"Hey, man...sorry for the wait. I've been on the phone with Sara."
"No problem, Charlie. Sounds important...is this about Dad?"
"We've found him...he's in Japan, we think." Charlie said exhaling like he'd been holding his breath.
Theo was silent for a moment, then stuttered, "You must...I mean, he's been gone a year, and what...what about the explosion? Are you sure about all this?"
"Pretty damn sure. You at your office?"
Theo could hear typing in the background.
"I'm sending you something. Check your email."
"Yeah, yeah, checking now," Theo said, still in a bit of a shock.
A moment went by and Charlie heard a bing through the phone, then mouse clicks, and waited.
"Holy shit, man. Who is this...who's with Dad? That's him, right? I mean, he looks different." Theo was finding this all unbelievable. He examined the photo. If this was his Dad, he'd lost about 30 pounds and grown shoulder-length gray hair.
"That's him. Sara helped find all this out...with some help from a private investigator." Charlie said as his tone changed from concern to annoyance. "Looks like the old man's still alive and making friends."
"Who's account is this? These are just screen shots?" Theo said becoming more curious than panicked.
"The investigator scrubs the internet using facial recognition software to find matches. They said Dad popped up in about an hour. The few pics he found are from this woman's Facebook stream...a Haru Moon. Looks like a hospital or lab or something, they're both in lab coats." Charlie explained, "and the private investigator thinks he knows where this is."
"The photo's metadata?" Theo knew his way around code and made the guess.
"Yep, but just the general location," Charlie responded, "he thinks this is near a Japanese government building of some sort. He's still looking into it."
"Holy shit, Theo. The explosion. They told us he was dead." Theo spoke softly but with anger in his voice.
"I'm just glad we kept snooping around," Charlie responded, "something about Dr. Patel never seemed right. They wrapped up that research boat explosion pretty quick, don't you think?"
There was another long pause then Theo realized, "Dad's been alive and never contacted any of us? He's smiling in this pic. You don't think he was in on this, do you? Did he want to disappear like this and just let us think he was dead?"
"I don't know what to think, Theo," Charlie said leaning back in his chair staring at the ceiling, "but I don't want to tell anyone else about this yet. We've just found him, and he's alive. I'm afraid if someone finds out we know this, he'll disappear again."
To be continued...
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