From the observation corridor behind Silas, the elevator doors chimed.
Beatrice Thorne stepped into the room, holding a paper coffee cup, wearing her fur wrap.
The moment her eyes hit the four federal agents surrounding her son, the coffee cup slipped from her gnarled fingers, splashing across her designer leather boots.
“Silas?” Beatrice gasped, her voice trembling. “What… what are these men doing here?”
Callahan didn’t answer her. He pulled a high-resolution color photograph from his breast pocket and pressed it flat against the glass so Silas could see it.
It was a satellite image of the Lexington property, taken sixty minutes ago.
Four Kentucky State Police tactical cruisers and an earth-moving excavator were already parked outside the eastern equipment barn, their red and blue strobe lights illuminating the gray Kentucky morning.
“The Kentucky State Police breached the cellar twenty minutes ago, Mr. Thorne,” Callahan said, his voice dropping into a register of icy, absolute ruin. “They found the footlockers. They found Clara’s birth certificate. And they found your mother’s latent fingerprints all over the brass latches.”
