Chapter 9: The Photo

For one second I was back in El Cajon, holding a phone that had just gone dead.

Then the IV pump beeped and I was in the infusion suite again, and Jocelyn was waiting.

She didn't look angry.

She looked scared, which was worse.

"Mari?"

"Give me one minute," I said. "Don't decide anything for one minute."

I pulled out my phone.

The Haven app was still on it, under a folder called House.

Nobody had ever taken my household login away.

My hands were steady, which surprised me.

I scrolled the hallway clips back to the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

7:02 a.m.

I pressed play and handed her the phone.

On the screen, I came running up the stairs in my sleep shirt with a white charging cable swinging from my hand.

Esteban's voice came out of the tiny speaker, muffled through his door.

"Marisol! I'm at two percent!"

I knocked once and pushed his door open.

It stayed open.

You could see him through it, at the window, in a dress shirt, phone at his ear, pointing at the wall.

I knelt out of frame.

I stood back up.

I came out of the room with empty hands and my hair in my face.

The time in the corner said 7:02:41 when I went in and 7:02:51 when I came out.

Ten seconds.

Jocelyn played it twice.

Then she put her own phone next to mine.

The photo in the email was the last frame, the one where I came out.

Somebody had cut off the timestamp and the open door and his shoulder in the window.

Somebody had blurred it just enough to look like it was taken in a hurry.

She put both phones face down on the blanket over her knees.

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