Silas came to him after midnight while the others arranged transport. He carried a second photograph, newer than the amber image in the metal box. It showed an older man outside a plain building, his hair almost white and his shoulders still broad beneath a worn work jacket. The photograph was blurred, apparently taken without the subject's knowledge. Nolan recognized the angle of the jaw before he let himself acknowledge what the picture might mean. The man stood slightly turned, watching something beyond the frame with an alertness the old photograph had also captured.
"Francis sent this," Silas said. "She had contact with someone who used a different name and asked about Pike's activities. The photograph is eighteen months old. She can't confirm where he is now." Nolan stared at the image.
"You think it's Elias." Silas nodded. "I think it might be. I won't tell you he's alive today based on a photograph taken a year and a half ago, but this is the strongest reason we've had in twenty-two years to believe he survived." Nolan's hands began shaking, and this time he let them.
He had imagined his father dead more easily than alive. Dead men could be mourned, their absence explained by something final and beyond choice. A living father was a different kind of question. Where had he slept?
Had he eaten dinner alone? Had he ever walked past a boy Nolan's age and wondered about the son he left behind? Most frightening of all, if Elias was alive, why had he never come back even after Nolan was grown? Nolan folded the photograph carefully and put it next to the first, as though keeping the two ages of the same man together might help him understand the missing years.
Cord interrupted them with another call from Pauline's attorney. Pike's lawyers had filed an emergency application seeking restrictions on distribution of disputed materials from the old garage. The filing named Nolan individually and asserted that documents removed from the property might be confidential business records.
It was an aggressive legal maneuver, and nobody pretended to know whether a court would grant it. The attorney advised them to preserve the originals, avoid public releases until the application was examined, and submit any lawful report to investigators through appropriate channels. Nolan listened, then asked the question that mattered. "Does this stop us from reporting suspected wrongdoing?"
"Not simply because Pike says so," the attorney answered. "But don't try to invent a clever workaround in the middle of the night. A filing is not a ruling, and a ruling depends on its actual terms. The best answer is a clear record of how these papers were obtained, who has them, and why they may be relevant to an investigation."
Silas thanked her and asked Pauline to help prepare that record. Nolan looked again at the photograph in his hand. Pike still believed he could buy time by making every next step costly and complicated. This time the people holding the documents had already decided the cost was worth bearing.
The next message came from the man who had answered Nolan's call earlier. Warren Pike, it said, was willing to discuss the matter privately at his residence before morning. Silas read it and looked toward the garage entrance.