As he spoke, he found himself staring at one of the pictures he had taken of Nathan Lawrence in what he had assumed to be a business meeting with a well-dressed man and woman.
“What?” Katie asked.
“Am I crazy? Am I seeing that woman now in everything?”
“What woman?” Katie asked.
He passed the picture over. “Jennie,” he said.
Katie took the picture from and studied it before looking back at him.
“She has tight black curls there, and I swear she’s used stage makeup or something to change her nose. But, yes, Dan! This could be her.”
“What about the man?”
Katie studied the picture again.
“It could be Neil Browne. I’m doubting that’s his real name now and that he was ever a doctor of anything. He’d be twelve years older than when I saw him. And there’s something about the nose on him, too. This guy has short, short hair, and Browne wasn’t wearing it that way when I saw him. He had longish hair, with a slash of it over his forehead.” She paused to shake her head. “It could have been them. I just can’t say for certain.”
Dan drummed his fingers on the table.
He needed to call Wendy Lawrence. But she wouldn’t help him.
He needed to reach Nathan Lawrence or, rather, get Axel to do so.
He drew out his phone and quickly called Axel, explained what he had found, and asked that he set up a meeting with the man. Thankfully, since he’d been hired to spy on Lawrence, he had all the information Axel needed to reach him.
“I’m at the autopsy on Jennie right now. Haven’t learned much yet, other than Dr. Vincent believes the first blow that slammed into her head and through her face would have caused death instantly. The other hacking was done afterward. He estimates she was in her early to midthirties. That would have made her about twenty-one when she was in Florida. I’ll get someone on Nathan Lawrence before heading back in. We’ll get something set up for this afternoon.”
Dan thanked him and ended the call.
“We’ll find out,” he told Katie, glancing at his watch. “We’d better go.”
“Right,” she agreed.
Leaving the office, he asked Marleah to leave everything on his desk just as it was. Marleah frowned but didn’t question him. She just told Katie again what a pleasure it had been to meet her.
They arrived at Coffee Science with five minutes to spare, but Jeremy was already waiting for them at one of the tables in the restaurant.
“I got coffee for us,” he said. “And I put in a few orders of avocado toast. Sound okay?”
“Sounds great,” Dan said, waiting for Katie to take a chair and then sliding in next to her.
Jeremy grimaced, looking at him. “I know Katie loves avocado toast... You can order something else.”
“I’m fine,” he assured Jeremy.
Jeremy nodded and then thanked the server who brought their order over to the table.
Then he said, “I’m glad Katie’s being protected under the circumstances plaguing the city right now. She’s still my blood, and well, I’m confused. What kind of help do you think that I can give you?”
Dan shook his head. “We’re worried there is a connection between the here and now and the past. Can you tell us about the time that Lou came up here to work with you after the flooding?”
“It was awful,” Jeremy said. “Worse than you can imagine, even. And Lou was great.”
“Jeremy,” Katie said, reaching across the table to touch is hand. “We need something a little more specific than that. Did you two offend anyone, possibly make any enemies?”
“We saved lives,” Jeremy said flatly.
“I know that. I know! But, please tell us more. It’s important, Jeremy.”
Jeremy let out a breath and was silent for a minute.
“After the storm,” Jeremy said, shaking his head and taking a long sip of coffee, “Lou wasn’t here at first. You can’t imagine the night, the darkness, the screams...the sound of gunfire. Lou got up here as quick as he could. This place was still his home, you know? Anyway, we went out from the St. Claude Avenue Bridge... I have a bass boat. By then... God, it was awful. Ninth Ward, the water was up to the rooftops. There was a guy on one of the houses, and he was pointing out places where there were people. We weren’t the only ones out there, of course, but this one man...he’d tried to help others, and then we saw that he was desperately trying to get kids out of a tiny vent, and the water was still going higher. Lou, man... Lou was the kind of guy who had to do something, and he was a good diver, even when it came to a free dive. Lou jumped off the boat and went to the vent. He got it broken open, and there were three kids in there, and he got them out just before the water kept going up. You can’t imagine that night. It was hard to get around because of the treetops, wires, electric poles... Corpses. Bodies floating in the darkness. That was the worst. We kept going. I reckon we brought in about fifty survivors, including those kids.” He hesitated.
“Then, there was coming home... I had neighbors who had managed to get out before it hit. Cops were trying, trying hard. But there was nonstop looting, not that people cared all that much about things when lives were concerned.” Jeremy paused. “Some of us had radios. Radios were the best way to communicate as satellites were not working all that great. Anyway, one night, Lou came with me to try to find my friend, Max, down in the
