Andrew Gross - The Blue Zone

“So as to your question”-Phil Cavetti leaned back-“of whether your father is dead or alive, I’m afraid it’s a whole lot deeper than that, Kate.”

“No!” Kate’s voice rose, her head shook with incredulity. “You’re wrong! Whatever he’s done, my father’s no killer.” Her eyes fastened on the horrible crime photo. The image of Margaret Seymour’s empty expression almost made her retch. “ Not that! ”

“She was headed there to meet him, Kate,” Cavetti said. “He ran away from your family. That much we know.”

“I don’t care!” Her face flushed with frustration. It was impossible. Too horrible to even contemplate. “You steamrolled my father into a conviction. You took away his life. You don’t even have proof he’s still alive.”

She picked up the file. She wanted to throw it against the wall. Her head was swimming. She tried to focus on the facts.

Someone did purchase a cell phone in her brother’s name. She couldn’t deny that. Someone had boarded a plane for Minneapolis the night her father disappeared. Someone had placed that call to Margaret Seymour. And rented a car. The GPS led to the murder site. Margaret Seymour’s scribbled note.

MIDAS.

Why…?

“Why would he want to kill her?” Kate shouted back. “What possible reason would he have to kill the one person who was trying to keep him safe?”

“Maybe she knew something he didn’t want her to divulge,” Booth, the FBI man, answered, shrugging. “Or cover up something she’d found.”

“But you would know that.” She spun to Cavetti. “You were Margaret Seymour’s senior officer. That would be part of his file. Goddamn it, this is my father we’re talking about!”

“Whatever it was, we know he went to meet her, Kate.” The WITSEC agent just stared at her. “The rest-you connect the dots.”

Kate sank back down. “Maybe he made a foolish choice or two that’s made him look bad. I don’t know why he tried to contact Margaret Seymour. Maybe someone was after him. Maybe she contacted him. But those pictures …” She shook her head, her eyes horrified and wide. “What they did…That’s not my father. He’s no killer. You know him, Agent Cavetti! How could you possibly think it was him?”

Suddenly Kate felt a sickening realization.

The bolt. To her apartment.

She looked back at Cavetti. “That’s why you didn’t warn me, wasn’t it? After Tina was shot. It was you. You broke into the apartment. You were using me, to find my father. You wanted to know if he contacted me.”

Cavetti stared at her without apology. “Kate, you have no idea what’s at stake in this case.”

“Then tell me, Agent Cavetti!” Kate stood up again. “Tell me what’s at stake, and I’ll tell you. My father may be dead. Or worse”-she pointed to the photo-“he may have done that. And I have a friend who’s fighting for her life with a bullet in her brain that may have been meant for me.

“That’s what’s at stake, Agent Cavetti, for me. Whatever it is for you, I hope it’s worth all that!”

Kate grabbed her bag, stepping over to the door.

“He’ll try to contact you, Ms. Herrera,” the FBI man said. “There’ll be a missing-persons alert out for him. But you realize we’re talking more than that.”

“I saw those pictures, Agent Cavetti.” Kate shook her head in anger. “And that’s not him. It’s not my father-no matter where the dots lead. He testified for you. He went to jail. You’re the one who’s supposed to be protecting us, so protect us, Cavetti. You’re so sure my father’s alive-find him!

“ Find him .” Kate opened the door. “Or I promise I will.”

Stroke…

Kate reached forward, powering her legs into the drive.

Stroke… Every five beats. In perfectly timed rhythm. Her muscles straining.

Then glide…

The Peinert X25 racing shell sped gracefully through the waters of the Harlem River. The early-morning sun glinted off the apartment buildings along the shore. Kate feathered the blades, sliding forward, shifting into her recovery. Her stroke was fluid and compact.

Drive…

She was taking it out on the river: All her anger. Her doubt. She rowed twice a week like clockwork, before work. In the cold and the rain. Under the railroad trestles, past Baker Field to the Hudson River. Two miles. She needed to do it-to fight off her diabetes. But today she just needed it for her peace of mind.

Stroke…

Kate focused on her rhythm. Zen-like, two breaths to every stroke. Her heart rate climbing to 130. The spray kicked in her face. Her neoprene top clung to her. She trained her gaze on her wake, like perfectly carved ski edges in the snow.

Stroke…

She didn’t believe them. The WITSEC agents. How could she? They couldn’t even prove if her father was dead or alive.

She had grown up with him. He had given her his love-whatever he’d done. He always came out to watch her row. He always rooted her on. He helped her come through her illness. He taught her to fight.

She had to believe someone, right?

The WITSEC people were protecting something. Basically they had used her-to get to him. “You don’t know what’s at stake in this case.”

The pain started to intensify in her chest. Yes I do.

Kate got as far as the cliffs across from Baker Field, a little over a mile. Then she turned around and picked up her pace against the current.

Every four beats now.

Her mother, Kate thought, she knew something, too. “There are some things I’ve been holding back for a long time now that you need to know…”

What? What was it she was trying to say?

It wasn’t fair that Kate had to be separated from them. Sharon and Justin and Em. It wasn’t fair that they had to go through this without her.

Two Columbia University eights were on the river practicing, too. The Peter Jay Sharp Boathouse, where she stored her shell, was only a short distance ahead.

Kate leaned into the last couple hundred meters.

She picked up her stroke, the one she had in college, her thighs pushing into the drive, her body sliding forward in the shell. Then the craft cut the surface on a perfectly even keel.

Faster.

She increased to every three beats. Her legs driving in perfect unison with her arms. Kate felt the muscles in her back straining, her heart rate escalating. The fire burning in her lungs.

The final fifty meters, she stepped it up to an all-out sprint. Kate glanced behind her-the boathouse pier was just ahead of her now. Stroke, stroke… Kate grimaced, her lungs exploding with the burn.

Finally she released…the sleek craft gliding through the imaginary finish line. Kate dropped her oars and brought her knees up to her chest, wincing in pain. She pushed her Oakleys high on her forehead, dropping her head on her arms.

What kind of animal do they think he is?

She let her mind drift back to the image of those horrible crime-scene photos. The sight of that poor woman beaten and murdered. What could she possibly have known that he would have done that for? What reason would he have? It made no sense-regardless of the facts.

Suddenly it scared her. Her whole life scared her.

Kate pulled in her oars and let the shell drift on its own toward the boathouse pier. The voice was back-the one inside her that had defended him so strongly just a day before.

Except this time it was saying something different. A doubt she couldn’t put away.