January 15, 1944
The second sign came in the form of a knock on the door.
It was late, past nine, long after visitors usually called. Rosa was putting Maria to bed. Sal was at the kitchen table, staring at nothing, when the knock came—three sharp raps, urgent and insistent.
He opened the door to find a woman standing on his stoop.
She was young, maybe twenty, with dark hair and dark eyes and a face that was beautiful in the way that worry could make anyone beautiful—drawn tight, desperate, hoping for something that probably wouldn't come. She wore a coat too thin for January and clutched a handbag like a shield.
"Mr. Lombardi?" Her voice shook. "I'm Margaret Chen. I wrote you about Tommy."
Sal stepped aside. "Come in. Quickly. It's freezing."
She entered like a bird entering a cage—tentatively, ready to flee at the slightest threat. Rosa appeared in the hallway, took one look at the situation, and immediately went to make tea.
Margaret sat on the edge of the sofa, her hands wrapped around the cup Rosa gave her, not drinking.
"I'm sorry to come like this," she said. "I know it's late. I know it's strange. But I didn't know what else to do."
"You wrote that Tommy's letters stopped."
"Yes. And then—" She reached into her handbag and pulled out a crumpled envelope. "This came yesterday."
Sal took it. The envelope was plain, no return address, postmarked from a town in Virginia he'd never heard of. Inside was a single sheet of paper, covered in handwriting that was barely legible—scrawled, desperate, the writing of someone who could barely hold a pen.
Maggie,
If you get this, don't try to find me. Don't write back. Don't ask questions. Just know that I'm okay. I'm alive. I think about you every day.
They're watching. All of them. They won't let us talk to anyone. But I had to tell you—I had to—
The letter ended there. Mid-sentence. Just like the others.
Sal looked up. "This came yesterday?"
"Yes. The postmark—I looked it up. It's a tiny town. Nothing there but farms and a train station. Why would Tommy be in a place like that?"
Sal didn't have an answer. But he had a terrible, growing suspicion.
"Margaret, has Tommy ever mentioned a man named Reynolds?"
Her face went pale. "How did you know?"
"Because I've met him. And he's the kind of man who makes problems disappear." Sal handed back the letter. "I think Tommy's in trouble. All of them are. And I think I'm the only one who can help."
The next morning, Sal kissed Rosa goodbye and caught a train to Virginia.
He didn't tell her where he was going. He didn't tell her why. He just said he had to go, that people needed him, that he'd be back as soon as he could.
Rosa looked at him with eyes that had seen twenty-three years of marriage, twenty-three years of knowing when to ask questions and when to wait.
"Come home," she said. That was all.
Sal promised he would.
The train rattled south through the winter landscape, past bare trees and frozen fields and small towns huddled against the cold. Sal sat by the window, watching it all pass, thinking about Miller's desperate scrawl, about Margaret's terrified face, about Reynolds's smooth voice and empty smile.
The town was called Boyd's Creek. Population 342. It had one main street, one diner, one train station, and approximately seventeen thousand places to hide. Sal got off the train at noon and stood on the platform, looking around at a place that time had forgotten.
Now what?
He started with the diner. It was the only place open, the only place with lights and heat and the smell of coffee. He sat at the counter and ordered a cup and a piece of pie he didn't want.
The waitress was a woman in her fifties with tired eyes and a kind smile. She refilled his coffee without being asked.
"Passing through?" she asked.
"Looking for someone. A young man. Navy uniform. Would have come through in the last week or so."
The waitress's smile flickered. Just for a moment. Then it was back, bright and professional.
"Haven't seen any Navy boys around here. Mostly just farmers and folks passing through."
Sal nodded, sipped his coffee, and waited.
When she wasn't looking, he slipped out the door and started walking.
Boyd's Creek was small enough to walk end to end in twenty minutes. Sal did that, then did it again, looking for anything out of place. The town was quiet—too quiet. The kind of quiet that came from people staying inside, keeping their heads down, not wanting to be noticed.
He found what he was looking for at the edge of town.
A road led off the main street, unpaved, rutted, leading into the woods. A sign at the entrance said PRIVATE PROPERTY—NO TRESPASSING. Fresh tire tracks led down it, disappearing into the trees.
Sal followed.
The road wound through the woods for half a mile, then opened onto a clearing. In the clearing sat a building—long, low, grey, surrounded by a fence topped with barbed wire. Guards in uniform stood at the gate. The same kind of uniform Sal had seen at the facility where he'd severed the connection.
He stood at the edge of the trees, hidden, watching.
Men moved inside the fence. Young men, most of them, wearing the same grey clothes, doing the same slow circuits of the yard. They didn't talk to each other. They didn't look at each other. They just walked, like prisoners in an invisible cage.
One of them looked up.
Even from this distance, even in the grey clothes, even with the weight of whatever was happening pressing down on him, Sal recognized that face.
Miller.
He looked thinner than before. Paler. His eyes had the hollow look of someone who'd seen too much and slept too little. But he was alive. He was here.
And he was looking directly at the spot where Sal was hiding.
For a moment, their eyes met. Then Miller looked away, quick as a flash, and kept walking.
But in that moment, something passed between them. Not words. Not the old connection—that was gone. Something else. Recognition. Warning.
Go, Miller's eyes had said. Go before they see you.
Sal backed into the trees and disappeared.
He caught the evening train back to Philadelphia.
All the way home, he sat in the dark, staring at his reflection in the window, thinking about what he'd seen. A prison. A camp. Twenty-six men, locked away, cut off from the world, because they knew too much. Because they were connected. Because they were dangerous.
Reynolds hadn't freed them. He'd imprisoned them.
And Sal had helped him do it.
He walked through his front door at midnight, exhausted and hollow. Rosa was waiting, as always, with coffee and questions she didn't ask.
"Did you find what you were looking for?"
Sal sat down heavily. "I found Miller. He's in a camp. A prison. All of them are. Reynolds lied to me."
Rosa was quiet for a moment. Then she sat across from him and took his hands.
"What are you going to do?"
Sal thought about it. About Margaret Chen, waiting for letters that would never come. About Miller's hollow eyes, telling him to run. About twenty-six men who'd trusted him, and whom he'd failed.
"I'm going to get them out," he said.
Rosa nodded. "Then I'm coming with you."
Sal stared at her. "Rosa—"
"I'm coming with you." Her voice was calm, steady, the voice of a woman who'd made up her mind and wouldn't be moved. "You're not doing this alone. Those boys need someone on the outside. Someone who can ask questions, make phone calls, raise hell. That's me."
Sal looked at his wife—this woman who'd loved him for twenty-three years, who'd borne him a daughter, who'd nursed him through sickness and stood by him through everything. She was the strongest person he knew.
"Okay," he said. "Together."
Rosa squeezed his hands. "Together."
ns216.73.216.253da2
and then Add to home screen.