Chapter 1 — The Traitor They Couldn’t Find

The night Victor Kane was finally dragged into the Port Alder Police Department, my father asked him only one question.

"Where is Evelyn Mercer?"

Captain Owen Mercer stood on one side of the interrogation table, silver threaded through the hair at his temples. Lieutenant Adrian Cole stood on the other, still wearing the black tactical vest from the arrest.

Neither man had slept in thirty hours.

Neither cared.

For three years, they had hunted Kane across six states. But the drug lord they had once called Graves was not the only fugitive they wanted.

They wanted me.

Kane leaned back until the chain between his cuffs went taut. Blood had dried beneath his nose, yet his smile remained lazy.

"Evelyn Mercer," he repeated. "You mean the cop you planted in my organization?"

Adrian’s palm struck the steel table.

"Where is she?"

Kane blinked, then laughed.

It began as a low chuckle and grew until a uniformed officer outside the observation window shifted uneasily.

"You really don’t know." Kane wiped one eye against his shoulder. "That is almost beautiful."

My father’s face hardened. "Answer the question."

"She’s dead."

The room became so quiet that I could hear the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead.

I hovered beside the one-way glass, close enough to see the pulse jump in Adrian’s throat.

"Try again," he said.

"I don’t need to. Your girl destroyed five distribution sites. She fed me enough false intelligence to make me execute one of my most loyal men. If we hadn’t been evacuating that warehouse, I would have kept her alive for weeks."

Adrian seized Kane by the front of his shirt and hauled him halfway across the table.

"You expect us to believe she was working against you? She murdered Detective Ruiz. She compromised Operation Breakwater. Twelve undercover officers died after she exposed them."

Kane’s amusement vanished.

"Daniel Ruiz?" he said. "So that was his name."

I saw the warehouse again.

Daniel tied to a chair. Rain hammering the corrugated roof. Kane pressing a pistol into my hand while a dozen armed men watched.

My mentor had recognized the surrender in my eyes.

Then he had wrapped his bleeding fingers around mine and forced the barrel against his chest.

"Do it, Evie," he had shouted. "Stay alive and finish this."

He pulled the trigger for me.

Adrian arrived seconds later and saw only the gun in my hand and Daniel falling from the chair.

The trust in his eyes died before Daniel’s body hit the floor.

"She fooled me too," Kane said. "Even after she shot her own handler, she kept insisting she wasn’t a cop. I used electricity. Pliers. A blade under every fingernail. She still gave me nothing."

My father’s hands curled into fists.

Adrian’s grip tightened around Kane’s shirt. "Who told you?"

"Someone who sent me her police file. Badge photograph, academy record, real name. Everything I needed."

"Who?"

"Ask Evelyn."

"Where is she?"

Kane looked directly into Adrian’s eyes.

"At the bottom of the Atlantic."

Adrian shoved him back so violently that the chair legs scraped across the floor.

"You’re protecting her."

"Protecting her?" Kane spat a laugh. "I had her thrown off Pier Nineteen while she was still breathing. She kept calling for her father and for you."

His gaze slid toward Owen.

"Where were you that night, Captain? Signing her arrest warrant?"

Adrian’s fist rose.

My father caught his wrist before the blow landed.

"Not here," Owen said.

He dragged Adrian into the corridor and closed the door behind them.

For a long moment, neither spoke.

"He’s lying," Adrian said at last.

"Yes."

"Evie turned. Kane helped her disappear, and now he’s buying her time."

My father stared through the narrow window in the interrogation-room door. He had postponed retirement twice—once to capture Kane and once to bring his only daughter home in handcuffs.

"Someone in his organization knows where she is," he said. "We keep pressing until one of them talks."

I wanted to grab his arm.

I wanted to tell him Kane had finally spoken the truth.

I had died three years ago.

The elevator opened at the end of the hall.

Natalie Shaw stepped out wearing a cream wool coat and carrying a thermal bag. She had been my best friend since we were sixteen, when I found her hiding in our school gym after her father broke two of her ribs.

My father gave her a room in our home. I gave her half of everything else.

Now she crossed the corridor and kissed Owen’s cheek.

"You haven’t eaten, Dad."

I froze.

Dad.

She turned to Adrian. "I brought enough for you too."

Owen’s expression softened. "You shouldn’t be out this late."

"Someone has to take care of you two while Evie is gone."

Gone.

She wore the word as if I had stepped out for coffee.

"Did Kane tell you where she is?" Natalie asked.

"No," Adrian said. "But we’ll find her."

"I still can’t believe she betrayed you."

Adrian looked away. "I watched her shoot Daniel. Twelve good officers died because our operation was exposed. Belief has nothing to do with it."

Natalie lowered her eyes. "I’m sorry."

A young detective hurried toward them with a printout in his hand.

"Captain. Lieutenant. Digital forensics recovered a deleted message from Kane’s old phone. It was sent one hour before Detective Ruiz was killed."

Adrian took the page.

At the top was my academy photograph.

Beneath it, four words had condemned me.

EVELYN MERCER IS A COP.

The thermal bag slipped from Natalie’s hand.

A glass container shattered on the floor.

Everyone turned toward her.

"I’m sorry," she whispered. "It was hot. It burned me."

But I was looking at her face.

Not the face she showed my father. Not the gentle, frightened woman Adrian remembered as my loyal friend.

For one naked second, Natalie looked terrified.

She waited until the men rushed away with the detective. Then she carried the broken container into the women’s restroom and locked the door.

I followed through it.

She braced both hands against the sink. Her breath came in short, ragged bursts.

"You can’t blame me, Evie," she whispered to the mirror. "You had everything. I could only have it after you were gone."

The truth struck harder than the ocean ever had.

The person who had exposed me to Victor Kane had not been another undercover officer.

It had been the woman I called my sister.