“Right. It’s never good to get personally invested in your cases,” I say.
“Is the sarcasm directed toward Bianca?” he asks.
“I couldn’t help but notice she seemed a little friendlier toward you than the other parents. And she assumed you were familiar with her and her daughter’s lives. You know the little girl loves art,” I say. “How long have you been dating?”
“We’re not,” he says firmly.
“Does she know that?” I ask with sharpness on my tongue I’m not proud of.
“We did date. But it was a long time ago.”
“Is Gloria yours?” I ask.
“No. It wasn’t that long ago. Gloria was already five when we started dating. We were together for about a year.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing really. It just wasn’t working out. There wasn’t anything bad between us or anything. We just realized we were on different paths. We separated on good terms,” he shrugs.
“It definitely looked like it.”
“We were friends before we dated, and nothing happened to make it so we shouldn’t be friends now. It’s not like we get together and have coffee every week, but we also don’t hate each other just because we didn’t make it as a couple. Why does it matter to you, anyway?”
The question makes me shift uncomfortably in my seat, and I’m relieved to pull up in front of Vincent’s house.
“It doesn’t. I just like to be informed of all the details of any case I’m working on, and that includes the personal relationships between people involved. If you were romantically linked to her, it could cloud your judgement and distract you from being able to fully concentrate on searching for these children,” I say.
I start to get out of the car, but Sam touches my wrist to stop me.
“Emma,” he says.
I look at him for only a beat, then pull my hand away.
“He’s at the door waiting for us,” I tell him.
“It’s happened again,” Vincent says as we walk up the sidewalk toward him.
“What’s happened?” Sam asks.
He points down at the porch, and as we get closer, I see a manila envelope like the one the papers were in sitting leaned partially against the threshold.
“I worked from home this morning but was going to go into the office for a while this afternoon to go over some story details with the editor. Valerie is gone for the day, and Singer is rock climbing with a friend. The house got really quiet. But as I was leaving, I saw this out here.”
“Have you touched it?” Sam asks.
Vincent shakes his head adamantly. “I haven’t disturbed it at all. The second I saw it, I went back inside and called the station. I’ve been watching through the window since to make sure no one got near the porch or moved it.”
“So, you don’t know what’s inside?” I ask.
“No.”
Sam goes to the car and comes back wearing gloves. He picks up the envelope and slips it inside a bag.
“Thank you, Vincent. Stay available. We might need to talk to you again,” he says.
He nods, and we rush for the car. I hold the envelope in my lap as we drive back to the station. My fingers tingle wanting to open it and find out what’s inside. But I don’t want to compromise the evidence. The first envelope was opened, and everything emptied out of it before anyone figured out what it was and the importance it held. We can’t do the same for this one. We need to be precise and careful processing the envelope and whatever is inside at each stage so it can hopefully be used later to lead us to the person responsible and nail them to the wall.
“What do you think is in here?” I ask.
Sam shakes his head. “I don’t know, but we’re about to find out. Does it feel like more papers?”
I gently squeeze the envelope, not wanting to damage anything that might be inside.
“There’s something solid in there. Something more than just a stack of papers.”
My curiosity makes the time it takes to get to the station and photograph the envelope stretch on. Finally, it’s time to open it. Sam carefully slits the piece of tape sealing it and pinches together the metal clasp.
“The person who sent this likely used water, but I want the flap tested, anyway. People have done stupider things, and it would be worse for us to be the ones to miss that,” he says.
He gets the flap up and carefully tips the envelope over, positioning his hand at the opening to guide the contents onto the table. A small packet falls from the bottom of the envelope into his palm, and he sets it down, then peers into the envelope.
“Anything else?” I ask.
“No. That’s it,” he tells me.
The officer in the room with us photographs the packet from a few angles before Sam unfolds the paper and unfurls several layers until he’s holding a small black object in his hand. I reach over for the paper and look down at it.
“It looks like the crossword puzzle from a newspaper,” I observe. “But there’s nothing else, no articles or anything.”
“They must have wanted something in the envelope to protect this,” he muses, holding the object out to me.
“Is that a flash drive?” I ask.
He nods. “There’s no label or anything. Should we see what’s on it?”
“Do you have any computers that aren’t connected to the infrastructure of the department? Anything you don’t mind potentially not getting through this experience?”
“What do you mean?”
“A random flash drive sent in the wake of crimes like this could be more evidence. Or it could be a catastrophic virus that would destroy any computer it’s put into. It could also be a hacking program that would allow someone access to whatever computer it’s opened on. We need to see what’s on it, but we need to do it securely,” I tell him.
It takes even longer for us to find a computer that’s been wiped and separated from the rest of the computer system in the department. Sam inserts the end of the flash drive into the USB and looks at me with slightly raised eyebrows.
“Here we go,” he mutters.
He clicks on the icon that appears on the screen, and for a few seconds, nothing seems to happen. Then the screen lightens, and a faint strain of music starts playing. Images appear, but I’m not sure what they are. It takes several seconds for me to realize the camera is focused in tightly and sweeping across parts of a car. A bumper, the tire, a dashboard, a door handle.
“A car,” I say. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know,” Sam says. The music gets slightly louder. “What is that music?”
I shake my head. “I’m not sure.” The video ends, and Sam starts it again. On the third play-through, something strikes me as familiar. “Wait. Play that section again.” Sam goes back slight and replays the music. I hum along to it. “It sounds like the music played at an old movie. Let’s all go to the lobby…”
He listens to me try to sing the jingle along with the video and nods.
“That’s exactly what it is. So… the movie theater?”
“I don’t know. That’s too simple. It’s showing a car.”
“A drive-in?” he asks.
“Does Sherwood even have a drive-in?” I ask. “I don’t remember there being one.”
“It used to. Right outside town. It closed down a long time ago, but it’s still there,” he says.
“Let’s go,” I tell him.
“It might not be so easy,” he says. “It’s still there, but it’s not just an abandoned drive-in.”
“What is it?” I ask.
“A scrapyard.”
Chapter Twenty-Four