Page 22 of Hidden Tide
Agent Morales made a note.
“Did Jonathan deliver the evidence?”
“No. He disappeared the night before the meeting.”
“And James?”
“He searched for him.”
“Inside Blackwater?”
“Yes.”
“Did he find him?”
“I don’t know.”
Mom stepped forward.
“Then Dad returned to San Francisco and never told us?”
Thomas’s eyes filled with regret.
“He believed keeping you ignorant would keep you safe.”
“It didn’t.”
“No,” Thomas said. “It didn’t.”
Ben’s hand found mine.
I held on.
Commander Keating removed a sealed plastic sleeve from the case he carried. Inside was a photocopy of a water-damaged notebook page.
“We recovered this with Jonathan’s camera. Mr. Bell, do you recognize the handwriting?”
Thomas put on his glasses.
His eyes moved over the few visible words.
Most of the ink had bled into dark clouds, but one sentence remained partially readable.
EAST CARRIES THE EYE.
Thomas looked at me.
“It isn’t James’s handwriting.”
“Jonathan’s?” Agent Morales asked.
“Yes.”
“How would Jonathan know what East meant?” I asked.
“James told him about all five of you.”
Grandpa had trusted Jonathan with stories about us.
