Page 113 of Secrets Hidden In The Glass

“And that’s the way we’ll keep it.” He gave her a squeeze of reassurance. “I can make some inquiries without your name ever coming up.”

“All right.” She played with the hem of his T-shirt. “If I want to find her…what are the odds that we will?”

He shook his head as he gave her a small shrug. “We’re going to do our absolute best, but that still might not be good enough.”

She looked down, loving and hating that Nate didn’t hold back the truth. “I want to help.” She met his gaze again. “I need to.”

“I can understand that.” He slid his hands up and down her thighs. “I guess this is probably a good time for me to tell you that Jillian pointed me in a possible direction today.”

Callie sat up straighter. “What is it?”

“She gave me an old VHS tape the public access channel put together from the 1995 Fourth of July celebration. Since I didn’t see anything in the pictures, I figure I’ll look through that tomorrow—”

She shook her head. “I want to help.”

He raised his brow. “With the video?”

She nodded. “Yes. Right now.”

“Callie.” He sighed. “I don’t have a VHS player here. The tape’s at the office. It’s bound to take a couple of hours to go through all of the footage.”

She glanced at the clock. “It’s barely seven.”

“You’ve been through hell.”

“Yes. I feel wrung out, but I refuse to feel powerless too. I’ve never had a choice when it’s come to any of this, but I do now.”

He exhaled another long breath. “How can I argue with that?”

She smiled. “You can’t.”

He captured her hands in his. “I want to protect you. My first instinct is to shield you from the worst of this.”

She gave his fingers a squeeze, appreciating the sentiment. “I’ve already been through the worst of it. Now I get to decide the rest—or as much as I can.” She leaned forward and kissed him. “But the best part is having you here with me.”

“Yeah.” He kissed her again, holding her in place with his hand on the back of her neck, drawing out their meeting of lips and taking her deeper. “What do you say we forget the tape and I make mad, crazy love to you instead?”

“Mmm,” she said as he went after her jaw. “That’s a tempting offer, but neither one of us is going to be able to rest until we see what’s on the tape.”

He drew away. “You may have a point there.”

She stood. “I’m going to put on my shoes and coat.”

He gained his feet. “I’m right behind you.”

~~~~

Nate sat next to Callie on the lumpy couch in his office, watching the Carter Island happenings from over twenty-two years ago. The video quality was less than ideal—grainy images and distracting lines running through each frame. Not exactly the crispness he’d been hoping for when he was used to his high-definition TV at home. But they had to start somewhere.

It was odd seeing the buildings and landscape so much the same when the people he’d known his entire life looked so different. Two decades had changed hair colors and styles, eyewear and dress. During those days he, Molly, and Brad had played cops and robbers while he dreamt of being a law enforcement officer just like his dad. Now he could say that he was.

He glanced at Callie as she sat stiff with her arms crossed tight at her chest. She hadn’t taken her eyes off the screen since he pressed Play on the old VHS player he’d dug out of Kay’s tidy supply closet. For most of the drive over, he’d regretted mentioning that Jillian had given him the damn tape. Callie’s cheeks were still blotchy and her eyes were puffy, even hours after she’d cried herself dry on the bluffs. He’d never heard someone sob the way she had—the deep, bottled-up pain had finally sprung free. He wanted her to let things sink in and steady out some, yet here they were, forging on.

He looked back at the screen as the sounds of the marching band filled the room. Whoever ran the camera panned the crowds lining the street.

Callie gasped, pointing as she stood, clearly catching sight of the woman in the red dress at the same time Nate did. “There. Right there.”

“Let’s back it up.” He used the remote to stop the tape and rewound, pressed Play, then Pause when they found the blond sitting on the curbside with a little girl standing between her legs, holding a balloon. He clenched his jaw as the annoying lines moved from the bottom to the top of the screen, making it impossible to get any sort of decent, detailed look, but Nate wrote down the running time posted in the upper right corner with hopes that someone with far better computer skills than he had would be able to help him clean up the images.