Her name was Mrs.

Eleanor Voss.

She was seventy-one years old.

She lived in a pale yellow house on a quiet street in a town two hours east.

She had been Mom's neighbor for exactly eleven months before we went into protection — long enough to become the kind of neighbor who noticed things, who left soup on doorsteps, who never asked questions she shouldn't ask.

When Mom left, she had given Mrs.

Voss one thing.

A locked metal box.

An ordinary-looking thing, the kind people store old tax returns in.

"I told her it was sentimental," Mom said.

"Family papers.

I told her if I ever came back for it, I'd come alone.

And if I didn't come back within ten years, she could throw it away."

"Has anyone contacted her?" Webb asked.

"Anyone unusual?

Anyone asking about you?"

"She doesn't know my real name.

She knew me as Sarah.

She has no reason to connect herself to any of this." Mom looked at him steadily.

"That's why I chose her."

Foss was already pulling up records on her laptop.

"Eleanor Voss," she said.

"Retired schoolteacher.

No priors.

No federal flags." She looked up.

"She's clean."

"She's more than clean," Mom said.

"She's the reason we still have a case."

Webb leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling for a moment.

"Katherine.

If we retrieve that box and the originals are intact, combined with the digitized archive and your expanded testimony, we have enough to dismantle Hale's entire operation.

Not just the original charge.

Everything."

"I know," Mom said.

"But Hale's team will figure out the storage unit was a decoy.

When they do, they'll start looking for what you actually kept.

And they'll work backward."

"Then we need to get to Eleanor before they do."

"We'll send a team tonight."

"No." Mom shook her head.

"I'll go.

She won't open the door for strangers.

She'll open it for me."

Foss and Webb exchanged a look.

I sat up straight.

"I'm going too."

"Emily—" Mom started.

"Clara," I said.

It was the first time I'd used it myself.

She stopped.

"I'm going," I said again.

Something moved across her face.

Not quite a smile.

Something quieter than that.

"All right," Webb said finally.

"We go at first light.

Small team.

Unmarked vehicles.

In and out in under thirty minutes."

He stood to leave.

"Agent Webb," I said.

He turned.

"What happened to the man who gave Mom the wrong code word?

Her original handler?"

Webb was quiet for a moment.

"He retired," he said.

"Eighteen months ago.

Full pension."

"Do you know where he is?"

Another pause.

"We're working on finding out," he said.

The door closed behind him.

Mom reached over and tucked the blanket higher around my shoulders.

Outside the window, the parking structure was pale and silent in the early morning dark.

"Clara," she said softly.

Like she was practicing.

"Katherine," I said back.

We sat like that for a while, using each other's real names in the quiet, like learning a language we should have always known.