“That’s what I thought at the time, too,” I say, “and I wanted to know who DOD was, so I started digging for anything I could find with that name. One of his old Rolodexes had a David Densen in it, but I found nothing. So I started going through every one of my father’s hundreds of books, starting with the common denominator of Stephen King novels.”
“And you found something.”
“An email address.”
“And?”
“Every option had flaws, but I finally settled on going to a public computer and emailing as my father. The message was: Tell DOD I’m alive. Must talk. Candycand5 to RumbleRed11. Meet in person.”
“And then what happened?”
“Somehow the CIA knew it was me. They showed up at the house. Told me DOD was now dead, thanks to me, and that I was to never speak of such things again. They questioned me and asked where I found the information. I lied and said in a desk drawer. I wanted to go through the rest of the books. The next morning, I was sent on an assignment in Washington, D.C. that lasted a month.”
“What assignment?”
“A double agent I was supposed to expose and deliver, which I did. Upon returning home, I was handed a check for my family home that had burned down, which they said was related to the DOD murder and the reason they got me out of town. And why I was being assigned to San Francisco as a schoolteacher.”
“Where were you living?”
“North Carolina, right across the border from the Virginia training facility for the CIA.”
“Just far enough to not make it obvious your father was CIA,” Kayden assumes. “You used a public server to email that message?”
“Yes. A local copy shop. And I cleared my history, but that can be retrieved.”
“They’d been watching you, thinking you’d lead them to something connected to your father.”
“They had to be, which must mean whatever it was is big. I mean, I was a long shot, but . . . it can’t be the necklace, right?”
He taps the address I’ve written down. “Paris and the CIA are common denominators. I don’t think we can rule that out. I’ll go to this address myself while I’m there.”
“Why would the necklace show up now, not a year ago when I sent that email and the CIA came to my house? That makes no sense.”
“Unless DOD wasn’t dead, but hiding, and he knew where RumbleRed11 was.”
“And RumbleRed11 was the necklace,” I supply. “Maybe.”
“What do you remember about the CIA now?”
“I was—am—in a program called Black Forest. We don’t exist to the rest of the CIA.”
“Who did you report to?”
“A man named Drew Nelson, though I have no idea if that’s his real name. I met him once. He said he knew my father, and that’s why he recruited me.”
“If you only met him once, how did you get your assignments?”
“Phone calls that told me to go to a lockbox. I also had an emergency extraction phone number that, as I mentioned, wasn’t working when I called for help in Paris.”
“Whether this is connected to your father or not, it’s obvious that someone is dirty in the CIA and used you to transport that necklace, because you’re a woman and you have skills. Which could be as simple as Drew Nelson knowing you and targeting you.”
“But that feels too simple, doesn’t it?”
“It does, and I’d say I’d try and find out who Drew Nelson is. But right now, anything we do could alert Neuville to a setup. This will come after Sunday.”
I inhale and let the breath out, taking back the piece of paper and staring at what I’ve written. Then I turn back to Kayden. “Why can I remember this, but not where the necklace is?”
“We’ve talked about this. You’re blocking something to avoid a trauma.”