Maya was seventeen years old when Marcus died peacefully in his sleep in the New Zealand cottage that had become his permanent refuge. The news reached them through Chen, who maintained contact despite having retired from FBI three years earlier to teach criminal justice at Georgetown University.
"Natural causes," Chen reported via video call, her gray hair and reading glasses marking passage of time since their initial crisis fourteen years ago. "He was seventy-three, in declining health, and apparently ready. He left instructions that you should be notified personally rather than discovering through news reports."
Louis felt unexpected grief at the loss of man she had never met in person but who had altered her family's trajectory irrevocably. Marcus's encrypted message had started eve
