“Sure, that sounds like a better idea anyways, very green thinking, little girl. I will pull up probably about half past six, okay? I will leave now so I will try not to be late, I know you hate it when I am late. I promise.” Lenny chuckled and then he and Kate said their goodbyes and hung up the phone. She walked back to her bedroom and placed the phone on the charger on top of her dresser since it was almost out of power.
She picked up the box that she had just packed full of clothes and walked it out to the main entryway where she was stacking them in preparation for the moving truck. She placed it on the ground a few feet away from the door and then paused. She heard a sound from her bedroom and the hairs stood on the back of her neck. She looked around for her cat, wondering if maybe she was the cause of the noise but then remembered that Boo had been living at Derrick’s for a few days now.
She slowly walked towards the bedroom, taking care not to make any sounds with each step that she took. As she peered around the corner into her room, she didn’t see anyone. It looked just as she had left it. She knew that she was probably being paranoid for no reason, fear sometimes still got to her. Just in case, she opened her closet which was now emptied of clothes but nothing was there. She exhaled and let herself relax knowing that she was fine. Still, something didn’t feel quite right.
She walked to the center of her bedroom and looked around for what was disturbing her that she couldn’t seem to pinpoint. It only took a moment or two before she saw it.
On her window sill was a photograph of her and Derrick posing in front of the boat’s lifesaver from their date the other night. It was a souvenir photograph and she had put it in a frame and sat it there yesterday. It was facing a different direction now then when she had first placed it there.
She walked over to her window and glanced out, seeing nothing of particular concern. She picked up the framed photograph and examined it more closely, touching Derrick’s face and smiling at him. She suddenly realized that it wasn’t just the frame that had been pointing in the wrong direction, it was the picture. When she and Derrick had posed for this photograph, they had been staring straight at the camera. The photograph she was holding was at an angle, slightly to the side.
She put it back on the windowsill and stepped away from it, her heart pounding and her chest heaving as she began to hyperventilate. This couldn’t be happening again. There couldn’t be another damn photograph. She never wanted to see another photograph as long as she lived. Had The Photographer been there? Had he been standing right in front of her, taking a picture of her, and she hadn’t noticed? Was that possible?
Kate let herself sit on the edge of her bed for a moment trying to catch her breath but then stood up and went to grab the photograph again. She held it up close to her and squinted at it, examining every detail. She wanted to know where he had been, what he was looking at. She searched her memory for people she had seen on the boat or before the boat, but she had been so focused on Derrick that she couldn’t recall a single person’s face.
They were standing in front of the boat in the photograph and Kate realized that there was a reflection in the glass windows that they were in front of. She saw a figure, but couldn’t totally make it out. She ran over to her desk drawer and shoved things around until she found a small magnifying glass that her uncle had given her over a decade ago. She had always kept it but never used it, never even needed it until now. She brought the photograph over to the desk and opened the frame, taking the picture out and laying it under her desk lamp. She held the magnifying glass over it and looked carefully, moving it to adjust the visual better.
“Holy shit!” Kate gasped. She knew who it was. She knew The Photographer. There he was, plain as day. All this time, seeing him almost daily and it had never occurred to her. Not even once had it crossed her mind. He was The Photographer.
Kate jumped up and grabbed the photograph heading towards her front door. She yanked her jacket on quickly and pulled her shoes on, then grabbed her purse. She had to go straight to the precinct and tell Liz or Detective McCraig. She had to show them this photograph. She had proof!
Ironically, the tool he used to torture people was going to be the tool she used to bring him down. She smiled at herself thinking about it. She wasn’t afraid anymore, her monster had a face. She swung open her front door and stepped out into the hall and looked straight into his face. Her monster’s face.
“Where do you think you are going?” He said to her, a sinister smile on his face. His fist moved so fast that she didn’t have time to react. Everything went black.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN