Suddenly she understood. A tremor of alarm gripped her. “Why are you showing me all this, Agent Cavetti?”

“Kate, we found something in Agent Seymour’s car.” The WITSEC agent paused. He took out something new from the envelope.

This time it wasn’t a photograph but a single sheet of notepaper, blank, like from a small perforated notepad, contained in a plastic bag.

Kate looked back at him, confused.

“The car was gone over, Kate, from front to back, by whoever did this, no doubt, to make sure it was clean. This sheet was still attached to a notepad on the dashboard. Something had been written on the page above it-and removed.”

“It’s blank.” Kate shrugged. But as she looked closer, she could see the faint outline of someone’s writing.

“Here, under UV light”-Cavetti took out one more photo-“you can see it enhanced.”

Kate held the new photo. Something had been scrawled there. Five letters came to life. In Margaret Seymour’s hand.

M-I-D-A-S.

“Midas?” Kate looked blank. “I’m not understanding. How does all this relate to me?”

Cavetti stared at her. “MIDAS is the code name we gave to your family, Kate.”

It had the force of a fist, hitting her squarely in the abdomen, squeezing the oxygen out of her lungs.

First Tina, outside the lab. Then Margaret Seymour, her family’s case agent. Now they were asking if she’d heard from her father.

“What’s going on, Agent Cavetti?” Kate stood up. “My family! They could be in danger. Have you notified them? Have you spoken with my father?”

“That’s why we’re here.” The WITSEC man paused, staring into her eyes. “I’m afraid your father is missing, Kate.”

“Missing…?” The word fell numbly from Kate’s lips. “Missing since when?”

“He dropped your sister off at a squash club last week, then disappeared,” Cavetti said, tapping the photographs back into a stack and setting them down. “We don’t know where he is. You’re certain he hasn’t been in touch.”

“Of course I’m certain!” A wave of anguish swept over Kate. Her father was missing. His case agent had been brutally murdered.

“My mother! My brother and sister! Are they all right?”

“They’re safe, Kate.” Cavetti raised his palm in a cautioning way. “They’re under guard.”

Kate looked back at him, trying to figure out just what that meant. “Under guard!”

She slid off the stool, touching a hand to her face. Her worst fears had now come true. They had tried to get to her. They had killed Margaret Seymour. Now they might have found her family. Kate stepped over to the couch and lowered herself onto the armrest. She knew one thing: Her father, whatever he had done, loved his family. If he was missing, something had happened. He would never just leave.

“Is my father dead, Agent Cavetti?”

He shook his head. “The truth is, we don’t know. We’re going to assign a protective agent to you, Kate. Maybe somehow he’s okay. Maybe he’ll try to contact you. You may even be a target yourself.”

“I already was,” Kate said. Then she looked up with a start. “You said you knew about Tina.”

At first Cavetti didn’t respond. He just glanced a bit uncomfortably in the direction of Nardozzi.

Kate stood up and stared at them. “You knew about Tina, and you never even contacted me. You-”

“Kate, we know how you must have felt with that, but the police…”

In a daze she tried to connect the timelines in her mind. Tina was three days ago, Margaret Seymour, so they said, last Thursday. Her father…How could her father be missing since then? Why wouldn’t they have warned her?

“I want to talk to my family,” she said to Cavetti. “I want to make sure they’re all right.”

“I’m sorry, Kate. That isn’t possible. They’re in protective custody now.”

“What do you mean, they’re in protective custody?”

“Kate,” Cavetti said, helplessly, “the people running the Mercado operation would do anything to retaliate against your father. They may already have. The agency’s been penetrated. Until we know what’s happened, the worst thing we can do is compromise their security. This is the way it has to be.”

Kate glared back. “Are you saying they’re prisoners? That I’m a prisoner, too?”

“No one knows what Agent Seymour might have divulged, Kate,” Nardozzi said quietly. “Or to whom.”

It was as if a car had slammed into her head-on, a body blow of doubt and uncertainty, and she was reeling. Her father was missing. Margaret Seymour was dead. The rest of them were being kept from her. Kate looked at Cavetti. This was the person her family had bet their lives on. And he was lying to her. She knew it. He was holding something back.

“I want to talk to my family.” Kate met his eyes. “My father may be dead. I have that right.”

“I know you do,” Cavetti said. “But you just have to trust us, Kate… They’re okay.”

They attached a protective agent to watch over her.

The short, mustached guy in the baseball cap who had followed her off the bus turned out to be an FBI agent named Ruiz.

Maybe this was for the best, Kate told herself. With everything that was going on, with what had happened to Tina. Greg was back at work and wouldn’t be home until later. Truth was, Kate would sleep a little easier knowing that someone was there.

But she couldn’t sleep. Not knowing what had happened to her father. Whether he was dead or alive. She thought of her mom and Em and Justin. Wherever the hell they were. If they were even all right. How panicked they must be. God, I’d give anything to hear their voices. One thing Kate knew-whatever her father had done, whoever he was, he would never just leave them.

Her mouth felt like cotton. She needed something to drink. She felt a tingling sensation in her fingers and toes. This kind of stress, it wasn’t good for her. Kate pulled the Accu-Chek out of her purse and took a blood reading: 315. Goddamn it, she had spiked. That was bad.

She knew she’d been slacking off lately. She hadn’t run or rowed since last week. All she’d had to eat today was a few bites of a salad she’d picked up in the hospital cafeteria.

She pulled out a syringe from the kitchen cabinet, took the vial of Humulin from the fridge, and gave herself her shot.

C’mon, Kate, you have to take care of yourself, or it won’t matter who the hell finds you.

She brought her dog close and petted his floppy ears. “Right, Fergus?”

Kate made herself something to eat, a little tuna out of the can, mayo, ketchup, sweet relish, a chopped-up egg. Dad’s famous recipe. She took the bowl over to the computer on the desk by the window. She clicked on Yahoo! She knew that it was futile, but she’d give anything just to see a message from Em or Mom.

Nothing.

Kate punched up Sharon ’s e-mail ID. Yogagirl123. It didn’t go to her directly. Her messages were forwarded through some sort of clearing Web site at WITSEC, so she always had to be a little careful about what she said. This time she just started to write, copying Em and Justin.

Mom…guys. I’m worried about you. I don’t even know if you will ever get this. I know Dad is missing. I’m so scared that something terrible has happened. There’s something I need to tell you, something that happened here, but most of all I just want to hear your voices. They said you are in protective custody. If you get this, please get the okay to call me. I love you all. I pray that Daddy is all right and that you are, too. My heart is with you guys. Write me, call me, just let me know. I can’t tell you how much I want to hear your voices. K.

Kate clicked “send” and watched the message disappear. She realized she was sending an e-mail to no one. She called Greg and got his recording and hung up without leaving a message. She had never felt this alone in her life. She curled up with Fergus on the bed with the TV on.