A/N: Again, thank you to those who have taken the time to review. It's always appreciated! :-)

Neither of us was sure what to think of the discovery. I still held the brown envelope in my hands, unsure of what to do next. I stared at Parker who simply stared back at me, shell-shocked. I offered we make our way to the living room to be more comfortable.

By the time we reached the main floor and took a seat in one of the couches, Parker seemed to have managed to calm down a bit. He no longer shook but his eyes betrayed his stoic expression. I could tell he was still pretty shaken up. I understood, partially. I mean, finding these pictures opened up a lot of possibilities.

"You do understand that it doesn't mean they are still alive," I told him after sitting down.

I didn't know what to believe myself. Even as I said those words, I had a hard time believing them.

"If they are not alive, why are the pictures here? And who put them here? I'm the only one who has a key."

I shrugged. I didn't have a clue. I believed Parker when he told me he had no idea where the envelope came from. His initial shock had been genuine. However, why hadn't anyone found the envelope before? It had been hidden in the first drawer of one of the dressers, on top of socks and underwear.

I opened the envelope and took out the pictures. There were six in total. I laid them on the coffee table and the two of us bent over them. All six of them had been taken on a different outing. Two of them seemed to have been taken at a park. The other four had been taken at various places. Parker was only present in two of them.

"What can you tell me about the day these pictures were taken?" I asked him.

He grabbed one of them.

"I don't really remember. It was a long time ago. Jackson is still a baby in this one."

He pointed at one in the middle, where Jackson was still a toddler with curly black hair and dark brown eyes.

"He was maybe 2 years old here. I think we were at a restaurant that day. It could have been taken in a parking lot."

Suddenly, his face lit up.

"Yes, we were at a restaurant. We had just come back from the theme park! We stopped at this little diner outside of the city to grab something to eat. Max wanted to take a picture of all of us. In fact, I think he's the one who took most of these pictures."

He picked up the rest and examined them. I realized he probably hadn't seen their faces in a while. The house here was devoid of any pictures. Maybe Parker had taken them away, unable to look at them any longer.

"This one was taken maybe a month before they disappeared," he said about the second picture. "We were at the park near the house. Jackson and Christine loved going. My parents went all the time."

"Who took the picture here? Max?"

Parker shook his head.

"No, I don't think so. Max wasn't there that day. I think…"

He hesitated briefly.

"I think it was a man. We didn't know him. He was a stranger. Bones and Dad were arguing over whom would take the picture. The man offered to take the picture for us. He said… he said we were a beautiful family."

I suggested we search the downstairs area for more clues. But, an hour later, we had found nothing new. I asked Parker permission to keep the envelope with me. I wanted more time to examine the pictures more closely.

We parted ways after. I climbed into my car and drove out of the driveway. I decided to head home. I wanted to call the nearby hospitals to find out if a young child had been admitted for a broken arm back in the day. I wasn't putting much hope into this lead. The hospitals might not have the records and, if they did, were in no obligations to reveal anything to me. Also, if the family had already been on the run, they might have stopped in a different hospital across the country. There was no way of knowing.

At home, I set the pictures aside and focused on the hospital search. I turned on my computer and quickly searched for the nearest hospitals'' phone numbers. I extended my search to the hospitals in nearby states. It was possible that they had crossed the border into Virginia or even Maryland.

With the phone numbers in hand, I grabbed my cellphone and made many, many calls.

After two hours, I plugged in my phone. My battery had dropped and the phone needed to be charged. As I thought, I hadn't got much information. Some hospitals had told me they weren't allowed to divulge such information. I thanked them for their time, whilst thinking I could ask my friend at the FBI for a bit of help. Two other hospitals told me they had no files belonging to a Jackson Booth. Two others told me that they would call me back in the next couple of days for more information, but I didn't want to hold my breath about that.

By the time I finished, dinner time was around the corner. I fixed myself some food, sat down in front of the television, and took my mind off the case for a few minutes. After dinner, I took a long shower. I loved spending time in the shower, simply letting the warm water run down my body and feeling my tense muscles relaxing. My ex-wife hated it. She liked her showers tepid. I couldn't stand it. She couldn't stand the steamy bathroom when I came out. This was one of the many different tastes we had. It was those differences that caused our divorce.

Nearly thirty minutes passed before I finally stepped out. As always, the bathroom was badly fogged. I stepped out of the bathroom wearing only my towel. I crossed over to my bedroom. As I got dressed, a noise somewhere down the hall reached my ears. I didn't pay much attention to it. I continued getting dressed. But the first noise was quickly followed by a second one, somewhat louder.

« Is anybody here? » I cried out, thinking maybe my daughter Laura or my son Bryan had stopped by for a visit.

No one answered me. I listened again for a few seconds but heard nothing more. I was about to step out of my bedroom when I heard the front door closing. Positive someone had broken into my apartment, I quickly walked out of the room and headed towards the front door. I opened it, expecting to find someone running down the stairs. Nothing. Not a single trace of a human being.

I closed the door and walked back inside. I briefly examined each room but nothing seemed to have disappeared. Whoever had been here, if there had been someone in here to begin with, hadn't taken anything. Suddenly, I thought of the pictures on my coffee table. Could that be the reason why someone had walked in? Did they take the envelope?

I walked back to the living room. Relief instantly flooded through me as I saw that the pictures were still there. But my relief was short-lived as I caught sight of the note beside the envelope. Slowly, I took the card in my hands. It looked like a blank business card. I flipped it. There was writing on the other side.

The pictures contain the answer. Help us.

I frowned. What did that mean? And who had written the message?

I sat down on my couch and grabbed the pictures. I sifted through them in hopes of finding an apparent clue. I didn't.

I decided to put in chronological order. I placed the picture of Jackson as a baby first. From what I remembered, Jackson had joined the family a year prior to that picture. He seemed happy with them, smiling up at the camera. The next one wasn't much different. It was taken during the winter because the children wore small coats.

In every picture, each family member stared happily back at the lens.

Now what? I thought to myself.

I tried to find a common fact in every photo. The most obvious one seemed to be that they had been taken outside, and not inside their homes. I couldn't see how that could be relevant or be the reason why these pictures had been placed in the Booths' former home.

Suddenly, something began to gnaw at my brain. I couldn't quite pinpoint it and the more I looked at the pictures, the less I could grasp whatever was gnawing at me. After a good thirty minutes, I put away the pictures. Instead, I decided to go for a walk. Maybe I could stop by my daughter's place and see how she was holding up. She had recently given birth to her first child, a baby girl named Faith.

It was an enjoyable evening. I arrived just in time to help Laura bathe her daughter. I picked out the pyjama and prepared her for the night. When it was time to put her to sleep, I shooed my daughter out of the room and told her to take time for herself. I would put my granddaughter to sleep.

When Faith was finally asleep, I joined Laura in the living room. She was watching TV. She turned it off as soon as she saw me.

"I know I should be cleaning or putting away the dishes. I just don't feel like it."

I told her not to apologize. She needed the rest too.

I sat down beside her and we began to talk. She told me about how difficult it was now that her husband had gone back to work. He was a lawyer and was currently working on a big case. He had been working late every day that week. I told her about the case I was working on. I didn't tell her about the pictures. The less people knew, the better.

Then, we moved on to childhood stories. She loved hearing them over and over again. I never got tired of telling them.

"Remember that time at the park, Dad?" she asked, as she laughed uncontrollably at the previous story.

I smiled. I remembered that day. As I thought back to that particular day, a thought popped into my mind. Suddenly, the evasive thought that had formed in my mind previously began to take shape: the park, the only picture not taken by Max.

My daughter must have noticed my expression because she instantly stopped laughing.

"What's wrong, Dad?"

I tried to shrug off the thought but I knew I wouldn't be able to. I had to see those pictures to know whether or not I was right.

"Listen, Sweetie, I need to go. I just thought of something about the case I'm working on. I need to check some things."

Laura nodded.

"It's okay. I'm feeling a bit tired anyway. Faith is sleeping and I think I'll do the same."

"You really don't mind?"

« Really. Go work! I'll be fine. »

As I got up, I felt guilty. I didn't like leaving her like this but I knew I wouldn't stop thinking of the pictures if I didn't check them out once again.

The walk home seemed to take forever. The road stretched in front of me and it seemed like hours later I was finally reaching my home. I took the steps two at a time and dashed into my apartment. The pictures still lay when I had left them. I grabbed one of them and I knew immediately I had found something. I looked at the others. Same thing. I called Parker.

« Do you remember the man who took the picture at the park? »

« Vaguely, » he replied.

I could hear the uncertainty in his voice.

« Describe him to me. What you can remember. »

« Tall. Skinny. Short black hair. I don't know. I can't really remember. It's been more than ten years. Why? »

I decided not to tell him my theory just yet. My heart was racing.

« Just a hunch. I'll call you later. »

I hung up before he could ask more questions. I looked at the pictures spread in front of me. All but one showed a man in the background. The man was skinny and had black hair. Sometimes, his glance caught the camera. In two other pictures, he only seemed to be walking by.

He was in all but one picture : the one he had taken himself?