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In the lobby of the Museum of Flight, Jo bought tickets.

Yeah. With the cash bucket Pop had left her.

The plan was to take the self-guided tour through the museum, and then they would make their way to the archives.

Detective Sanders had secured them the required appointment in the archives.

As it turned out, having him along worked out to their advantage.

Due to the nature of their investigation, he was able to expedite the process and get them right in while retaining their firearms.

I guess he isn’t so bad after all.

They slowly made their way through the business and technology sections of the museum, which she found only mildly interesting. All she could think about was her ridiculous words.

“You’re absolutely all I need.”

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 to her 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. It was 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 of various 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.”

“Back in his office at the R&D ... he had a shelf with die-cast model cars. And ... a rocket. And ... an orbiter, I mean a space shuttle.” Her knees grew weak. “This is it. We’re onto something.”

He frowned.

She sagged. “You aren’t tracking with me, are you?”

“I mean ... you could be right, and I hope you are. It’s almost time for our appointment at the archives, so let’s head that way,” he said.

“Cole,” she said. “His repair shop was the R&D. What does that mean to you?”

He hitched a half grin. “Okay. I’ll give you that. R&D means research and development.”

“Exactly. Going through the museum like this helped just like I thought it would.” Jo was finally getting it. “It helped me to see things about Pop. Little things here and there. Now I can attach a deeper meaning to them, and they fit well into this aerospace backdrop.”

As she followed Cole to the archive entrance, she could hardly believe any of this. She teetered between feeling excited and betrayed. Cole gave their name to the woman at the reception area, and she reviewed the appointments on her computer screen.

Sanders sidled up to them. “I told you I would give you privacy in the archives. I’m going to stand guard. I’ll remain here at the entrance.” Sanders leaned closer to Cole. “I’m getting a feeling and one that I don’t much like.”

Cole shared a concerned look with him. “Okay. We’ll be in the archives room.”

Well, that wasn’t much comfort. Was she really in danger here? Then again, if coming here meant they were close to learning the truth someone did not want them to discover, then she was glad for Cole’s presence and the added protection from Detective Sanders.

Inside the archives, they met with the librarian, Cindy Jaynes, a woman in her fifties with auburn hair.

After Jo and Cole explained the era they were interested in researching, Cindy searched, then retrieved the microfiche.

She showed them how to use the machines and offered her assistance if they needed anything more.

“We’re working hard to get the files digitized, but it’s painstaking and time-consuming. We’ll get there one day.” She smiled. “Well, I’ll let you work. I’m helping other patrons today as well. Just find me if you need me.” Cindy left them to it.

Jo sat at one microfiche machine and reviewed the aerospace information from thirty years ago. She requested a span of five years on either side of the thirty-year mark. Jo took the first few years, and Cole took the last. This was going to be exhausting.

Skimming, skimming, skimming.

Skimming while not entirely sure what she was looking for besides anything that might lead her to her father’s work in aerospace.

Mason Hyde’s work, and he’d worked with Gemini.

That information could be in here as well.

They searched for photographs or any information regarding either of her parents. Names. Activities. Events.

It’ s a start.

And could take hours or days, for which they’d need to get special permission. At the possibility of learning the truth, she was gripped by both excitement and terror.

Who were you , really , Mom?

And who are you , Pop?

If only either of them had told her the truth. Her heart pounded, and she pressed her hand against her chest.

Just calm down.

She hadn’t found anything.

Yet.

Jo skimmed through the images of employees at an aerospace company called Resonant Solutions, responsible for rocket boosters, until her eyes grew tired and nearly crossed. An ache grew between her brows.

And ... there .

Finally. A black-and-white photograph of a man she recognized standing next to a desk, smiling for the camera. The image was part of an article on rocket engineering. What she’d been searching for.

Oh my ... “Cole.” Her whisper might have been too loud.

Cole rolled his chair back from the privacy booth next to her. She waved him over. The booths were spaced far enough apart to give privacy so that he had to roll in his chair over to her booth, then he peered closely.

“It’s him. It’s Pop,” she said. “Ransom Driscoll, just like Allison said.”

“If that’s his real name,” Cole said.

“Oh, come on, he didn’t have a reason to use an alias back then. Though, I mean, we don’t know his reason for using one now, even.”

“Right. He didn’t use an alias until something happened . Time to find out what that was. I’m just going to go back to my cubbyhole and search on his name.”

Now that she’d found her father, she could potentially find her mother too, and the unidentified woman in the picture with her. She held on to so much hope, but what if she came up empty?