Diana didn't take them back to the SUV.
Instead, she led Victoria and Nathaniel through a maze of back hallways and service exits, eventually emerging into an alley behind the Justice Department. A second car waited—a gray sedan, nondescript, with tinted windows.
"Get in," Diana said.
Victoria climbed into the back seat. Nathaniel sat beside her. Diana drove.
They circled the block twice, watching for tails. Then Diana merged onto Interstate 395, heading south.
"Where are we going?" Victoria asked.
"Alexandria. A friend's place. Off the books."
"How do you have so many friends?"
Diana's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. "When you've been in this business as long as I have, you learn to collect favors. This is a favor."
They drove for twenty minutes in silence. Victoria watched the city fade into suburbs, then into older neighborhoods with tree-lined streets and brick townhouses.
Diana pulled into a narrow driveway behind a row of townhouses. She killed the engine and turned to face them.
"Here's how this works. The owner of this house is a former CIA analyst named Margaret Chu. She doesn't know who you are. She doesn't want to know. You'll stay in the basement. There's a bathroom, two beds, a small kitchenette. You don't go upstairs. You don't make noise. You don't use your phones except for emergencies."
"For how long?" Nathaniel asked.
"Until Rhodes calls. Could be a day. Could be a week."
Victoria grabbed the tote bag with the laptop. "Let's go."
---
The basement was better than the motel.
It was clean, for one thing. White walls. A concrete floor covered with cheap rugs. Two twin beds with fresh linens. A small table with two chairs. A mini-fridge stocked with water and sandwiches.
Margaret Chu met them at the basement door. She was a small woman in her sixties, with wire-rimmed glasses and a calm, unhurried way of moving. She didn't ask questions. She just handed Diana a key and walked away.
"Margaret doesn't talk much," Diana said. "That's why I like her."
Victoria set up the laptop on the table. Nathaniel sat on one of the beds, watching her.
Diana stood by the door. "I'm going back to D.C. to coordinate with Rhodes. You two stay here. Don't leave. Don't let anyone in. If someone knocks, you don't exist."
"What about food?" Nathaniel asked.
"Margaret will leave something at the top of the stairs. Three times a day. Don't go up until you hear her knock twice."
"And if something goes wrong?"
Diana pulled a burner phone from her jacket and set it on the table. "This phone has one number. Mine. If you need me, call. Otherwise, assume everything is fine."
She left without saying goodbye.
The door closed. The lock clicked.
Victoria and Nathaniel were alone.
---
The first hour was silent.
Victoria worked. She organized the files, cross-referenced the names, built a timeline of every transaction she could trace. Nathaniel sat on the bed, reading something on his phone—the burner, not his own.
"Your old phone," Victoria said. "What did you do with it?"
"Left it in Ohio. Buried in the backyard of your father's house."
"You buried it?"
"Wrapped in foil. Inside a coffee can. Under the rose bushes."
Victoria almost smiled. "My mother planted those roses."
"Then they're good for something."
She turned back to the laptop. The timeline was almost complete. Every payment, every shell company, every name. It was a web of corruption stretching back fifteen years, and Marcus Webb was at the center.
But there was something missing. A name. A face. The person who had actually killed Richard Chan.
"Nathaniel," she said. "Did Richard have any enemies besides Webb?"
"Everyone has enemies."
"Specific enemies. Someone who would want him dead personally. Not just because he was a loose end."
Nathaniel set down his phone. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, thinking.
"There was a woman," he said finally. "A few years before he died. Richard had an affair. It ended badly. His wife never found out, but the woman—she was angry. Really angry."
"Who was she?"
"Someone in the finance department. I don't remember her name. Richard never told me. He just said it was a mistake and it was over."
Victoria typed "Richard Chan affair" into a search bar. Nothing came up. Of course not. Richard had been careful.
"What did she look like?"
"Brunette. Late thirties. I only saw her once, at a company party. Richard pointed her out. He said, 'That's the woman who's going to ruin my life.' I thought he was joking."
"Was she still at Meridian when he died?"
"No. She quit a few months before. Richard said she'd found another job. He seemed relieved."
Victoria made a note. "I need a name."
"I'll try to find it. Give me a day."
"We don't have a day."
"We have what we have."
---
Night fell.
Margaret knocked twice. Victoria went to the top of the stairs and found a tray with two bowls of soup, bread, and a pot of tea. She carried it down.
They ate in silence. The soup was good—vegetable, homemade. The bread was fresh. Victoria hadn't realized how hungry she was until she finished her bowl and wanted more.
"There's more upstairs," Nathaniel said.
"I'm not going back up."
"I'll go."
He stood up and climbed the stairs. Victoria heard him knock softly on the door, heard Margaret's muffled voice, heard the clink of bowls.
He came back down with a second tray. More soup. More bread.
"You're going to make me fat," Victoria said.
"You could use it."
She looked up at him. "Was that a compliment?"
"It was an observation."
He sat across from her, the small table between them. The bare bulb overhead cast the same harsh shadows she remembered from the basement in Ohio.
"Tell me something true," she said.
Nathaniel set down his spoon. "About what?"
"About you. About why you really signed that report. Not the math. Not the money. The real reason."
He was quiet for a long moment. The bulb flickered.
"Because I was afraid," he said finally.
"Of what?"
"Of being nothing. Of going back to the way I grew up. My father was a janitor. My mother cleaned houses. They worked sixty hours a week and still couldn't pay the bills. I promised myself I would never be like them. I would never be poor. I would never be powerless."
"So you sold out."
"I made a choice. Every day, I made the same choice. And every day, it got easier." He looked at her. "Until I saw you again. In that library. You touched my sleeve and said I wasn't as cold as I pretended. And for a second, I believed you."
"But you still signed the report."
"I signed it because I was a coward. Because I thought if I didn't, someone else would. Because I told myself it wasn't personal."
"It was personal."
"I know." He reached across the table. His hand stopped an inch from hers. "I know."
Victoria looked at his hand. She could feel the warmth of it, even without touching.
She pulled her hand away.
"We should sleep," she said. "Tomorrow will be long."
Natha
niel nodded. He stood up, walked to his bed, and lay down with his back to her.
Victoria sat at the table for a long time, staring at the laptop screen.
She didn't sleep.