Flipping through the images faster now, I find a picture of that corner of the floor. "Look. This, right here. My mother said it was a sign. It must have been made just for me." I let out a breath. "I haven't thought about that in so long. I can't believe I remember it."
Sam has reached back into the box for more pictures, and he pauses now, staring at the one in his hands.
“Do you remember this?” he asks, holding one of the pictures out to me.
My breath catches in my throat when I look at it. It's another image of my mother, but this time, she's not alone. Lowered down to her knees on the floor, she has her arm wrapped around my waist, holding me close. I'm very young, barely more than a toddler. Our heads are leaned together as we smile at whoever is taking the picture. I assume my father.
"No," I let out, somewhere between a breath and a whisper. "Sam, look."
My fingertips run across the glossy surface of the picture, brushing over the small section I want him to see. Chains hanging around our necks. Matching pendants resting side by side.
"The necklaces," he says.
I nod. "They were ours. One for my mother, one for me. How did one end up sent to me for my birthday, and one end up under a dead man?"
My phone suddenly ringing startles me. The image gallery Sam consulted disappears, replaced by Eric's name. I answer the call and hold the phone between my ear and shoulder, so I can continue to look through the pictures.
“You have amazing timing,” I start. “There's something else I need you to look into for me. I went into the storage unit to look through the stuff left in the house, and I found pictures. Dozens and dozens of pictures, and a lot of them are from the house in Iowa. One of them is of me and my mother wearing…”
“Emma,” he cuts me off. “I'm not calling about that.”
“What?” I ask. Sam tilts his head to the side to give me a questioning look. "It's Eric," I mouth.
"Something wrong?" he whispers, and I shrug.
"I'm not calling about the stuff you asked me to look into," Eric clarifies.
"Alright. What's going on?"' I ask. "Is everything alright?"
"I'm heading up the team investigating the bombing of the bus station in Richmond," Eric continues.
"I heard about that," I tell him, remembering the brutal news footage. "It's horrible. I didn't realize they called in the Bureau to investigate."
"It's not public knowledge. As you can probably guess, we're not exactly interested in triggering copycats," he sighs.
"If it's not public knowledge, why are you telling me? Is Creagan calling me back from my leave?"
Sam's chin raises slightly, and his shoulders square off subtly. I try not to look directly at him. This is something we'll talk about later. Not right now. The tone in Eric's voice is too strained, too wary for me to dismiss.
"Not exactly. But I do need to show you something," Eric says.
"Alright."
"I've been watching all the surveillance footage from the bombing. Several of the cameras were damaged, and it took some work to get the footage from the others. While I was watching it, I think I saw something. I need you to see it."
"What is it?" I ask.
"I want you to tell me," he says. "I can only send you a small piece through email. This is all that Creagan would approve to be sent. Watch it and tell me if you notice anything."
"Sure," I say.
He ends the call, and a few seconds later, my phone alerts me to a new email. There's no subject line, no message in the body. It's only an attachment with the video clip. I open it and watch through several seconds of uneventful bus station footage. People shuffle around, carrying luggage, rushing for the gates. Hugging their loved ones. My eyes scan over the screen, trying to find what Eric wants me to see. When I do, it hits me so hard I have to lean back against the storage unit wall to hold myself up.
"Emma? What's wrong?" Sam asks.
"It's Greg."
Chapter Twenty
“What do you mean, it's Greg?” Sam asks.
“Greg. My ex-boyfriend,” I explain.
“The one who's missing?”
“Well, apparently he's not missing now. Or, at least he wasn't the day the bus station was bombed.” I scan back to the beginning of the clip, and Sam steps up beside me to watch. When Greg comes into the shot, I point him out. "Right there."
“Are you sure that's him?” he asks.
“Absolutely,” I confirm.
"What is he doing?"
I scramble into action, setting the pictures back into the box and setting the lid on top before sweeping it up onto my hip so I can carry it to the car.
"I don't know, but I need to get home. I need to talk to Eric about this."
"What do you need to talk to him about?" Sam asks.
I stuff the tote into the trunk and slam it closed, looking at him over the top of the car.
"There was a bombing. People died. More are just barely hanging onto life. And a person who hasn't been seen or heard from in two years just walks through the place. What don't you understand about that?" I ask.
I get into the car, and Sam gets behind the wheel, cranking the engine as I watch the video clip again. It's short, less than a minute long. But I watch it over and over. There has to be something else in it. By the time we get back to my house, I've watched the clip so many times I could recreate it by memory. I know the clothes the people around him are wearing. I know the movements they make as he walks through the station. What I don't know is why Greg is there and what he's doing.
Eric answers on the first ring.
"What is he doing there?" I ask.
"You saw him, too," he says.
"Of course I did. What in the hell is Greg doing at that bus station?" I ask.
"We don't know. Piecing together everything that happened that day hasn't been easy."
“Is this the only piece of footage he is in?” I ask.
“No, there's more. He showed up on a couple of the different cameras.”
“Can I see more of it?”
“I can't send any more footage over email. That's the only portion Creagan approved. When I pointed Greg out to him, he wanted to make sure. He wanted you to see it and know how you reacted.”
“What's that supposed to mean? Does he think I've known where Greg is all this time? That I know why he was at that bus station before it exploded?” I ask defensively.
“He's not accusing you of anything. He's just trying to make sense of all this.”
“Then why won't you let me see the rest of the footage?”
“Like I said, we're trying to keep a tight lid on the investigation. Tensions in Richmond are already high because of Jake's case. People are showing up wanting to meet him, leaving flowers on the sidewalk in front of the jail. A couple of times, they've swarmed the jail during meeting hours.”
I cringe.
“Serial killer groupies are disgusting,” I comment. “I will never understand that compulsion.”
"Well, it might make you feel better to know not all the people showing up want to shack up with him. Our contacts there say there've been quite a few wanting to drag him out into the middle of the street for frontier justice," Eric offers.
"At least that's a more logical reaction," I say.
"The thing is, with all that already happening, the bombing only brought more attention to the city. And you know as well as I do that when there's attention…"
"It brings the psychopaths," I complete his sentence.
"And that's the last thing we want to do right now. Creagan is tightly controlling all the footage and any information we're gathering. Some of the footage has images of confirmed-dead victims, and that's catnip to some of these news outlets. Everything has to be kept close to the vest. But he's offered you clearance."