Second Chances(41)

"What happened," his voice coming now from the computer's speakers.

Linda sighed, dropped the phone onto the desk and sat down in front of the computer.

"I don't know. Like I said before, that guy seemed to be pushing really hard."

"Yes, hold on a moment. Jimmy has sent me the photo. Jimmy are you there?"

A second small box popped up on the computer screen and Jimmy Hanson, computer geek extraordinaire, appeared.

"Here boss. You get the picture?"

She could see Kassar was looking at a sheet of paper.

"Yeah, just printed it. I don't know. He looks kind of familiar to me. What do we know about him?"

"Nothing yet," Jimmy replied. "Since we don't have a last name or a set of prints to work with, this could take a while. I'm trying to run facial recognition, but for some reason I am getting denied access to our main systems. Must be some kind of glitch or something. However, until access is restored, I'm having to piggyback on outside systems which means this could take forever, unless we get a lucky hit."

"And we've been so lucky so far," Kassar sneered. "So what happened?"

"Like I said, I came back and they were gone."

"What about before you left them?"

"I already told you."

"Tell me again."

Jimmy remained quiet, he could hear the irritation in Kassar's voice and knew better than to get in the line of fire.

"I met them. The guy was a jerk, kept questioning me about Paige, about school. He didn't shut up until I showed him that picture I..."

"The picture. Do you have it?"

"No, they took it."

"Do you have a copy?"

"Sure, on the computer."

"Send it to Jimmy."

"Jimmy ran a bunch of us over the photo program a while back. I am telling you it was good."

"Send it to him."

Linda nervously tapped away at the keyboard.

"I did everything he taught us. I applied the correct filters to make it appear older, even used old picture stock to print it out on, then roughed it up physically to give it a worn look."

Kassar waved a dismissive hand.

"Jimmy do you have it?"

"Opening it now boss."

Linda wanted to say more, but the truth was she was afraid to. She was near babbling as it was and she really needed to go to the bathroom.

She could see that Jimmy's eyes were looking at something and assumed it was the image she had just sent him. He was nodding. She started to feel a little relieved. His nodding stopped and he looked at her through the computer. "It's a decent start, but this wasn't your final draft was it? Tell me this isn't what you printed out."

Linda felt the warm wetness spreading in her lap even as a chill ran down her spine and her eye resumed twitching.





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE



"Her shadow?"

Paige stared down at the picture. At first her eyes refused to see what he was saying. She looked at her and Linda standing in front of the library. She was wearing a long dark blue skirt with an off white blouse. A smile spread over her face. She could almost feel the gentle cool breeze. It had been late September, the leaves were changing. Days were still warm, but when the sun went down the temperatures tended to drop quickly. She had forgotten her sweater, but knew Daniel would lend her his jacket. They had been going to the library to study, just Daniel and her. Just Daniel and her?

"Daniel took this photo," she whispered.

"Paige?" Nathan looked at her. Even though she was looking at the picture, he could tell that she was actually staring off into the past. He reached out and touched her shoulder.

She blinked and looked questioningly at him.

"What? Oh sorry. What...what was I saying?"

"Nothing, look at the photo. Look at the shadows."

She returned her attention to the picture and saw it immediately. It had been late in the day and her shadow stretched off to her left, as did the shadow of the tree in the background. No shadow was being cast by Linda.

"How the heck?"

"It's fake," Nathan said quickly.

"Fake?"

"Yes, she wasn't there."

"I went to school with her, Nathan. I know Linda."

"Maybe, maybe not. But that photo never happened."

"Why would she fake a photo? We went to school together for three and a half years. Why would she need to fake a picture?"

"Good question, but only one of many we need to find answers for."

He flicked his eyes to the front of the cab, trying to judge how much to say. The woman did not appear to be listening to their conversation and he could hear the radio playing and her singing along, but he worried they had already said too much.

They lapsed into silence. Paige was back to staring at the photo. He couldn't tell if she was wondering about why Linda had faked it or if she had slipped into the past and was once more remembering her time at school. He decided he wouldn't press anything right now. He wanted to wait until they were alone again.