Halfway through his search, he found the photograph. It looked as if it had been taken sometime during the sixties, because the little girl standing next to a 1967 Ford was not only dressed up in a Sunday blue dress but was also proudly hugging a Partridge Family album to her chest. The girl was very young and, in the sunny day, squinted up at the camera, which only made her look even more vulnerable than she would have naturally. The girl was Emma.
"Did you find something?" Denise called from the other room.
He had to clear his throat. Looking at the photograph had touched him in a way he hadn't wanted to be touched. Not by Emma. Not anymore.
"No," he said. "I'm still looking."
Over lunch Denise and Greg had speculated about what the man who'd broken in the previous night might have been looking for. Ultimately-because they had decided that the man probably had not found what he'd come for-they'd come over to Emma's and started looking for something that probably wasn't very mysterious at all… but something that was no doubt vital to the killer.
In a bureau drawer Greg had found the photograph, and he couldn't stop staring at it. In a way the photo put a curse on him. He had decided that he no longer loved Emma; that in her heart she'd seen him not as an individual or a man but as that abstraction known as a cripple. He had decided two days before to keep that in mind whenever he felt sentimental or sad about her. But staring at this photo… he wondered what she'd been like as a little girl. He wished he had a time machine and could go back to her on that sunny Sunday morning and talk to her. Help her, really.
If Greg had raised Emma, she certainly would have turned out to be a very different woman. Not hating herself; not lacking even the barest self-confidence. (She genuinely believed she was ugly and stupid; Emma-ugly and stupid!) He would have seen that she took her studies seriously, that she dated only the right kind of boys, that she went on to college… And then, of course, (in this time machine fantasy) she would have fallen in love with him. He would have offered her a wonderfully normal girlhood, and she would have returned the favour by seeing that no one loved her as well as Greg Wagner himself. And it would not have been pity, and it would not have been gratitude; it would have been pure love, an admixture of both the romantic and the more mature sorts of love, and they would have been bound up in this forever.
He had no idea that he was crying as he sat in the sachet-scented bedroom, slumped in one corner of his wheelchair.
But behind him, gently, Denise said, "You all right, Greg?" And when he looked up at her, he felt very foolish, of course, and unmanly, tears silver on his cheeks. "I'm fine."
She grinned. God, she did have a cute, impish grin. "Yeah, that's just how you sound, too. Fine."
He had to laugh. He was sad, but she got him laughing, and he silently thanked her for it.
She came over and stood next to him and looked at the photograph. "Is that Emma?"
"Yes."
"Boy, she was really pretty."
"She sure was."
"You'll always love her, won't you, Greg?"
He smiled up at her. "Actually I'm trying to not to."
"Really? How come?"
"Because she didn't love me."
"From what you said, I'll bet she did."
"Well, not in the way I wanted to be loved anyway."
"So, why should that stop you from loving her in the way you want to love her?"
"Because it makes me feel weak and foolish."
She leaned over and kissed him on the side of the head. "You know what it is?"
"Huh?"
"It's your pride. That's all." Then she tousled his hair. "You men. You're all alike." She snatched the photo from his hand and said, "Now, give this to me, and I'll go get it framed for you tomorrow. This is a great picture, and you should keep it someplace special in your duplex."
She thumped him on the shoulder. "And forget about your pride, Greg. You've got enough problems without that hanging over your head."
By then, of course, he was laughing and laughing hard. She was treating him just like a child… and somehow making him understand (without hurting his feelings) that he was behaving just like a child.
From the back pocket of her jeans she pulled out a manila envelope and held it up. "What's Brolan's partner's name?"
"Stu Foster. Why?"
"Well, he sure sent Emma a lot of letters. Or not letters, exactly. Envelopes. And-oh, yeah-and this tape that was inside this box of candy."
"What?" Wagner said. Already he was trying to reason through what Denise was telling him and imagining how interested Brolan would be in this piece of information. Why would Stu Foster send Emma envelopes? Why would Stu Foster even know Emma to begin with?
"Here," Denise said, handing him the envelope. "There's a whole pile of these in a kitchen drawer. You want to go see them?"
Wagner, sounding as if he'd just discovered gold, said, "Lead the way!"