She’d been referring to protection, and she’d wanted to encourage him. But when the words came out, they seemed to mean something different. Something more. That Cole was all she needed—after God, of course. Hearing the words out loud, though, she felt the truth of them all the way toher bones. And she couldn’t take them back. Besides, he’d gotten a call from Detective Rick Wilson in Michigan and had put it on speaker, so she hadn’t been able to add to the words, even if she had wanted to.
As she took another step forward to the next section, she tried to focus on the exhibits and ignore her thoughts about her feelings for Cole. Detective Sanders had stayed behind as she and Cole inched their way around the displays. Sanders was on his cell. Maybe his uniformed presence would help deter any danger that could occur in a museum.
As for danger in the museum, given what they’d learned earlier today from Rick, nothing would surprise her.
She thought back to the call.
“I dug around like you asked and notified the investigator that we might have possibly identified the remains, except we didn’t have a name yet. I asked about the circumstances of the discovery.”
“And?” Cole had asked.
“Seems someone discovered it on their property, dropped it off in a plastic bag with a note that said they didn’t want any trouble.”
“What do you make of that?” Cole asked.
“The property owner didn’t want the law digging around on their property, but if it helped a missing person’s family find closure, then they were happy to help. We need to identify the person dropping it off, though, and this isn’t the way things are done. We absolutely need to look at the property to learn more about what happened. Could be that more bones are found.” Wilson had sounded beyond frustrated. “But none of that happened like it should have three years ago when the skull was left for Mira.”
“Any cameras to identify the person dropping it off?” Cole asked. “How deep did they look into it?”
“They did their duty, Cole, no need to question that. Itwas a dead end, no pun intended. The skull was sent to forensics, and Mira was the primary artist we used on facial reconstruction. Mira didn’t mention that she’d known the woman and had appeared in a photograph with her. I think the woman could be the same one in the reconstruction. But there’s the chance we got this wrong and it’s not her.”
“Jo, you all right?” Cole’s voice startled her, pulling her back to the moment, to the museum.
Sanders stood with them now, and both men stared at her.
“Did you remember something?” Sanders asked.
“Me? No.” Just lost in thought. “Let’s get busy.”
“I’m not sure why we need to walk through the museum,” Sanders said. “We could head straight for the archives.”
As they approached the next section, Jo knew why. “Context.”
“Context?” Sanders angled his head.
“Even as a forensic artist, context and perspective can make all the difference. We go into the archives with the right perspective about what was going on here during the time we’re going to search on.”
“Makes sense to me,” Cole said. “No need to waste time talking it over.”
Cole led them forward to the aerospace section, which included the history of flight and old airplanes, then they got to what Jo considered the relevant stuff. Space flight. The history of NASA. Her heart pounded as she studied the images on the wall, read the exhibit information, and even stood next to an Apollo mission model. She lost her ability to breathe for a few moments when they came to the exhibit of the space shuttle orbiter full-flight simulator, where astronauts had trained for their missions.
Could Pop really have been involved with this somehow? Or was she searching in the wrong place? Images ofvarious prominent figures took up an entire wall, none of whom she recognized.
“So, this next section is about rocket science. What else?” Cole asked.
“We need to find where my father worked,” Jo said. “And Mom, if she worked with him.”
“Hard to do without knowing the name of the company,” Cole said.
“I have a feeling we’ll find it today,” Jo said. They continued to walk through the exhibits. Jo started feeling overwhelmed. Pop the mechanic. Pop the bridge-fixer engineer.
Pop ... “Oh my.”
“What is it?” Cole asked.
“I’d forgotten. I don’t know if it means anything.”
“Just tell me.”
