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And I recognized it.
“That’s the man from my dream,” I said as I stepped forward. My face was almost touching the screen at this point. I switched to another screen to confirm, one after the other, until I tapped one with my finger. “Look, his hair was slicked back just like this. It’s definitely him. He has that same gaunt look, too.”
Ben rushed out of the room and came back with his laptop.
“Look, I’ve been working on the family tree. I wish that we were home so I could print this shit, but hook me up to the screens, Ry.”
“On it,” Ryker said, grabbing a cord and attaching his laptop to one of the towers. It didn’t take long before Ben’s slideshow was up.
He came over and started clicking through until he had a long row of pictures. They started old, sepia, then black and white, before gaining color and quality.
“So, this is as far back as I could find. This was the original family that built the house. I still have no idea where the wealth came from, but it seems like most of them ran their own kind of business—real estate, high-end jobs, big CEOs, things like that.”
“Do you recognize him?” I asked, trying to find a match and not seeing one right away.
“Those features fit like six of these guys,” he said, talking with his hands as he spoke. He clicked through the closest matches but I couldn’t find the man.
This meant he likely wasn’t Patrick like we suspected.
He was definitely a Bellmore, though.
“Maybe we call Elizabeth and show her the picture. She might have something.”
“I’ll just text,” I said before turning to Ryker. “Can you clear any of these up so we have an actual picture to show her?”
“Here, I’ll just run it through this program. It’ll create a picture for us like a police sketch.”
Ryker clicked a few buttons and the screens condensed down to one. He pulled up the website and zoomed in on one of the pictures, submitting it to the website. We watched as it slowly started the sketch, line by line.
This was going to take a while.
While we waited, Lincoln disappeared and came back with a plate for Ryker, slamming it down on the desk with a bottle of water.
“Eat,” he demanded. Ryker went to protest, but he saw the look on Lincoln’s face and picked up the sandwich instead. He took a bite before dropping it back down on the plate with a huff.
He managed to get half the sandwich down before a notification popped up that it was finished.
The picture was much easier to make out and if I had any doubts before, they were gone now.
This was the man haunting Bellmore Castle.
But who was he?
“Can you send me that picture, please?” The question barely left my lips before it popped up on my phone. I saved it and opened up my text thread with Elizabeth.
She was living her best life in the sun and sand, and I didn’t think that she’d respond very quickly. But almost as soon as I messaged, she was answering.
Brea: Hey, we caught a photo of something. If I send it, could you tell us if you recognize this man?
Elizabeth: Sure, you caught me between cocktails. Hit me with it.
I sent the photo, and I saw the little bubbles pop up like she was typing. A few moments later they would disappear. It did that over and over while I tapped my foot, anxiously waiting for the response.
“Either she has no clue, or this struck a nerve. She’s not responding right away,” I sighed.
Eventually she gave up altogether, my phone ringing and her name flashing across the screen.
“Hello?”
