Rick looked hurt again. “No one’s ever called me that.”
“You’ll get over it,” she said. “How did you guess it was me?”
“Like I said, it was a guess. But you were so passionate about the case. You talked on the boards like you really knew Celia.” He reached up and rubbed at his forehead. “I don’t know how else to say it, except I felt your pain through the computer. It was palpable. You cared about Celia. Not because she was missing, but because you really knew her. Does that make sense?”
It didn’t surprise Jenna that she’d revealed too much. She always did. “I guess it does,” she said. “Who told you about the grandparents and Indiana?”
“This other person is just someone else who is curious about the case. But she’s really encouraged me. I think she’s a she. She says the picture I have really shows Celia, living in northern Indiana.”
Despite her misgivings and her desire to see Rick as a harmless kook, she felt her hopes rising, building in her chest and making her hands shake. She felt anticipation she hadn’t felt in a long time, a swirl of rising emotion. “You have a picture? Of someone you believe is Celia?”
“I sure do. Right here on my iPad.”
Jenna pushed her muffin and coffee mug aside. “You have to show it to me, Rick. Now.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Rick reached down below the table and brought out his iPad. He started swiping the screen while Jenna’s heart rate increased, a steady thumping she imagined the other diners had to be able to hear above the clatter of dishes and murmur of conversation.
“It’s not the best set of photos,” he said. “It’s tough to take pictures of someone when they don’t know you’re taking them and they don’t want anyone to see them.” He continued to tap and swipe. “My theory is Celia wanted to get away for a while, and it made sense for her to go someplace familiar, someplace she went as a child. It would be like returning to a simpler time. We can all relate to that. See, maybe she left the earrings behind to make people think she’d been taken. One in one place and one in another. Like she was dragged away or something. I read in an article that they were her favorite earrings.”
“They’re a family heirloom.” Jenna reached across the table. “Can I just see it?”
“There’s a few of them. Swipe left to see them all.”
The first one showed a woman from behind. She appeared to be in line in a store. Maybe a hardware store, given the screwdrivers and socket sets in the background. She had brown hair, just like Celia’s, but unless Celia had gained some weight since she disappeared, it couldn’t be her. The woman in the photo was wider through the hips and butt than Celia had ever been. Or would ever let herself be.
Jenna swiped again. This time the woman was photographed at a gas pump, filling up her car. Her hair hung across her face, obscuring most of it. Same color, yes. But it could have been just about any middle-aged woman with brown hair. The clothes, functional and plain, didn’t look like anything Celia would ever wear.
She swiped to another one. The woman wore sunglasses and carried grocery bags. There was no way to tell who it was, and disappointment crept through the center of Jenna’s body. She felt like a deflated balloon.
“These don’t prove anything,” she said. “This could be anybody with brown hair. And Celia wouldn’t wear these clothes.”
“She would if she was hiding out,” Rick said, his voice full of triumphant pride.
“Did you talk to this woman? Did you approach her?”
“I called her name once. I shouted, ‘Celia!’ And she stopped and looked at me. And then she kept going.”
Jenna put the iPad down. She felt sorry for the old guy. Sorry for his enthusiasm and his loneliness and the disappointment he was about to feel when he understood he hadn’t solved anything or moved them any closer to finding Celia. She could tell he desperately wanted to do something important and relevant, to be one of the stars of the Dealey Society, but some blurry photos of a middle-aged woman going through her daily life and a half-baked theory about Celia escaping to a place she went to as a child wasn’t going to cut it.
“It’s not her, Rick.”
“How do you know?”
“She wouldn’t wear those clothes and you can’t see her face. And Celia’s body didn’t look like that.”
“Maybe she gained weight or something. To blend in.”
“She wouldn’t gain weight if her life depended on it,” Jenna said. She reached across the table, past the iPad and the mugs of coffee, and placed her hand on top of Rick’s. “I really appreciate you trying so hard. It does make me feel good that so many people care about finding Celia. It does. I’ve been on those message boards. I know how much people want to help. But I think you have a blind spot here. It’s not Celia.”