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“Then who did they find?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“Was he one of Ross’s men?”

“No.”

“How can you be certain if you don’t know who he is?”

“The medical examiner completed a preliminary examination. The man has been dead for approximately three years.”

The ocean breeze suddenly felt colder.

“Three years?”

“Yes.”

Grandpa died a little over three years ago.

Nathan brought him home after he suffered a heart attack aboard the trawler. We buried him beside Grandma in San Francisco.

Nathan thought he had been poisoned. But the doctor said it was a heart attack.

There was no connection between Grandpa’s death and a body hidden inside Blackwater.

There couldn’t be.

“Where did they find him?”

“In a sealed chamber beyond the old loading harbor.”

“I thought the Coast Guard searched the entire mountain.”

“They searched every accessible section. Yesterday, one of the engineers discovered a steel panel behind a collapsed section of the seawall. It opened into another passage.”

“How large is it?”

“We don’t know. The passage flooded before the team reached the end.”

“But they found a body.”

“Yes.”

I looked toward the patio.

Thomas remained asleep, his chin resting against his chest. Nathan sat across from Mom, but he was no longer smiling.

He was watching me.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Ben released a slow breath.

“Calle.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”