Brian had been back in Atlanta for only a few days but he had been anxious to get back to this place and ask a few questions of his own. It had been tough for him to get away from Baylee and Leighanne, but he lucked out that afternoon thanks to a birthday party. He typically avoided those types of events because the other mothers fawned over him to the point that his son was usually embarrassed and Brian was uncomfortable. So while they were headed to a room full of screaming kids hopped up on mountains of sugar he found himself standing in front of a similar photograph waiting.
He heard the sound of shoes on the linoleum floor behind him and he turned as if knowing the owner of the shoes was looking for him. He had been expecting someone a bit older and more distinguished - more nerdy. Instead, the woman that was walking towards him was very much the sexy librarian type and he could feel his cheeks blush as he couldn’t help but give her a very quick once over. He may be married but he most definitely wasn’t dead.
“Mr. Littrell?” she asked as she reached him and he nodded, sticking his hand out to shake hers, “I’m Hilary Jackson, I’m the curator of this exhibit. The receptionist told me that you asked to speak to me about something in the exhibit?”
“Yes,” he nodded and turned slightly towards the wall panel where the photo that Nick had been drawn to was still prominent. He took a moment to briefly look over the picture again, taking in the happy newlyweds, “I’m doing some research and was wondering what you knew about this photo.”
“Research?” Hilary asked rhetorically, “What kind of research?”
Brian froze, not having expected her to actually question his intentions so bluntly. He stumbled but quickly got his bearings, “Family... tree,” he answered slowly, nervously picking at the underside of his thumbnail, “I’m stuck but I think that ol’ Captain Gabriel here could be the link I’ve been looking for!”
She visibly relaxed but, though he was unsure why, Brian could sense that she was still slightly sceptical of his intentions, “You’ve found the right person then, I know pretty much everything there is to know about this exhibit and everyone who is featured in it.”
“Great,” Brian gave her a blast of his pearly whites with his signature grin, hoping it would do something to calm her nerves, “Lay it on me.”
With a quick rise of her eyebrow Hilary gave him a look before clearing her throat to begin, “Joseph Gabriel was born here in Atlanta in February 1842. He came from a wealthy family, his father was a retired Senator, and he was the youngest of twelve children. Did you say your ancestry was a maternal or paternal link?”
Brian didn’t have any idea what she was asking but used his powers of deduction to figure out she was talking about the man’s parents, “Um, paternal,” he answered uneasily. Though he should have quit while he was ahead he took it a step further to convince her that he was serious in his line of questioning, “I knew my great-great grandfather was some kind of politician in Atlanta I just didn’t know the link until now.”
“Surely you mean Knoxville?” she asked, taking a step back from the man.
“Sorry?” Brian asked with a nervous chuckle, fighting the urge to wipe his sweaty palms on the legs of his jeans.
“James Gabriel... was a Senator in Tennessee before retiring to Georgia; and you may want to check your math. He was in his fifties when Joseph, his last child, was born in 1842, in order for him to be your great-great grandfather he would have had to have another child in his eighties which was impossible since he was already dead by then. Who are you and why are you asking about this family, really?”
Brian was mentally kicking himself for coming up with an asinine story to try and convince her. If he had been smart he would have realized that he knew nothing about the subject while she was an expert so catching him in a lie would be easy. What he couldn’t figure out was why she was so defensive and sceptical. He had expected that someone interested in history would be eager to tell him a story rather than suspicious of his intentions. It made him even more curious about the whole situation and the link to the man in the picture. She was tapping her foot impatiently waiting for his response and in that split second he decided to go with the truth.
“I’m a Backstreet Boy.”
“What’s that?” she questioned with a glare, “Some kind of conspiracy theory group?”
“What?” he choked, “Conspiracy theory? Like aliens or something? No, it’s a pop group, we were big in the 90’s...”
Hilary let out a deep breath, now feeling as confused as Brian looked, “I don’t understand. You’re not here about the legend?”
Again, opting for honesty, he shrugged, “I don’t know? I was hoping you’d be able to tell me why I’m here. I know that this is going to sound crazy...”
“Trust me, I’ve heard crazy before,” she told him, encouraging him to continue with the story.
“Okay, well... I was here a while back for a fundraiser and I found my friend in here staring at this photo. He honestly looked like he knew the people in it but that’s impossible because his family is originally from the north and he can trace it back to the Mayflower so I know he doesn’t have southern ancestry. He’s been acting really weird lately, for a while actually, and when I started asking him questions... he didn’t give typical answers. He spoke about the woman in the photo like he knew a lot about her, but there’s nothing anywhere on this wall that talks about her.”
Hilary had a sudden interest in his story and she was leaning in, hanging on every word keenly, “What did he say about her? Specifically.”
Brian sighed, thinking back to that night and the way Nick had looked at the photo almost lovingly, an expression that he had never really seen on the younger man’s face after years of being jaded by his celebrity lifestyle, “I said she was beautiful and he told me that she died in childbirth. The tone in his voice though, it was so sad. I figured he was looking at the photo because she is a doppelganger for his girlfriend.”
At this point Hilary was so close to him that Brian felt uncomfortable. Keeping her voice low she wrapped her hand around his bicep, taking a quick look around the room, “Where is his girlfriend now?”
He briefly glanced down at her hand tightly gripping his arm before replying, “She’s missing.”
Suddenly Hilary was pulling him with a strength he hadn’t expected through the exhibit, “You need to come with me,” she told him before leading him down a long hallway marked “Staff Only”.
The only sound in the otherwise silent room was a the marching beat of the back end of a pencil, thumping an eraser symphony on the polished desktop. Gradually the metronome-like consistency became a melody that Jenson quickly recognized as the Backstreet Boys’ latest single. Stopping abruptly, she dropped the pencil as though it were burning her flesh, angry that her subconscious would channel that song, of all songs, from the recesses of her mind straight through her writing utensils.
The pair of detectives-turned-special-agents had been in Georgia for a few days following up on the disappearance of Lauren Kitt. So far, all of the leads from the public had turned out to be bogus so while Knox worked with the local police department, Jensen was devoting her time to putting more pieces of the puzzle together when it came to the older homicide cases.
They already had a suspected pattern surrounding the major highway that runs up and down the eastern seaboard and Jensen had marked out the places where each murder was alleged to have happened on a large map with a round, red sticker, noting the dates next to them. In a different colour she had marked the locations of each one of the Backstreet Boys tour dates along the east coast. While other detectives might have thought the two were too focused on pointing the finger at someone involved with the tour, the reality was they both agreed there were too many coincidences and it was only fair to not risk missing a clue just for the sake of appearances.
Jensen let out a frustrated grunt as she placed another yellow dot, signifying another Backstreet Boys tour date. She had really thought she was about to unlock the secret to the case but just as it seemed with the rest of their leads, it wasn’t working out. While the locations and dates occasionally overlapped, it wasn’t often enough to come to any kind of conclusion. Unless someone was leaving the tour and coming back on different days, it didn’t seem as though anyone travelling on one of the Backstreet Boys tour buses were in the locations where the crimes occurred, on the days they were suspected to have happened.
Her forehead dropped to the desk in front of her and she closed her eyes, wracking her brain for any worthwhile ideas that may be bouncing around. The normally active bouncy balls were more like cotton balls, sitting listlessly in her mind. Jensen couldn’t have been more relieved when the phone rang, giving her a chance to think about something else for a moment. She answered with an anxious greeting, hearing her partner’s voice on the other end.
“I’m at the Ritz Carleton,” Knox explained, “Local PD got a call from a maintenance man that was coming to take a look at a faulty furnace. They’ve been having issues with it for a while now but the maintenance guy didn’t get a chance to come until today-”
“Is there a point to this story?” Jensen interrupted with a huff.
“Sorry, yes. The maintenance company sent someone down today to take a look at it and he found something unusual.”
“Given everything we’ve been talking about for the past couple of weeks my view of unusual is slightly skewed. You’ll have to be a bit more specific.”
“In my opinion, I’m looking at human remains. Or what’s left of them.”
“Okay…”
“This is the hotel where the Backstreet Boys were staying. This was the last place anyone saw Lauren Kitt alive.”
