her, too.
About every memory, every touch she had felt. Every moment of laughter in her life.
The WITSEC agents wouldn’t let Kate see her family. She had to find another way.
Greg was right, the answer wasn’t under a lens.
It was right out in the open. And Kate had an idea where.
In the bedroom of her white clapboard house, Sharon began typing the words into her computer. “Kate …”
There were about a thousand things she wanted to say.
“First, I want to tell you how much I miss you and love you—and how very sad I am that we have put you at risk. But there are things, things I had almost forgotten myself, that I have to say. Time does that, you know. Time and hope. The hope that the past is the past—which it never is. And that the person you will become is different from the person you are now.”
A cold wind blew off the bay, rattling the window. “It’s late. Justin and Em are asleep. This time of night, Kate, I feel like it’s just you and me.”
Downstairs, a female agent stayed awake through the night. There was a tracer on their phones. Across the street there was always a car.
“The kids are holding up well, I guess. They miss their father. They miss a lot of things. Their life. You. They’re young, and they’re confused. They have every right to be. As I’m sure you are, too.
“Your father may be dead—or not, I don’t know. But I am sure I will never see him again. Whatever he’s done, do not judge him too harshly. He loves you. He has always loved you. He’s loved all of you. He’s tried to protect you, all these years. Secrets are hard to keep. They burn a hole in the lining of your soul. It’s so much easier to forget.
“So let me tell you, Kate … now.”
Sharon wrote. She wrote it all out, all the things she felt compelled to say. The meaning of the pendant she had left with Kate. All the things Kate had to know. About her father.
She even told her where they were living.
How much she wanted to say, The hell with it—come, Kate, come. We miss you so much. We need to be together. I don’t care about the goddamned rules. Find us, honey. Come. You need to know the truth.…
Everything came rushing out. “I’m sorry, Kate. For keeping things secret. That you have to feel afraid. For Tina. For keeping our family apart.”
She felt like a true mother again, for the first time in a year.
Suddenly a light flashed in the window. It always scared her. She glanced
