“Paris?” exclaimed Camille. “You’ve been to Paris?”
Now she was really impressed.
“Maybe you saw it in a book,” suggested Mary helpfully. Camille could tell by the tone in her mother’s voice that she doubted whether Art had ever been to Paris. Her mother had been there once on business.
“I remember the museum,” Art said. “It was sort of weird, like a house with lots and lots of paintings. And there was a park beside the museum. It was filled with all sorts of statues. We had lunch there—just some bread and cheese—on a bench. I think it was in the spring because there were flowers everywhere.”
Camille looked at her mother for confirmation.
Mary nodded. “The painting’s at a small museum in Paris that used to be a hunting lodge. It looks more like a house than a museum. And there’s a park directly in front of the museum filled with statues.”
“Wow,” said Camille as she turned back to the boy. “So do you remember when . . .” Camille paused in midthought. She had almost completely overlooked something Art had said. “You said ‘we’ had lunch in the park. Someone was with you, right?”
The boy continued to stare at the mug.
“I can’t see his face,” he said.
“His face,” Camille said. “Who?”
The boy shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t see his face. I can’t hear his voice.”
Camille could hear the anxiety in the boy’s words, and it worried her. She reached over and put her hands around the mug. The simple act seemed to break the spell. The boy looked away from the breakfast table. He seemed embarrassed.
“Sorry,” he said. “I just thought that . . . well, I thought that it might be something.”
“It is something,” said Camille.
“Camille’s right,” Mary said. “It’s a real memory—part of who you are. But there’s no need to push too hard. The memories will come in time.”
Dorchek Palmer turned on his computer and pulled up the files he had secured from the laptop. There were twenty-three records in total—emails, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, photographs, and numerous other dossiers that would typically be found on anyone’s computer. He had searched the laptop thoroughly, but there had been no sign of the spider.
Now Palmer was looking for something else in the files—something that might lead him to the spider.
Palmer clicked on the file labeled “Photos.” A hundred or so thumbnails popped up—small images of buildings and people. He arranged the photographs by date and clicked on one of the most recent images. It was a picture of the Washington Monument.
Typical tourist, Palmer thought.
He clicked over to the next photograph. It was a picture of a blond-haired boy standing next to a tall blond-haired man, in front of the historical landmark.
Palmer clicked on the information icon at the bottom of the photo. A small window popped up with the timestamp for the picture.
December 12. 3:53 p.m.
Palmer retrieved the morning paper from a side table.
Bingo.
With the photograph in edit mode, he carefully cropped it and then saved the file to his desktop. He then forwarded a copy of the photo to each member of his team. Palmer sat back and took a sip of coffee. With any luck, they would have the spider by this afternoon.