Five Years Outside Their Photos, So I Finally Walked Out Forever novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Contact Sheets

Mustard ate half a can of tuna on Elias's long table while we stood and watched him do it.

He had walked into the studio, sniffed every corner, and chosen the stack of prints for his bed.

"He's very calm for a cat who was kidnapped this morning," Elias said.

"He was kidnapped by Colleen. He's furious at her, not at the world."

"He doesn't look furious."

"He's saving it."

Elias laughed, and then he stopped, because he was looking at the shelf above the table.

Five gray hard drives sat in a row there, each with a year written on masking tape.

"Every December Colleen sent me one of those," he said. "She wanted me to color the family card."

"I know. You told me."

"I told you I worked from the folder marked Selects."

He took down the first drive and plugged it into his laptop.

"Sabrina copied the whole memory card onto each one, every year. Every frame the hired photographer shot, not only the chosen ones."

"You never opened them?"

"I never needed to. The picture I was asked to color was already picked and already cropped." His jaw tightened. "She told me to ask what the photographs were for. I should have asked five years ago."

A folder opened on the screen, a long grid of tiny thumbnails.

He clicked the first one.

It was the Bradlee lawn at a Christmas party, and it was wide, much wider than the card.

Colleen sat in the middle with her pearls on, and Gavin stood behind her with his hand on her shoulder.

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