Chapter 10: The Cut-Out Photograph

On the seventh day, I went to Delphine's apartment by myself.

I hadn't told Bea, and I hadn't told Declan.

I told myself it was because they would stop me.

It was a third-floor walk-up with a ring light in the hallway and a doormat that said HELLO GORGEOUS.

She opened the door in a pink robe with her hair in a towel.

"Emme!" She gasped and pressed her hand to her chest. "You came."

"I came for the signature."

"Come in. I'm making tea."

"I'm not staying."

"Then stand in the doorway and let the heat out." She laughed, bright and easy. "Please. Ten minutes."

I stepped inside.

The living room had the same pink velvet couch I had seen in a hundred of her videos, and a wall of photographs along one side, framed in white.

Tobin was in most of them.

I stopped in front of the biggest.

It was a group shot on a dock in winter, four people in puffy coats with the cabin behind them and the lake white at their backs.

Delphine was in the middle with Tobin's arm around her.

Rodney stood on her other side.

Declan was at the edge, half turned away.

On the far left, the photograph had been trimmed with scissors.

A ragged white strip ran from top to bottom.

"Who was there?" I said.

She came and stood next to me with two mugs.

"That's the night before," she said. "The Saturday. Don't you remember?"