Chapter 7: The Second Card

I told Kirk I would take it from here, and I did not say thank you.

He heard that, and he nodded once, and he let me out at Gran's gate without another word.

On Wednesday after school I drove Gran's old truck to the photographer's studio in town.

It was above a dry cleaner, up one flight of narrow stairs, and the door was locked.

I knocked until a chain slid back.

The photographer looked out with a pale face and unshaven jaw.

"I wondered if you'd come," he said.

"You were there Saturday," I said. "You watched me on that cot."

"I did, and I've been sick about it since."

He let me in.

The studio was a small room full of lights on stands, with a long table and a laptop open on it.

"Colonel Drummond's driver came here Saturday night," he said. "A big young sergeant. He asked for my memory cards."

"Did you give them to him?"

"I gave him the ones in my camera." He sat down heavily. "I always keep a second card running in the other slot. He didn't ask about that one."

I felt my chest tighten.

"Show me."

He turned the laptop toward me and opened a folder.

The first pictures were the ones Ansel had wanted.

Livia in my gown on the white bench, Livia under the oak, Livia with her chin lifted and her shawl across her front.

They were lovely, and they were all wrong.

"Go further back," I said.

He scrolled.

The time stamps ran backward.

There was one at 9:42, with Livia laughing at something off camera.

There was one at 9:50, where Ansel knelt in front of her on the grass and pressed his cheek against the lace on her stomach.

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