“But I have done nothing wrong!”
“What would you say if you heard that from a man sitting on the couch in your office?”
Daniel stood admonished. He knew what he would say. He’d tell the guy if he’d already left emotionally, he might as well have left physically.
“You are seeing where your heart is.”
The words from Gramps’s letter. The film lab spun in Daniel’s vision.
“Who are you?”
Simon splayed his fingers on the counter as a fresh waft of chemicals hit Daniel. “I am a seeker of truth. I thought you were too.”
The decisions of the past swirled around him. He was under pressure with a fledgling counseling practice on the financial rocks, taking his career with it. Howard’s manuscript was just there, and Howard wasn’t.
Simon nodded knowingly. “There’s always a reason, but that doesn’t turn a lie into truth.”
Daniel blinked hard. “So now you can read my mind?”
A grin crept across Simon’s features. “No, your face. And you’re thinking you had a good reason for doing what you did. At the time, you probably did, but the consequences of today don’t always respect the actions of yesterday.”
Daniel couldn’t let this get out. If it did, his career would be over, and there was no way Kelly would accept that the photo on the deck, him holding hands with Anna, wasn’t real. He’d lose his career and his family. It all carried a high price.
Simon leaned across the counter to Daniel, his voice quiet. Sympathetic. Almost like a counselor. “The price will be higher if you don’t. The camera never lies, Daniel. You can try to hide from it, but I think it would be better if you dealt with your secrets, brought them out into the open and faced them.”
The knots in Daniel’s jaw flexed. “I’ll take care of it.”
“How has that worked for you so far?”
An escape hatch opened in his mind, a solution tinged with sadness. He just had to get rid of the camera, Gramps’s last gift to him.
Simon’s whisper floated across the counter with the whiff of chemicals. “If you’re thinking it would be easier to get rid of the camera rather than face your secrets, I would advise against it.”
But Daniel already knew this was the only door open to him.
Twenty-Nine
Daniel rested his chin on his arms as the camera stared him down from across his home desk, unblinking. He had to take control, in his own way. In his own time. He didn’t want to get rid of it—Gramps’s last gift—but it also couldn’t stay.
His plan unfolded like an origami tutorial. Lock the camera in Gramps’s briefcase, behind a combination known to him alone. Then he would sit in his office chair until inspiration for his second book came. He would confront Kelly and get her stuff out into the open, take Milly to see Anna, and put in more effort at home. Everyone at work would need to know the group photo didn’t work, and he would email Monique, clarifying their professional relationship in writing. Her recent absence had given him some much-needed breathing space anyway.
Daniel threw open the door to his closet and stared at the briefcase on the floor. Not that long ago the dusty leather and burnished silver were a treasured gift. He opened the clasps with a thunk. A wave of sadness washed over him, carried on a tide of drifting Old Spice.
Daniel turned the camera over in his hands, still unable to comprehend the events of the past few days. A camera that revealed truth? It hadn’t revealed truth about Kelly or Milly in those other two photos.
He reached into the briefcase and pulled out the faded red album, and then he flicked through the pages, scanning for truth. He examined the photos of Gramps’s friends. Fingers splayed in front of a computer screen; though out of focus, enough flesh showed between them to suggest the type of website being visited. A curl of cigarette smoke winding its way out from behind an older woman as she watched her grandchildren from a doorway.
Then a thought. Could the camera work in counseling? A few snaps, and he could sift the lies from the truth. That would build his reputation in a big hurry, and he wouldn’t need a second book or a lawsuit.
The cardboard groaned as Daniel reached Garth’s photo. He was never on the streets even though Gramps had warned him he could be. He stared hard at Garth’s broken teeth. The photo looked so real, but why was the color so washed out? Gramps’s photo was next. Daniel spun in his chair to see Gramps’s recliner. Why was it a dull pink in this photo?
With another stiff groan of the pages, the state of his marriage appeared in vivid color. Daniel turned away from Kelly, staring off into the distance. That could easily be true. The next page, his smile at someone off camera. Another page, Milly crying at the party. While he hadn’t been able to find out if that was true, it might as well have been.
He slapped the album shut. He was overthinking. This had to end.
He placed the camera in the briefcase. Then he reached into his shirt pocket and threw the film slip from Simon’s Film Lab on top of the camera. His thumbs whirred the combination out of sync, and Gramps’s briefcase resumed its place hidden away from the world. He leaned back on the closed door, the threat neutralized, his secret now safe and back under his control. He would reveal it when he was ready.
The screen saver on his laptop flashed the front cover of No Secrets. He thumped the space bar, more to banish the image than to wake his computer. A document appeared on screen. Ten pages of words extracted by nervous sweat and teeth-grinding anxiety. Few worth reading. None worth publishing.
His chair bounced as he sat with intent, and Daniel took a deep breath, fuel for his inspiration. He would force this book out whether it liked it or not.
It didn’t like it.
Several halting sentences tiptoed their way onto his screen as if scared to wake the delete key. Daniel grimaced as he typed, the words in his head not willing to sentence themselves to a short-lived existence. Daniel dropped his head, and with a mighty roar, he pounded his fists on the desk.
The echo of his anger dissipated as a soft knock sounded at the door. It edged open to reveal Kelly.
She bit her lip, and tears sprang forth. Daniel jumped up and hurried forward as her emotions spilled out in a gush. “I quit today . . . One doctor asked me about side effects . . . I couldn’t lie if it will hurt children . . . He called Rubicon himself.”
Daniel placed his hands on her jerking shoulders. “You quit your job?”
The sobs bubbled from her. “Somebody told Arnold . . . playing his usual power games . . . told me to toe the company line, so I told him to shove it.”
Daniel embraced her. “Wow.”
Kelly sobbed as he stroked her hair. “If you thought you were endangering others, you did the right thing.”
“I know what it means in terms of the house. We’ll just have to tide things over until this book is finished.”
Daniel lost the battle with his rising defensiveness, and his shutters slid up. Kelly stood back and looked up at him as she gulped down her sobs. “Why is it taking so long?”
The last of Daniel’s resolve cracked. He had to tell her. “I can’t just come up with another book. I’ve appreciated your patience up to this point, and I need you to hang in there for a little longer until I can deliver it.”
“But you did last time . . . and it happened so fast. I don’t understand.”
The cold blade of her challenge sliced deep into his anxiety, and any answers flitted back into the shadows.
Kelly took another step back. “You can’t tell me much nowadays. What about those photos you took of us? Why were you so intent on taking them?” His silence lit the fuse of Kelly’s frustration. “Why can’t you talk to me? Daniel, we need to talk to someone. This has reached the point where I can’t stay if things will be like this.”
Her threat hung heavy in the air, and it fueled a growing anger. With everything he was dealing with, now she played that card? “I’m a marriage counselor with a bestselling book about marriage.
It’s not as simple as me seeing a marriage counselor.”
Kelly’s lips pursed below hard eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. “So you’re choosing your reputation over me? Unless there are other reasons you don’t want to see someone.”
Daniel’s voice rose in defense. “Are we back here again? You aren’t in a position to talk about refusing to see someone. I’ve already suggested we talk to Anna, but you won’t.”
“Ah yes, your work-wife. Can’t you see why I don’t want to do that? Why won’t you show me the photos from the work dinner? You keep talking about there being a problem with them, but what is it?”
Daniel fought hard to rein in his runaway breathing. “What do I have to do to prove—”
“I went to the film lab to find out what the problem is, but Simon wouldn’t give me copies.”
The stampede of Daniel’s anger ran headfirst into that wall of revelation. His voice dropped to a whisper. “You what?”
“Strange guy at first, but he has a real passion for honesty.”
Kelly had met Simon? Daniel’s voice stayed low, his ears almost ringing with the explosion that mental grenade had created. “What did he say about the photos?”
“That he couldn’t give them to me because of some nonsense about a sacred contract with you.”
Relief. Simon’s eccentricity was a good thing. Finally.
Thirty
Kelly thumbed through Jasmine’s message, each word cutting another inch deep into her. “Your name is mud here. Arnold is using it to describe people who aren’t Rubicon team players. And he’s reading your contract with a fine-tooth comb to see if he can take things further. Take care, hon, and get a lawyer if you haven’t already.”
Competing images flashed in her mind on an ever-accelerating carousel of confusion. Sick children. Her destroyed reputation. Sick children. A hammer flashing down on a For Sale sign out in front of her dream home. Sick children.
Kelly had to know if she had made the right decision. She turned to Milly, who was in the passenger seat, engrossed in her phone. “You wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Milly nodded without even looking up. She was adamant she couldn’t go to school. Years ago she would have crawled over broken glass rather than miss out on time with her friends. Now she wanted to stay home, and she didn’t look sick.
As the little bell announced Kelly’s arrival, the back of the lab filled with whirring and clicking. She beelined to the photos on the wall and stood in front of the ornate gold frame. The two children still lay back on hospital beds, their parents in anguish. What had she been thinking? That these photos would somehow give her the answer to the question that had tormented her since she marched out of the elevator at Rubicon Pharma?
Have I done the right thing?
The top corner of the photo shuddered and shimmered. Kelly peered at the red Get Well balloons. Did they move?
They more than moved. The balloons shimmied before the red faded, leaving just a light gray. Kelly’s eyes widened as the color from the rest of the photograph drained away. It was as if someone had pulled a plug at the bottom of the frame. She stared—scared—but then turned at the bell’s jingle.
Simon cocked his head, studying her. “You look different, Kelly. Lighter almost, like there’s a weight lifted from you.”
Kelly pointed to the photo of the children. “I’m not sure. But look.”
Simon rushed up to the gold frame, a squeal escaping him. “Congratulations!”
In the midst of Kelly’s fear emerged a calmness. “What is happening?”
“My photographs show truth—true honesty—in vivid color to grab attention. Bright and gaudy is needed in today’s world, but when the attention is no longer needed”—he brushed a finger across the photo frame—“then the color fades.”
To Kelly’s consternation, the picture dissolved, leaving just an empty frame.
Simon pursed quivering lips. “Your life will be better with this honesty.”
“I don’t know about that. I lost my job.”
“There will always be consequences for honesty in business, but you would have lost more if you hadn’t faced this.”
Kelly looked over Simon’s shoulder at the empty frame. “How did you do that? Is it a digital frame?”
With a light chuckle on his lips, Simon lifted the frame from the wall and held it in front of himself. No wires.
Kelly chewed on her lip and looked out the window. Milly sat staring back at her, a frozen tableau of preteen impatience. Kelly turned to Simon. “Could these frames show me what’s going on with my daughter?”
“Why do you need a frame for that?”
Kelly’s voice caught in her throat. “Because she’s closed off to me and won’t talk about anything.”
Simon gave a sad nod.
“She’s withdrawn into herself, but I can see she’s hurting. You don’t have a way I can see what’s going on with her, do you?”
Simon stared over Kelly’s shoulder at Milly. His eyes warmed, and a gentle smile crept across his face. “Truth is something shared, not forced. Sometimes the best way to help others is to help yourself. There are flow-on effects when you face your own truth. Maybe that’s what your daughter needs. You might need to guide her as I am guiding you.”
“But I’ve already dealt with—”
“Come.” Simon took her elbow. Next to the empty frame was a simple mahogany frame holding a photograph of a bright-pink suitcase sitting next to a home’s front door, waiting for its owner.
Kelly stared at it. A suitcase?
“Let me tell you about this truth. The woman is thinking of leaving her partner rather than dealing with their issues so they can mend their relationship and make it stronger.”
Kelly jumped to defend a kindred spirit; a woman with whom she sympathized. “Maybe . . . maybe it’s because her husband won’t listen. Or because they no longer have common ground on which to meet. That happens to a lot of people today, right?”
“It has happened to a lot of people forever. But today more people make this decision as if there are no consequences to their actions, and they won’t be guided any other way.”
Kelly looked out the window. Milly had drawn her knees up under her chin and rested her head on her arms. Her consequence.
“What is this place?”
Simon rose on the balls of his feet. “It’s a film lab. A place the world says it doesn’t need anymore because it can handle things itself. Yet it’s needed more than ever. It’s an anachronism in a modern world. Like truth itself.”
Kelly stared at the empty frame next to the one with the pink suitcase. “We don’t connect. Daniel doesn’t talk about anything, and I feel like he’s holding back from me.” She had to try one last time. “There has to be something in his photos. Perhaps it’s truth. Simon, can’t you at least let me see what’s in them?”
Simon frowned. “Not without the sacred contract I have with Daniel. But I can give you something.”
Kelly’s hopes rose as an answer to the pain of the distance within her family dangled tantalizingly in front of her. “Anything, please.”
Simon smiled. “I can give you something more valuable. Freedom.”
“Freedom from what?” Kelly’s gut kinked into its first tight twist.
“You need to deal with more truth.”
The kink tightened into a knot.
Simon raised a finger to the empty frame. “You want your husband to be honest with you, but you aren’t honest with him. Perhaps the truth is you aren’t sick of him; you’re sick of what you’ve got.”
The empty frame sparkled and glittered as a photograph filled in. First, a single sheet of paper, a logo on it familiar to her but not to her husband. The reason she had chosen that bank. Then a statement from Beyond Bank. At first a light gray and then the permanence of black ink. And a name and address. Both belonged to her.
Kelly stared openmouthed. Simon’s voice surrounded her. Teased her ears.
“I know you think this is a secret that shouldn’t hurt anybody, but it will.”
Kelly’s wide-eyed amazement morphed into horror as the background of the photograph filled in. Her foyer tiles. The glossy white of her expansive front door. The bank statement sat on top of a suitcase in a red faux alligator print. The suitcase she’d packed and unpacked in her mind many times over. Her own.
“You realize why this suitcase is in bright color, don’t you?”
Kelly did.
Thirty-One
Daniel held fate in his hands. It deserved to be tempted.
As he leaned back in his office chair, his thumb brushed the inscription on the base of Gramps’s camera, the wording Simon and Gramps had “discussed.” The camera never lies.
He hoped that was the case this time as well. The Byrnes had been seeing him for a few weeks, and while Sharon had already admitted to an affair with David’s best friend, David had jammed the door shut on whatever kept the fires of his anger stoked.
That ruby-red smile appeared at his office door. It was good that Monique was back. One less fire to extinguish. “Your eleven thirty is here.”
Daniel placed Gramps’s camera on his desk and stood to welcome his clients.
David’s anger stormed in before he did, followed by a perfunctory handshake, thunder raging behind his gruff hello. His expression was always a giveaway to the timbre of discussion they would have. Today would be a long hour.
Sharon gave Daniel a tired smile before sitting down in one of the two chairs while David plopped into the other. Their first twenty minutes would be spent defusing whatever bomb had been activated on their drive to the appointment.
“Great to see both of you. Before we start, I’m taking photos of our clients so the team can get to know you. Would you mind?”
The clouds darkened on David’s face as he twisted his wedding ring. With a sweet smile, Sharon leaned across the gulf between their chairs.
Daniel turned to pick up the camera, but it was gone.
The Camera Never Lies Page 14