Then he steered away from the curb. “You okay?”
“I didn’t think that we could have brought the danger here. I mean, if someone was tearing through my apartment searching for something, maybe we shouldn’t have come.”
“We’ll let Detective Wilson know about our visit. In fact, I think we’ll just open the box while we’re there with him, in case we find a clue. Does that sound okay to you?” Cole still wasn’t sure what she hoped to find besides photo albums and memories, like she’d said.
“It could all be for nothing,” she said. “Anticlimactic. I’m starting to second-guess our trip here.”
Twenty-three minutes later, he parked.
Detective Wilson met them at the entrance, glanced inside the box for good measure, then guided them throughthe police headquarters to his office. Filing cabinets lined the walls. Cold cases? His desk was covered with documents and files. Probably just as many digital files stored away as well. He was just one lone investigator, but at least Mira’s case had been reactivated.
Jo sat down and put the box on the desk. “Thanks for letting us open this here, Detective Wilson—I mean Rick. I have a question. It just hit me, really, so I hope you don’t mind.” She glanced at Cole. “My mother’s death was considered an accident by your department. How is it suddenly a cold case when it was never a case to begin with?”
“Ah. Good question.” Rick adjusted his glasses. “Fortunately, that’s easy to answer. When a case is deemed an accident and then new information comes to light, it’s redesignated. Since this happened three years ago, it is now a reactivated cold case.” He scrunched his face. “I hope that doesn’t sound confusing.”
“No, it’s fine. It makes sense. Sort of,” Jo said.
Rick eyed the box she’d brought. “What’s in that?”
“I don’t know. It’s a box I left behind. My friend Becky Stobbe”—Jo’s voice cracked—“kept it for me. If you don’t mind, I’ll just look through this box before we get started.”
“Sure, I’ll grab some coffee and water.” Rick left them alone.
Jo hesitated, then pulled the top open to reveal knickknacks wrapped in newspaper. A small jewelry box. No, wait. It was a music box with a little ballerina.
Jo looked at it with love. “It plays the theme music from the movieAnastasia—‘Once Upon a December.’ I loved that movie. Mom got me the box. It’s hard for me to fathom that, even then, she was probably living in hiding under an alias.” Jo sagged. “I never knew my biological father growing up, and now, I guess I never really knew my mother either.”
“That’s not true, Jo,” Cole said. “Your mother iswhoshe is,no matter her name. No matter her job or where she lived. She loved you and built a life to support you and protect and nurture you. Look at you. You followed in her footsteps. If you think about it, everyone has a life ... a different life, even ... before they get married and have kids. You know? Just ask people who are into genealogy.”
She reached to the bottom of the box and pulled out two thick photo albums. His mom used to keep those physical photo albums too. Where were they now? Did Hawk have them stored somewhere? Did people still do that? He didn’t know. Jo held one of them against her chest, unshed tears in her eyes.
This had been a rough trip for her. Cole hated that.
“She was great at scrapbooking our life together,” Jo said. “Took lots of photographs of our vacations and every birthday.”
Finally, Jo started flipping through the pages to look at the photographs. “What am I doing? I can do this later.”
Jo had hoped to find something that had the potential to explain her mother’s death. While that was disappointing, he was relieved nothing else showed up to hurt Jo. She tried to force the photo album back into the box, and an envelope of more photos slid out.
Frowning, she snatched them up. “I haven’t seen these before.”
Rick returned, gripping a couple of mugs of coffee. Under his arm, he held two bottles of water.
“Let me help.” Cole grabbed the coffee mugs and set them on the desk.
Jo thumbed through the photos. “These are ... I don’t know where this is. They’re old. Before me.”
“What are we looking at?” Rick leaned against his desk and peered at the photos too.
“I found them in a box of my stuff from my apartment.I don’t remember ever seeing these before.” Jo gasped. “I don’t believe it.”
“What is it?” Cole asked.
Her hands shook. “Cole, this is it. This is what I was looking for. I didn’t know what I would find, but this has to be important.”
“Again, what are we looking at here?”
“It’s a photograph of Mom with Pop.” She peered closer.
