Finley’s brown eyes - which were already nervous enough - are now blinking very hard and fast.

I get the impression that he’s trying not to let us know that he remembers what his dad told him about the tenants who stayed in the farmhouse. If that is what he’s doing, then he’s a terrible liar, just like me. He hasn’t even opened his mouth yet, but the truth is written all over his face, and the attempt to disguise it somehow only serves to make it more obvious.

He takes a breath, anxiously twisting his fingers together. “I don’t, um-”

“Yes, you do,” Aiden interrupts, in his firm, serious Foster voice.

His steady blue gaze is leveled on Finley's face. Finley blinks beneath it, faltering. He runs a hand over the back of his neck, adjusts the collar of his oversized suit. I'm starting to wonder if the suit once belonged to Hugh Finley Senior. Based on the picture from the website, it would fit him much better than it would his son.

“Look," Finley says, trying to sound determined. "I’d prefer not to talk about this.”

Aiden catches my eye, shakes his head.

“Now he has qualms about telling us something." He turns back to Finley, one eyebrow arched. "You admitted to a felony when we got here, and we didn’t even ask you to do that.”

“Yeah, about that,” I jump in, genuinely concerned. “As a lawyer, you should know not to ever confess anything to the police, right? Isn’t the best advice to just not say anything at all, and wait until there's a lawyer present?”

Finley stares at me, confused. “But there was a lawyer present. Me.”

“Well - yeah, but - they don’t mean, wait until a lawyer is present and then go ahead and confess everything, that’s not-”

“Okay,” Aiden cuts in firmly. “Finley. We need answers, and we know you have them.”

Finley looks at us with obvious distress.

“My dad made me swear up and down that I would never... He said that no one would believe it, that people would think he’d gone off the deep end. And that people would think I went off the deep end, too, if I told it like it was true. No one wants to hire a lawyer who they think has lost their mind.”

“What you say to us will remain confidential." Aiden shrugs his broad shoulders, crossing his arms. "And believe me, we hear wild stories all the time in our line of work."

Finley ponders that for a moment. Then he lets out a long exhale, and nods at us.

"Fine. Alright. One second, just let me find the..."

He opens the bottom drawer of his desk. We hear the soft shuffling of papers moving around. When he straightens up again, there's an old, printed photo in his hand. He slides it across the desk.

Aiden picks it up, and I lean in to take a look. It’s a shot of the farmhouse, from before it fell.

It’s so odd to see it upright, when we’ve only seen it before as a pile of rubble. It used to be beautiful. The mossy stone of the walls, textured by age.

“My dad,” Finley begins slowly, “Was just a kid when the farmhouse collapsed. But there are things he remembered about that time. His dad - my grandpa - had rented the place out and moved into a smaller house in town, to save money. My dad remembered that. He also remembered that my grandpa was the only person allowed to visit the property while it was rented out. The tenants specifically requested that. No other maintenance people, no gardeners, guests, whatever.”

Aiden and I stay silent, listening. So far this all lines up with the information in the coded letter.

“But,” Finley continues, “My grandpa broke the rules. Not, like, regularly, it was just one time. He’d noticed that there was a little boy living at the farmhouse. My grandpa felt sorry for him, I guess. There were never any other kids around, and he thought the kid might be lonely. So one day, when my grandpa had to do some maintenance, he brought my dad along to the farmhouse.”

A sharp glance passes between myself and Aiden.

“So - did your dad meet the boy living there?" Aiden asks.

"Mhm." Finley nods slowly. “He said that the boy was outside playing when they got there. He was shy, but he seemed excited to get to hang out with another kid. But the two guys renting the farmhouse came outside and got angry with my grandpa, sent him and my dad away.”

Finley hesitates before he speaks again. I have a feeling we're getting close to the part that he thinks we won't believe.

“The morning after the farmhouse collapsed, when my dad heard about what happened, he asked my grandpa if the boy living there was okay. And - my grandpa…”

He trails off, faltering, then just blurts it out.

“Dad said that my grandpa had completely forgotten about the kid at the farmhouse. He had no idea who my dad was talking about. And when my dad tried to describe the boy to my grandpa, he realized that he couldn’t do it. He couldn't remember anything about the kid, just - that there was a kid.”

Aiden and I both sit back in our seats. We look at each other, and I see my own confusion mirrored in his blue eyes.

Finley rubs his elbow, wincing.

“I know what it sounds like. But my dad was a very rational guy. He was a highly-respected lawyer, and his memory was phenomenal. He also didn’t believe in the paranormal - in anything that couldn’t be clearly explained to him, really. I just - always had trouble believing that he made that boy up, or imagined him.”

There's a silence while Aiden and I absorb this. I don't know what to make of it, and I can tell that Aiden doesn't, either.

“And the adult tenants?” Aiden asks, after a moment. “What happened to them?”

“They disappeared after the collapse," Finley explains. "But the police ruled the collapse as an accident, said that no one got hurt, and the renters had paid up in advance, so - grandpa didn’t bother to track them down. No reason to.”

Finley pauses, his eyes growing distant.

"Dad always wondered, though," he murmurs. "His whole life, he wondered."

I hesitate for a second, then slip my phone from my pocket. I pull up the photo that Floyd found, the one of the little boy walking with his Stasi father and their cluster of agents. I zoom in so that only the kid is visible, then turn my phone around and show it to Finley.

“Holy shit.” He blinks, then leans forward, his eyes widening. “Don’t tell me-?”

Aiden nods, once. “Your dad definitely didn’t imagine the kid."

“Wow.” Finley lets out a dazed laugh. "Oh, my god. I wish my dad was around to see this.”

His gaze suddenly lifts to look around at the quiet, empty law firm. Deep sadness flashes through his brown eyes.

“Glad he’s not around to see this, though,” he mumbles.

My heart twists. I steal a glance at Aiden, who gives me a warning look. It wouldn't be very agent-like to try and make Finley feel better about this. But my natural instinct is to do exactly that, and I'm having trouble stopping myself.

Finley seems to realize what he said. He swallows, tries to laugh it off.

“It’s okay,” he insists, in a brittle voice. “I - I’ll make it work. Do you guys know anyone in need of legal help, by the way? I think the first thing I need is probably a client.”

Oh, god. I honestly can’t help myself.

“Finley,” I say slowly, “I know you're trying to do what your dad wanted you to do. But - if you hate doing this, and it’s nothing but hard for you, you really don’t have to.”

Finley stares at me in frozen, wide-eyed silence.

“You tried,” I tell him. “You took the bar exam three times, and you did your best to run the firm. That’s all anyone can ask of you. You still honored your dad’s memory, because you tried. And he would want you to be happy, right?”

I guess Aiden can't help himself, either, because he adds - "He's right, Finley. It's okay to let it go."

There’s another heavy silence. Finley just stares at us, stares and stares.

Then he startles the hell out of me by letting out a sharp sob. He drops his arms onto the desk, and his face into his arms.

I twist to look at Aiden, but Finley starts talking before either of us can say anything.

“I’m sorry,” he stammers, speaking directly into the sleeves of his suit. “I’m so sorry, I - I just feel like I’ve been waiting and waiting for someone to say that to me...”

“It’s alright,” Aiden says, clearly alarmed. “You’re fine. Let it out, man.”

Finley lifts his head, sniffling.

“What do I do now, though?” he asks, looking at us with watery eyes.

I shrug at him. “What do you like to do?”

“I…” Finley suddenly looks a little abashed. “Tell you the truth, I like to make soap. I do that when I’m stressed out from being here.”

Aiden bites his lip. “Well, maybe you can sell your dad’s business, start your own. Sell some soap.”

“Yeah, I - I guess I could sell the building. Get some supplies.” Finley twists to look around at the office, then turns back to us, a bright smile slowly rising on his face. “How much soap do you think this place is worth?”

~~~~

“Okay,” Aiden says, when we step outside a few minutes later. “That was, um. Interesting. We definitely got some information for the case. Expected that. Didn’t expect to leave with a big hug from Hugh Finley, though.”

“Sweet of him to give us some soap,” I answer brightly, holding up the colorful little bar. “Did you smell it? It’s nice.”

Aiden huffs out a soft laugh. He starts to lift his hand to ruffle my hair, quickly drops it again. Fixes me with a covert, affectionate little smile instead.

“Even in agent mode, you can’t help but make a few friends, huh?” He shakes his head at me, leads the way down the porch steps. “Should’ve known.”

“Stop it! We got the information we needed, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, but I don’t understand it.” Aiden lets us out onto the sidewalk, his blue eyes lost in thought. “We need to talk to the ghosts, see what they think of this.”

I don’t answer him for a moment. My eyes have snagged on someone across the street.

She’s very beautiful, and dressed in a way that’s surprisingly stylish for someone coming out of a grocery store in Port Sitka. She's probably around the same age as my grandma, but she’s in really nice, sleek blue jeans, a flowing white button-up, and pale brown leather boots with a heel. She has golden earrings, a matching necklace, a few bangles. White hair in an elegant chop around her shoulders. Bright red lipstick.

It’s unusual to see a look like that on a woman her age, but that’s not why she caught my attention. It’s because I could have sworn that she had stopped still, staring at me and Aiden. I thought I felt her eyes roving over our matching suits, then over Finley’s building.

She’s not looking now, though. She’s walking away, carrying her brown paper bag of groceries, the wind moving through her white hair.

Maybe I imagined that she was staring at us. I don’t know. I turn back to Aiden, who’s been waiting for me to say something.

“What? Oh - yeah, the ghosts.” I wrap the soap back into its tissue paper, following Aiden towards the car. “I’m sure Kasey will have some theories. Assuming she’s awake yet, which remains to be seen. When she crashes from her hardcore brainpower mode, she’s usually down for a day or two.”

“Well, let's hope she's up," Aiden says, unlocking the car. "We definitely need her opinion. Will’s, too.”

“Yeah, because - honestly. What the fuck?” I let myself into the car, wait for Aiden to drop into the driver’s seat, and turn to look at him. "Can we go through what we know? Maybe that'll help."

"Yes, please."

“An important Stasi official has an affair," I begin, "Which results in him having a secret kid. But American intelligence finds out about that kid, and he becomes a high-value target. So he’s sent to hide out in Port Sitka. Jahn and Scholz go with him.”

“They’re supposed to keep him safe,” Aiden continues. “They keep him at Joseph Finley’s farmhouse, like they’re supposed to, and they follow the rules for a while. They don’t let him play with other kids, don’t let anyone but Finley on the property. But at some point, they get bored of the assignment, and they start slacking on the rules. Hiring a babysitter, stuff like that.”

“Which is bad," I jump in, "Because they'd already been tracked down, and American agents are closing in. But something happens to those agents, and for some reason, none of them make it away with the kid. Eventually, it's John Botswick's turn to try. And he's supposed to coordinate with another agent who’s already in place. Codename Rouge.”

“But Botswick is suspicious of her," Aiden says. "He thinks she’s hiding something. We know that he had an argument with someone in his hotel room. Probably Rouge, if I had to guess. Botswick said something about blowing the whole operation.”

“And somehow,” I murmur, “It all culminates in one night of chaos. First, John Botswick intentionally collapses the farmhouse.”

Aiden nods. “Second, people see strange green lights in the sky that can’t be explained.”

“Third, John Botswick is shot and killed in a struggle on the beach.”

“And the next morning,” Aiden continues, “The police instantly shut down the investigation at the farmhouse, announce that no one got hurt. Doesn’t even sound like they did any digging. Most likely a coverup, and they got their directions from way up the chain of law enforcement.”

“Yeah, I’m sure the CIA can do that with like, one phone call.”

“By that same morning, Scholz and Jahn have disappeared from the farmhouse,” Aiden says. “So has the kid. And people’s memories of the kid - they’re either gone, or reduced to next to nothing.”

“And no one from Port Sitka can remember John Botswick’s face, either.” I narrow my eyes, thinking as I speak. “They all remember their interactions with him, but not what he looked like. And his face was destroyed when he was killed. No way to sort out his real identity. So he becomes the local legend, the Faceless Man, and his murder goes unsolved.”

“Nobody knows what really happened to Jahn and Scholz, either,” Aiden says slowly. “We know that Scholz made it back to East Germany, but that’s it. And no one knows what happened to the kid.”

“And then, decades later,” I finish, “We start looking into the case, and Calla immediately shows up to stop us, saying she’s got someone to protect. Someone who could get in trouble because of all this.”

Aiden and I stare at each other, thinking hard. A light drizzle begins to speckle down on my car. The gentle tapping of it is the only sound for a few minutes.

“How does it all fit together?” I ask.

Aiden shakes his head, then starts my car. “I don’t know. We’ve got to talk to the ghosts.”

“Shouldn't we break into the old corner store, while we’re already in town? Floyd thought there might be evidence there.”

“No,” Aiden says firmly, flipping on the windshield wipers. “Can’t do that today.”

I blink at him, confused. “Why not?”

“Because, Keane. We’re looking at apartments soon, and I flat out refuse to be put in a situation where we have to reschedule with everyone because we got arrested.”

I let out a startled laugh, smack his arm. Aiden smiles at me, then pulls us out onto the road.

I look back at Port Sitka as we leave it behind us. The massive, towering trees, branches swaying in the light rainfall. The quiet little town, the waves breaking against the cliffs.

I sit back in my seat, wondering.