The thing about flying in Alaska is that up here, you can pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist. At least, that's what I've been telling myself for the past five years. I'm underneath the Cessna 206 when I hear footsteps crunching across the frozen hangar floor. Not unusual—people need rides to remote cabins, supply drops, emergency evacuations. That's what I do now. Simple. Clean. No moral complexity beyond "can I land on that ice" or "is this weather flyable." "Be right with you," I call out, tightening the oil filter. My hands are black with grease, my breath forming clouds in the February cold. "Jesus Christ. You're alive." I freeze. That voice. I know that voice. I slide out from under the plane and look up at Detective Marcus Chen, who worked under my father at the Seattle PD. He looks older, grayer, like he's aged a decade in five years. His eyes are wide, scanning me like I'm a ghost. "Marcus." My voice sounds strange. I haven't said that name—haven't said any name from before—in so long. "We thought—" He stops, runs a hand over his face. "Your father's been looking for you. Everywhere. He hired private investigators, called in every favor. We all thought maybe you were..." He trails off. Dead. He thought I was dead. "What are you doing here?" I stand slowly, wiping my hands on my coveralls. My heart is hammering against my ribs. This shouldn't be happening. The Marshals promised. New identity. New life. Safe. "Your father's been acquitted on appeal," Marcus says, and the words hit me like a punch. "Technical error in how evidence was submitted. The whole case got thrown out six months ago." The courtroom flashes through my mind. My father in his dress uniform, medals gleaming. Me on the witness stand, my voice shaking as I detailed the bribes, the evidence tampering, the three suspects who walked because he buried reports. His face when they led him away in handcuffs. The words he mouthed: *You're dead to me.* "I don't care," I say, but my hands are shaking. "He's dying, Sarah. Pancreatic cancer. Stage four. He has maybe three months." Sarah. That's not my name anymore. Hasn't been for five years. "He says he forgives you." I laugh, and it sounds bitter even to my own ears. "He forgives me? I destroyed my entire life to do the right thing. Mom took that blood money settlement and drank herself to death within a year. I lost everything. And he forgives me?" "He's outside," Marcus says quietly. The world tilts. "What?" "He wouldn't wait. He's been searching for five years. When I finally tracked you down last week, he insisted on coming." My pulse is roaring in my ears. "You led him here? Do you know what witness protection means?" "You're not in danger from him—" "You don't get to decide that!" The hangar door opens, letting in a blast of arctic air and blinding white light. A figure stands silhouetted against the snow. As my eyes adjust, I see him. He's smaller than I remember. Thinner. He's wearing civilian clothes—jeans, a heavy parka—and it's wrong. I've never seen my father in anything but a uniform or a suit. His face is gaunt, skin hanging loose where muscle used to be. But his eyes. Those are the same eyes that watched me testify. The same eyes that looked through me like I didn't exist when they led him away. Now they're filled with something I can't read. "Hello, sweetheart," he says, and his voice cracks on the last word. I can't breathe. Can't think. Can't do anything but stare at the man who raised me, who taught me to ride a bike and shoot straight and believe in justice—the man whose corruption I exposed, whose life I destroyed. The man who spent five years trying to find me.