He turned toward a bookshelf, filled with books, but also packed with framed family photos on top. He picked up the photo of a man in FDNY gear, standing in front of a fire truck with a little girl by his side. "This must be you and your dad," he said as she handed him a beer bottle. "You have his eyes and the same determined jaw."
"That's him," she said. "I was six. The photo was taken a few months before he died. The last one I have of us together."
"Sorry again. I didn't mean to make you sad." He could see the sudden gleam of pain in her eyes, and he didn't like that he'd put it there.
"You didn't. It's just been a long day, and explosions give me a little PTSD."
"You're in the wrong business, Kara."
"That's what my mother says. She doesn't understand why I couldn't be a teacher like her, or a doctor like my brother, or a fashion designer like my cousin Sylvie, really anything else but law enforcement or the fire department."
"But you had other ideas."
"I think growing up in the shadow of that horrible attack made me want to protect my family, my city, even my country. It was a thought that took hold when I was really young. It never let go of me. And it's not always explosions and fire. In fact, it's mostly a lot of other stuff."
"But not lately."
"Not lately," she agreed.
He looked back at the next photo, which was a family picture of her mom, dad, and brother around the same time period. The next one was at her high school graduation with her mother and brother. And then there were family photos of all the aunts and uncles and cousins. He felt an odd sense of yearning for that kind of big family experience, but his very small family had gotten even smaller after his mother died, and now there was just him and his dad, and they barely saw each other. "I love these photos. Everyone is so happy."
"We have a good time together. So, tell me what you found out. I could really use some good news now that the license plate had led us to another dead end."
He wasn't entirely surprised. "I had a feeling the car wasn't going to lead us to Cal. He has probably already dumped it and moved on to another vehicle. What did you do after I left?"
"I went to the hospital and talked to Whitney Holden again. Her boss, James Cooper, passed away at the hospital, and she was distraught. She didn't want to talk to me again and bailed as fast as she could. I'll follow up with her tomorrow, and I'll talk to her coworkers, see what else I can find out." She took a sip of her beer. "There are a lot of little threads that could lead somewhere or nowhere. It's possible Whitney is just reacting from shock and fear of almost being blown up, or she knew to get out of that building early. Tell me what Dominic said."
"Dominic doesn't own Wexler Properties or that building, but he is friends with Martin Wexler, and he has worked with James Cooper on multiple occasions. In fact, James has been the inspector on several of Dominic's projects in the city in the last five years. He's definitely a link between Samantha and James, but I don't see why anyone would blow up two buildings to get to those two in order to get to him."
"I don't either," she said, disappointment running across her face. "It doesn't make sense. We're missing something." She stood up and paced back and forth in front of the window. "And Dominic is a common denominator, but how does he really play into this?" She paused, and he could see the new idea jumping into her gaze.
"He's not responsible for the bombings," he said.
"He could be. Maybe Samantha wasn't just his girlfriend; she was investigating him, and he needed to take her out, but not in a way that would make him a suspect."
"That's too far out there."
"And what if James Cooper was a thorn in his side? What if they weren't friendly? What if Cooper was standing in Dominic's way of getting a building approved? Maybe he was also an enemy to Dominic's ambition."
"You're painting a picture, but I don't think it's the right picture."
"You don't know that it's wrong," she argued.
"I know you want all this to make sense. But think about what we've seen. If Dominic wanted to take these two people out, is this how he would do it? He can afford to buy whatever he wants, and I've seen no evidence of him being violent or choosing a violent means to an end. I'm not saying he's never crossed a line. But he uses money, not bombs, to get what he wants."
"Money could buy a bomb maker."
"Too public," he said. "Not Dominic's style."
She sat back down. "Are you basing that on now, or on the guy you first met in school?"
"Perhaps both."
"What was Dominic like when he was a teenager?"
"He was as confident and arrogant as he is now, but he was also fun, friendly, someone who had a lot of big ideas and carried many people in his wake. Because being around him felt like being part of something really cool."
She gave him an interested look. "So, you wanted to be cool back then?"
