Page 71 of Statler

“Don’t be too sure,” Tonka muttered under his breath, but Statler sent him a look that Eliza couldn’t interpret.

The man immediately zipped his lip.

“Did you know he was in intelligence while he was in the Navy?” Sherbert asked, still typing away.

Eliza started, blindsided.

“No. I didn’t,” she admitted.

“Well, he was. And it seems he was quite brilliant at what he did. He was actually decorated for one of his ops where he uncovered the duplicitousness of a commander who was funneling funds and supplies to a terrorist group.”

“He…he never said anything,” Eliza marveled.

Her memories of Holden ticked up a notch. She recalled that he’d always been uncomfortable receiving accolades of any kind, and would downplay his personal successes, so what Sherbert said, fit.

“It seems like he a was quite a guy,” Blue added. “I wonder what changed him in that final year?”

The question didn’t seem entirely innocent. It almost sounded like Blue was looking for something from Eliza that she couldn’t give her.

“I doubt we’ll ever know the answer to that,” Eliza responded levelly. “But now, at least, you have the answer you sought. I was married, and I no longer am.”

Eliza thought that might be the end of the interrogation; that perhaps Statler hadn’t caught the reference to her father the previous night. But when he speared her with another steel-gray stare, she discerned that she wasn’t out from under the microscope, yet.

“So that man we saw in the parking lot. Jeremy. Tell me about him.”

Eliza huffed. “He’s a long-time employee at the factory; one of the select few who work on the top-secret projects that are done in the back room I told you about. He’s…arrogant, and I can’t say he’s one of my favorite people. He’s always shown an unwelcome interest in me, and has been going out of his way even more, lately, to visit my office. It’s kind of creepy.”

Eliza hated Jeremy’s drop-ins. She did not like the man, at all.

Statler’s jaw tightened.

“He also referenced your father.”

Here it was.

Statler was entirely focused on her, now.

“He mentioned that your father wouldn’t be happy finding out you were on factory grounds so late last night.”

“Jeremy was right about that,” Eliza allowed, remembering the odd, verbal reaming she’d gotten that morning.

She started to say more, but Statler wasn’t finished.

“He also said your father would be arriving at the building within a few minutes. Does that mean your father also works at the factory? That he’s one of those ‘chosen few’ who have high clearance for the covert projects going on?”

Eliza sighed.

It was now or never.

“No. He’s…actually the one who gives the clearances,” she revealed.

She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again to look around at the people who in a moment, would be judge, jury, and executioner, decapitating the friendships that Eliza had hoped to forge.

“My father is William Flazer.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Statler didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but finding out Eliza was Flazer’s daughter?