Chapter 2: The Photograph on the Desk
The lab felt different in the dull gray light of morning. The nighttime silence had been replaced by the low murmur of the day shift prepping their stations, the clatter of keyboards, the smell of fresh coffee that did nothing to cut through the lingering scent of ozone and old dust. Stella hadn’t gone home. She sat at her cubicle, surrounded by a fortress of empty paper cups and printouts, her eyes fixed on her monitor.
On the screen was a face.
She’d used the only recent photo Mac had—a school portrait from second grade, Emily’s smile missing two front teeth, hair in pigtails. She’d fed it into the aging software, adjusting parameters for twenty years of growth, of life. What came out wasn’t a photograph. It was a ghost rendered in pixels. A woman in her late twenties. The eyes were unmistakably Mac’s—sharp, intelligent, a pale, clear blue. The bone structure was Claire’s, the elegant line of the jaw, the set of the mouth. But the expression was a stranger’s. The software couldn’t guess at that.
Stella rubbed her temples. It was a shot in the dark. An impossible Hail Mary. But Mac was out there walking in the rain, and she needed to do something besides watch a DNA sequence blink.
“Bonasera. You look like hell.”
Don Flack’s voice was a welcome, normal sound. He sidled into her cubicle, looking crisp in a dark jacket over a button-down, a steaming Styrofoam cup in each hand. He offered her one. “Heard you pulled an all-nighter on that B and E from 83rd. Since when do we burn midnight oil on a petty theft?”
She took the coffee, the heat searing her tired fingers. “It got complicated.”
“Everything’s complicated with you guys.” He grinned, leaning a hip against her desk, scanning the chaotic mess. His eyes flicked over the monitor, over the reconstructed face. He took a sip of his coffee. Then he froze.
His body went perfectly still. The easy slouch vanished, replaced by a wire-tight rigidity. His eyes, previously playful, locked onto the screen with an intensity that was almost violent.
“What is that?” he asked. His voice had lost all its cadence, gone flat and dead.
“An age progression,” Stella said, watching him carefully. “From an old photo. It’s a long story.”
“Of who?” The question was a demand.
Stella hesitated. This was Mac’s. This was a raw, private wound being ripped open. But Flack was family, too. And his reaction was all wrong. “Why?”
Flack didn’t seem to hear her. He reached out, his finger hovering just above the screen, tracing the line of the jaw on the monitor. A faint, disbelieving sound escaped him—not quite a laugh, more like a cough.
“That’s a really shitty thing to do, Stella.” His voice was low, a forced casualness that didn’t match the pallor of his face.
“Do what?”
“Put a picture of my girlfriend on your computer.” He finally looked at her, and his expression was a chaotic mix of anger, confusion, and a dawning, sickening horror. “What, did Mac put you up to this? Some kind of background check? That’s not funny.”
The air left the room. The hum of the computers seemed to swell, filling Stella’s ears. She looked from Flack’s ashen face to the screen and back again. “Your girlfriend.”
“Emily. Her name is Emily.” He said it like a challenge, like a fact that could ward off whatever this was.
Stella’s hand went to her mouth. She felt the world tip sideways. “Flack. What’s her last name?”
“Taylor. Emily Taylor.” He spat the name, defending her, defending this secret he’d kept. The pieces were falling into his mind, she could see it happening, but they weren’t fitting. They were cutting him as they slotted into place. “She’s an analyst. Works downtown. Lives in Brooklyn. We’ve been seeing each other for six months. So whatever this is, you tell Mac to back the hell off.”
“Mac doesn’t know,” Stella whispered.
“Doesn’t know what?”
The footsteps were slow, heavy with exhaustion. Mac appeared at the entrance of the cubicle. His coat was dark with rain, his hair damp. He looked a hundred years old. He’d been out there all night, walking, thinking, chasing a ghost in the predawn gloom. His eyes went to Stella, then to Flack’s stricken face, then finally to the image on the monitor.
For a long moment, nobody spoke. Mac stared at the aged photograph. He saw his eyes looking back. He saw Claire’s chin. He saw the ghost made manifest.
“Mac,” Stella began, her voice tight.
Flack turned, putting himself between Mac and the screen, a protective gesture that was instinctive and utterly misplaced. “Mac, listen. This is some kind of mistake. Or a sick joke. Stella’s running some profile and it just looks like her. It happens. Coincidences.”
Mac’s gaze shifted from the screen to Flack. He processed the detective’s posture, the possessive fury in his eyes, the way he’d said ‘her.’
“You know her,” Mac said. It wasn’t a question.
“I know a her. I know a woman named Emily Taylor. She’s thirty. She’s alive. She has a life. She’s not… she’s not a picture on a screen.” Flack’s words were tumbling out, logic fraying. “She’s real.”
The word real hung in the antiseptic air.
Mac took a single step forward. The fatigue seemed to burn away, leaving something stark and terrifying in its wake. “Where is she?”
“Mac, you’re not hearing me. This isn’t your Emily. It can’t be.”
“A single strand of her hair was found on West 83rd Street last week.” Mac’s voice was quiet, methodical, the tone he used when explaining evidence to a jury. “The DNA match is a 99.7% parental link to me. The reference sample is from a toothbrush used by my seven-year-old daughter before she died on September 11th. The hair is recent. Now you’re telling me you are in a relationship with a woman named Emily Taylor.” He paused, his blue eyes drilling into Flack. “Where is she?”
Flack looked like he’d been gut-punched. All the color had drained from his face. He braced a hand on Stella’s desk, his knuckles white. The reality was no longer an abstract puzzle; it was a physical force, crushing the air from his lungs. He thought of her laugh. The way she bit her lip when she was concentrating. The vague, sad distance in her eyes sometimes when she talked about her childhood, saying her parents had died young in an accident. She hated the sound of low-flying planes.
“Oh, god,” he breathed.
“Flack.” Mac’s command was a crack. “Now.”
“She’s at her apartment. In Carroll Gardens.” The address fell from Flack’s lips, an automatic betrayal. “She thinks… she thinks her parents died in a car crash when she was a kid. She was raised by an aunt in Pennsylvania. She doesn’t remember much before that.”
Mac didn’t move. He was processing, his mind a whirlwind of timelines, of logistics, of a gaping twenty-year void. An aunt. A crash. A fabricated past. The implications were a chasm.
“She has no idea?” Stella asked softly.
Flack shook his head, a numb, helpless motion. “No. She has no idea who she really is. Or who you are.” He looked at Mac, the full, horrifying truth dawning. “She has no idea her father has been looking for her for twenty years.”
Mac turned and walked out of the cubicle. His stride was quick, decisive, heading for the lab’s exit.
“Mac, wait!” Flack called, stumbling after him. “You can’t just go there! What are you going to say to her? You’ll destroy her world!”
Mac stopped at the double doors. He didn’t look back. “Her world was destroyed twenty years ago. I’m just finally finding the pieces.”
He pushed through the doors and was gone, leaving Stella and Flack in the silent, humming aftermath. Flack stared at the empty doorway, then down at his own hands. He’d held her hands. He’d kissed her. He’d told her he was falling for her.
And the whole time, she was a ghost.
He looked at Stella, his face a mask of anguish. “She calls me Donny.”
Then he was moving, rushing after Mac, his coffee forgotten, pooling on Stella’s desk next to the picture of the woman they both loved in completely different, impossible ways.