Scarlett said, “What do you remember?”
“I guess I remember being sad that you were gone. Maybe in a way even sadder, at first, that you were gone than that my brother was gone. I think I worshipped you. In a kid way, you know. You were always nice to the littler kids. And making up stories about wizards and fairies and stuff. I felt like there was something . . . magical about it. About you.”
“Trust me,” Scarlett said. “There is nothing magical about me at all.”
Avery shrugged and then her phone vibrated and she wanted to take it out, read the text, see if it was from Lucas.
She didn’t want to be rude. She just wanted something more from all this.
“Well,” Scarlett said, “I guess, nice to meet you. Again.”
“Yeah,” Avery said. “Sorry. For the following thing.”
“It’s okay,” Scarlett said. “I hope they find him.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Scarlett turned to walk away.
No.
No.
No.
“Wait,” Avery called out.
Scarlett turned.
“Do you think he did it? Do you think Lucas killed that guy?”
Something in Scarlett’s eyes turned darker. “Why would you think that?”
“He told me,” Avery said. “That he thinks they’re going to find his prints.”
Scarlett tilted her head, took a step back toward her. “I would say that the Lucas I know would only have done that if his—or our—lives depended on it.”
Avery felt her face tighten into something fake-feeling when she asked Scarlett the question she hadn’t been able to ask Lucas. “Are you a couple or something?”
Scarlett was unflinching. “I think we used to be, yes.”
He’d said he needed to figure it out. With her. But where was Scarlett’s head in all this?
“What about now?” Avery dared, like her life depended on it.
Scarlett
Chambers put the brown paper bag on the dining room table and pulled out a large manila envelope. He slid a stack of photographs out of it, sifted through them as he spoke to Scarlett and her mother.
“All the photos are from an instant camera. I guess Norton didn’t want to risk any of you being recognized if he had prints made somewhere? I’m assuming that’s the reason the blown-up shots didn’t have you all in them, as well.”
He pushed a square photo across the table to Scarlett, who had to move the fabric she’d been cutting, having already ruined some with weird stitches.
She picked it up,
looked—
“That’s me”—
/
/
Maybe twelve years old?
And felt the world t i l t.
And stood there with an ache that made her knees b u c k l e.
Her mother and Chambers were still talking, but she couldn’t process the sounds of their words— they might as well have been speaking
—and then she started to cry.
At first, a leak from the eye.
But . . .
. . . the gap in her teeth where she’d lost one, the ribbon in her hair,
the picture of Rainbow Dash on her shirt, the color of the ice-cream cone in her hands—her favorite, green chocolate-chip mint.
She couldn’t hold back the force of it.
A t s u n a m i o f g r i e f crashing on her shores.
Her mind set about filling in the edges of the photo . . .
Making it bigger . . .
Remembering?
Or making it up?
Did it matter?
How much of anything anyone remembered was real anyway?
Damaged.
Manipulated.
Dinged this way and that.
“Why would this sicko take pictures at all?” her mother asked.
“I don’t know,” Chambers said. “He saved a lot of stuff. Drawings the kids made, that kind of thing. He appears to have been a bit of a sentimentalist. Or he was keeping everything because he was afraid if he threw it out it would be found and lead the police to him? I have no idea.”
“But what about Anchor Beach?” Scarlett asked as she set down that photo to look at others: Riding a bike with a banana seat and handlebar streamers.
Wearing a pale-pink bodysuit and tutu, arms arched overhead.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Scarlett. I guess it’s possible you figured out some way to get there? I spoke with the security guard, and he seems legit, but beyond that, I’m not sure what to do. We showed your photos around but didn’t get any other hits.”
“I swallowed that penny,” she said. “It must be important.”
“I know you’re frustrated,” he said. “But look—” He indicated the photos. “This is real.”
Scarlett gestured to the brown bag. “You said you had clothes?”
Chambers took a clear plastic bag from the brown one, opened it. He started to unfold a few things, but Scarlett reached to the bottom of the pile, for the jacket.
She nearly gasped.
It was mostly pale gray with sections of aqua and lavender.
Sort of quilted but in large patches so not overly busy.