Setting the pen down, she shut her eyes to squeeze back tears.
I’m still breathing, Dad.
Kozak slid the papers into the envelope, closed it, and set it aside to return to her lawyer. She touched her fingertips to the corners of her eyes then resumed working on her tablet and the Griffin case.
She scrutinized the key facts: Jennifer Griffin had bruises, her husband had scrapes, there was stress in the home, Jennifer appeared to be dejected, there was a hoodie figure in the Korner Fast video... Kozak came back to the fact that whatever unfolded had happened between the store and Blueripple Woods.
Kozak tapped her pen to her chin then went to her emails, messages, and folders, looking for updates, finding nothing new.
Damn, we need the data from the family’s phones and computers. There have to be answers there.
Kozak knew it took time to extract digital material, but she knew this case was solvable.
She began looking deeper into Jennifer Griffin’s early life. She was the sole survivor of a house fire that killed her parents. Orphaned when she was eight years old, raised by her grandmother.
Could her tragic past have any relevance to the case?
Kozak let out a breath and cautioned herself about getting distracted with aspects that were likely unrelated. Her job was to collect irrefutable evidence and follow it to the truth.
Aiden was sixteen and the elder of Kozak’s two sons. He approached her desk, phone in hand. Kozak kept her eyes on her work and said: “Yes?”
“Mom, can I go with Tanner and his family to their cabin in the Finger Lakes next weekend?”
“Where?”
“Seneca.”
“You’ve got a major paper on Mark Twain that’s due.”
“It’s done.”
She turned to him.
“Let me see it.”
“It’s almost done. I’ll have it done in a couple days.”
“You get it done, and done well, then I’ll talk to Tanner’s folks.”
“I will. Thanks, Mom.” Aiden turned.
“Hold it. I don’t hear the washing machine. You guys are falling down on your chores.”
“It’s Chase’s turn.”
“I don’t care. You two sort it out and if I don’t hear the machine going, you’re both grounded.”
“But Mom, it’s not my turn!”
“End of discussion.”
Aiden glared at her, stomping away but not before she heard him mutter: “This is bullshit.” His intonation matched his father’s voice and unleashed in her a whirlwind of pained fury.
“Get back here right now.”
Aiden returned.
“What did you say?”
Face reddening, he lowered his head.
“Don’t you ever talk to me like that.”
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
Watching him, loving him, Kozak held on, harnessed and holstered her misdirected anger.
“Now—” her voice softened “—go and do what I told you to do.”
Aiden nodded, turned, and left.
Staring at nothing, she collected her thoughts to get back to the case when her tablet pinged and her phone vibrated.
She answered the call.
“Claire, it’s Ned. See what Resnick just sent us from BPD?”
She had just received the file and opened it to four photos, taken in a bar from a distance. The first photo showed Greg Griffin with several people, seated in a raised section, close together at a table that was covered with bottles, pizza, and nacho trays. In the second, the woman sitting next to Greg had her hand on his shoulder and was smiling at him. In the third, she had leaned into him and was speaking into his ear. In the fourth, she was smiling at him while, although the photo showed a forest of legs, it was clear that under the table, the woman’s hand was on Greg Griffin’s inner thigh, nearly on his crotch.
And he was smiling back at her.
Kozak was gauging the significance of the information.
“What do we know about these pictures, Ned? Who sent them and why?”
“The source is anonymous. But enlarge them and look at the big TV screens behind them at the sports scores and the games. One is a Mets-Toronto game with the score in the seventh inning. I watched that one. These were taken the night she disappeared. We need to find out who the girl pawing Griffin is.”
Kozak went to her notes where Greg provided the names of people with him at the bar in Depew. They hadn’t interviewed any of them yet. She went to the website and other social media pages for Solid and Strong Contracting, finding photos of the contracting crew. She studied them, then the bar pictures.
Bingo.
“Looking at Griffin’s company online, the guy on the other side of Greg looks like Al Clayton, Griffin’s crew leader.”
“What do you think, Claire?”
“First, we need forensics to authenticate the photos, make sure they’re real.”
“And if they are?”
“We’ll have a new lead. We’ll need the bar’s security cameras.”
“Did you see the note that accompanied the pictures?” Carillo asked.
Kozak went back to the anonymous note that accompanied the tip.
It said: “GREG GRIFFIN BEFORE HIS WIFE DISAPPEARED.”
As Kozak continued examining the new evidence, she blinked with satisfaction when she heard the start of the washing machine.
Thirty-Two
Buffalo, New York, Trailside Grove
Images and events of the past few days burned through Greg.
Searching alone in the night for Jenn, seeing her Corolla in the woods, the fear in Jake’s face, Vince’s and Kat’s heartbreak and concern, the detectives’ accusatory questions, the helicopters, the dogs, the press calls, the TV reports, all the volunteers, the massive effort to find her...
And still not a trace.
Where are you?
Greg was at the kitchen table on his new laptop, looking at Jenn in the pictures her work friends from Crystallo View Optical had posted online. They and the school had established the funding site offering a reward that now stood at $16,000 for information on her disappearance.
Please, let me find you alive!
Greg was lost in his anguish.
Vince was in the basement with Jake, tinkering with the drone. Kat was at the counter, her back to him as she said: “This sounds terrible, I know, but it’s kind of like the old days, just the three of us again. And Jake, of course, you know?”