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“It’s not the first note.”
His gaze jerked up to mine. “What was the first one?”
I pointed to his feet. “Under the papers.”
Still holding the bag, he reached down with his other hand and grabbed the picture frame and brought it up to his lap. The image of me and my sister was clearly visible, along with the handwritten message. “What the fuck?” His gaze lifted to mine, looking furious.
I had no delusion it was out of concern for my welfare.
“Is this a photo of Peterman’s daughter?”
“No. It’s a photo of me when I was a kid. It showed up in my car yesterday morning.” Then I added, “But it was stolen from my house last October.”
His face jerked up to mine. “And you didn’t think to tell me about it?”
“I don’t owe you shit, Malcolm,” I snarled. “And I wasn’t sure it had anything to do with Ava’s kidnapping.”
“I think the goddamned thumb in the bag proves that it did.”
Unfortunately, I was pretty certain he was right.
He set the bag on the dashboard and studied the frame. “Why would someone steal this from your home in Little Rock?”
“The hell if I know. I figured it was someone obsessed with my sister’s case.”
“That’s your sister with you?” he asked, lifting it closer.
“Taken a few days before she was kidnapped.”
“So why would someone suddenly take a photo from your home then wait four months to do anything with it?”
I sagged back in my seat, exhaustion washing over me. God, I needed a drink to help ease the throbbing in my head. “I don’t know. It’s not like they knew I was coming back here. I returned to Jackson Creek as a last resort. And only because my father came to see me in Little Rock and offered to let me stay in my parents’ garage apartment until I figured out what to do.”
“So why would someone steal a photo?”
I shrugged. “The only thing I can figure is that he saw my name in the news. The shooting was two weeks before, but it wasn’t the first break-in I’d had. There were a couple of others before—both of them after the shooting. The break-ins stopped after he stole the photo, which had been hidden in a drawer in my bedroom. I wasn’t sure if he stopped because he got what he was looking for or because I almost caught him.”
“A man?”
“Based on the build and height? Yeah. But I only saw his back as he fled.”
“So this guy sees your name in the paper and steals a photo of you and your sister. Why?”
I pointed to the message on the frame. “Good question. He thinks it should have been me, except I wasn’t sure whether he meant Ava or my sister Andi. Some people blamed me for her kidnapping. My mother included.”
He lowered the photo to his lap, confusion in his eyes. “Why would your mother blame you? How could that be your fault?”
“Andi and I weren’t supposed to be at the creek. Or at least I wasn’t. My mother wanted me home to help with chores. Vanessa was supposed to go with Andi to check on a nest of baby birds, but she couldn’t go and Andi didn’t want to go alone, so after some begging, I agreed to come with her.”
“So how is that your fault?”
I scraped my teeth over my bottom lip as I stared at the building through the windshield. “Any reasonable person would know it’s not my fault, but that’s the thing about losing a child: it tends to make you act unreasonably.”
He didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “So maybe this isn’t about TJ Peterman.” He turned to face me. “Maybe this is about you.”
I felt like I’d been dunked in an ice bath. “Maybe.”
“So when exactly did you find this photo?”
