Page 341 of Hidden Depths
“He was the one who sent me after your father.”
Pain tightened Nathan’s face.
“I got there too late.”
My anger rose so quickly, it surprised me.
“You knew all these years?”
“I knew your father had found something at Keawe Cannery. I didn’t know exactly what.”
“You let us believe his boat sank in a storm.”
“I believed that too.”
“How could you?”
“Storm,” Calle said softly.
“No. Everyone protected us by lying.”
Nathan absorbed the words without defending himself.
“You’re right.”
His honesty stole some of my anger.
Not all of it.
But enough for me to hear the pain beneath his voice.
“Your father disappeared a week after his argument with James, as you said. James was upset about the argument; he wanted me to find him. I searched the coast for sixteen days. I searched long after the Coast Guard ended its official operation.”
His eyes moved over all five of us.
“I never stopped looking for him.”
Ward stepped between us.
Not to protect Nathan.
To bring us back to what mattered.
“We have fifty-seven minutes.”
I looked at Mom’s photograph.
The bruise on her face.
The rope cutting into her wrists.
My anger changed direction.
“Tell us the plan.”
Ward sent Lieutenant Akana from the salon.
Not because he distrusted him.
