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He stewed for a moment. “Maybe.”
From what she’d observed, there were no maybes in Rory’s world. She wondered what that meant. Rubbing the back of her neck, she went to her walk-in closet—one of the few perks of the apartment—and turned on the overhead light. “There you are,” she said, reaching for her purse.
Rory appeared in the doorway. “Who?”
She held it up for him to see. “I have two of the exact same Binni bags in this design—one for special occasions, the other for every day. This one is the latter. See how it’s worn around the edges and there’s a pen mark inside right here?” He nodded as she pointed, but confusion knit his brows.Right, not important. “Anyway, since I was running late that night after Hannah’s session, I didn’t have time to transfer more than my wallet and phone into the special occasions version. That’s the one that was stolen, and this one…” She dug through the sunglasses, tissues, miscellaneous change, and other debris collected and never cleaned out. No USB.Hmm. She frowned, her pulse tripping over itself as she checked an interior pocket. Her fingers snagged on a tiny plastic case. Bingo. A grin lit her face as she held it up. The cover was in the shape of a cat head. Her friend loved felines. “This one has a USB from Hannah containing pictures of my father.”
Rory still looked confused. “Why did Hannah have pictures of your dad?”
“Long story and I didn’t remember her giving me this, thanks to my amnesia.” She handed it to him. “Sounds crazy, but could it be what the mugger was after?”
He took the tiny drive, eyeing it with calculation. “Who knew she gave this to you?”
Amelia shrugged. “No clue. Her mom. Kenesha, the gal who created it?”
“We need to look at the photos and I need to investigate your friend and her bodyguards in more depth.”
Amelia grimaced. “Hannah didn’t have anything to do with what happened.”
“Come on,” he said, “let’s get to SFI. On the way, you can tell me the long story about why she has these photos.”
SIXTEEN
Rory sat at his desk, scanning through the pictures. Lots of folks in dress clothes drinking too much and mostly smiling in posed shots. Each had at least one of the now-presidential family in it. They’d all been twenty years younger, dreams of the White House in the future.
The young Hannah wore a pink, ruffled dress and looked bored out of her mind in the few she appeared in. She was front and center in one with a group of kids lined up in rows around her. They each held a stuffed Bluebird except for Hannah and a blond-headed boy next to her.
He flipped to the next picture, recognizing several of those surrounding the president and his wife, including Frank Downey, the president’s current chief of staff. None of the then-governor’s security detail were familiar, though, and certainly weren’t the agents now assigned to Hannah.
He’d already put Moe on the job of gathering a thorough background report of each of her current ones, wanting to make sure none had ties to Amelia and her family.
“There,” she said, nearly jumping out of her seat. She pointed to the screen at the photo he’d paused on that showed Jacob Clemson and another man with their heads together at the back of the room. “Next to that pillar. That’s him! Oh my God,Daddy!”
She stroked a finger in the air over his face, then brought her fist to her mouth, a tiny sob escaping her lips.
Rory studied the man in profile as he enlarged the shot. Approximately five-ten or so with short black hair and a stiff stance, her father was dressed in a navy blue suit and was watching Clemson and his companion, his face unscrupulous.
“All of our photo albums went up in the fire,” Amelia said quietly. “Mom only had a few pictures of him on her phone. It’s so good to see him. Wonder why he was there?”
Rory zoomed out and refocused on the man speaking to the president. “Any chance you recognize this guy?”
She shook her head. “Should I?”
“Just checking. I don’t either.” He switched to the next and together they scanned it thoroughly. Amelia picked out her father again, and this time he was speaking to the unknown man. Rory checked the metadata on the picture—it had been taken after the man’s conversation with Clemson. “I’ll run his face through our databases and see if we can get an identity on him.”
Over the next few minutes they went through all the pictures, along with a video of Jacob Clemson speaking to the crowd, his wife, Lori smiling beside him.
In that, Amelia’s father bobbed in and out of view among the gathered spectators.What or who is he looking for?
He certainly wasn’t paying attention to the speech and appeared to be there alone, no sight of Amelia’s mother or anyone else Amelia recognized as friends or neighbors.
A tickling started between Rory’s shoulder blades. He wished he could put his finger on what was causing it. “Let’s go through these again, and this time I want you to focus on the other folks, not your father.”
“Who am I looking for?”
The tickling amped up. They were onto something, and it was big. “Possibly your attacker.”
“What?” She gave a chuckle as if he were joking, then sobered at his expression. “You’re kidding.” When he didn’t nod or confirm it, she became even more solemn. “Rory, I didn’t see my attacker the other night, so even if he is in one of these, how would I recognize him?”