When her eyes landed on the photograph, her entire body jolted.
There was no time to cover it up. He saw it. No question. Megan slowly reached out and pulled the photograph closer.
“Do you recognize the picture?” he asked.
Buy time, she thought. Get control. “If you’re asking if I’ve seen this picture before, the answer is no.”
“But you recognize the location, right?”
Megan nodded slowly.
“Do you mind telling me from where?”
She swallowed. “This is the part of the park I told you about earlier. The iron-ore ruins.”
“Where you found Stewart Green bleeding?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
“Do you recognize the man in the photograph?”
There was a man with blond tips and a tight T-shirt in the upper-left-hand corner. Broome probably surmised that Megan had recognized the man and that was what had thrown her. “I really can’t see his face,” she said.
“No idea who it is?”
“No, none.”
“But this is definitely the spot where you last saw Stewart Green?”
She pretended to look again, even though there was no doubt. “Yes.”
Broome put both hands on the table, palms down. “Anything else you can tell me about the picture?”
The fact that Broome had a picture of that path in the Pine Barrens was surprising, yes, but not shocking or stunning. What had stunned her-what was making it hard to move or talk or function-wasn’t the locale or the man with the frosted tips.
It was the photograph itself.
“Where did you get this?” she asked.
“Why?”
She had to be careful here. She shrugged with as much nonchalance as she could muster and told yet another lie. “I was just wondering how you got a photograph of the exact spot I told you about.”
He studied her face. She tried to meet his eye.
“It was mailed to the precinct anonymously. In fact, someone went through quite a bit of trouble to make sure I didn’t know who sent it.”
Megan felt the tremor run straight down her spine. “Why?”
“I don’t know. You have a thought?”
She did. When Megan had first fallen for Ray Levine, she had known nothing of photography. But he taught her. He taught her about light and angle and aperture and composition and focus. He had taken her to his favorite spots to shoot. He constantly took photographs of the woman-her-he purportedly loved.
Over the years, Megan had Googled Ray’s name, hoping to see new photographs by him, but there was only the stuff from before they met, when he was still a big-time photojournalist. Nothing after. But she still remembered his work. She knew what he liked to do with a camera-angles, composition, lighting, aperture, whatever-and so now, even after all these years, there was very little doubt in her mind:
Ray Levine had taken this photograph.
“No,” Megan said to Broome. “No thought.”
Under his breath, she heard Broome say, “Oh, damn, not now.”
She turned, figuring to see Harry Sutton, but no, that wasn’t the case. Two men had just entered the diner. One had older cop written all over him-steel-wool gray hair, badge hanging from his belt, thumbs hitching up his pants as though the task was somehow grand and full of importance. The other man wore a ridiculously bright Hawaiian shirt. The top three buttons were opened, thereby displaying gold chains and medallions enmeshed in ample chest hair. He was probably mid-fifties, maybe older, and looked dazed and disoriented. The older cop grabbed a booth and slid in. Hawaiian Shirt shuffled behind him and collapsed into his seat like a marionette with his strings cut.
Broome kept his head low, near his coffee, clearly trying to hide. It was a no-go. Older Cop’s eyes narrowed. He rose and said something to Hawaiian Shirt. If Hawaiian heard, his face didn’t show it. He just sat there staring at the table as though it held some deep, dark secret.
Older Cop started toward them. Broome quickly put the photograph back into the folder, so his approaching comrade couldn’t see it.
“Broome,” Older said with a curt nod.
“Chief.”
There was a tension there. Goldberg let his eyes walk on over to Megan. “And who might this be?”
“This is Jane,” Broome said. “An old friend.”
“She doesn’t look old,” Goldberg said, leaning into her personal space and giving her the eye.
“What a charmer,” Megan said in pure monotone.
Goldberg didn’t like that. “You a cop?” he asked her.
Man, Megan thought, she really had changed over the years. “Just a friend.”
“Friend, right.” Goldberg smirked and turned back to Broome. “What are you doing here?”
“Having a cup of coffee with an old friend.”
“You see who I’m with?”
Broome nodded.
“What should I tell him?”
“We’re getting closer,” he said.
“Anything more specific?”
“Not right now.”
Goldberg frowned and turned away. When he left, Megan looked a question at him. Broome said, “The man with him is Del Flynn, Carlton’s father.”
Megan turned and looked at him. The father’s gold chain glistened off his exposed chest. His horrible Hawaiian shirt was so orange, so bright-almost in defiance of what he was going through-another facade, though in this case, a totally pointless one. Even a blind man could see the devastation. It consumed everything around Del Flynn. It made his shoulders slump. His face, badly in need of a shave, sagged. There was the dazed look, the thousand-yard stare.
It is every parent’s nightmare-what had happened to this man. Megan thought now of her own kids, her stupidly cavalier comment about hating that she lived for their smile, and then she looked back at Carlton Flynn’s father.
“Scary, right?” Broome said.
She said nothing.
“You see what I’m trying to do now?”
She still said nothing.
“Stewart Green had parents too,” he went on. “He had a wife and kids. Look at the guy over there. Now imagine his sleepless night. Imagine him waiting to find an answer. Imagine that agony stretching out for a few days. Then weeks. Then months and even years. Imagine that torment.”
“I got it,” Megan said with a snap. “You’re the master of the subtle, Broome.”
“Just trying to make you understand.” He signaled for the check. “Anything else you can tell me about that photograph?”
Ray, she thought, but there was no way she could tell him that. She shook her head. “No, nothing.”
“Anything else about anything?”
Broome looked at her hard. She had come here prepared to tell him something important. Now she wasn’t so sure if she should. Her head spun. She wanted it to settle, give herself a chance to think it through clearly.
Broome waited.
“A person who shall remain nameless,” Megan began, “maybe-and I stress the word maybe-saw Stewart Green recently.”
Now it was Broome’s turn to be stunned. “Are you serious?”
“No, I just made it up. Of course, I’m serious. But the source wasn’t sure. It could have just been a guy who looked like Stewart. It’s been seventeen years, remember?”
“And you won’t tell me the source’s name?”
“I won’t, no.”
Broome made a face. “You want me to show you that grieving father again?”
“Only if you want me to get up and leave right now.”
“Okay, okay.” He put his hands up in mock surrender. “When did your source see Stewart?”
“In the past few weeks.”
“Where?”
“In town.”
“Where in town?”
“La Creme. And it’s dark in there.” Megan opened her mouth and almost said the word she, but she held it back at the last moment. “The source said it was only for a second and it might not have even been him.”
“This source,” he said. “Is he or she reliable?”