Milly nodded. “That explains what Gramps told me.”
Daniel’s quick glance at Kelly collided with the one she shot him.
“He kept telling me the camera never lies. That’s why I’ve been taking photos of you, because I was trying to find out what was really going on—seeing as you never told me. But it never showed me anything, so I’m not sure if I believe him anymore.”
That explained her photos. She was looking for truth the whole time, and when she didn’t find it, she created it. With camera angles and overlaid hot-pink love hearts.
Kelly stood and held Milly tight. “Is it my turn to ask a question?”
Milly nodded, her cheeks tugging with her emerging smile.
“With your school grades, was that all just to get our attention?”
Milly’s smile faltered, her quick eyes darting to Daniel’s face. “Um, yes.”
So there was more behind her performance at school. Thank goodness Anna had made a connection with her.
Kelly hugged Milly tighter. “Thanks for being honest with me. Can I ask one more question?”
“Sure,” Daniel and Milly answered in unison.
“Can we go inside? It’s freezing out here.”
Forty-Three
Daniel took a deep breath as he stood outside Anna’s open office door. He had to start with her. She deserved it.
At his polite knock, Anna looked up from her laptop and smiled. “You look better than the last time I saw you.”
“Things are on the up.”
Anna nodded. Professionally.
“I need to come clean with you.” He closed the door behind him.
“Okay.” She gestured to her couch and tapped her fingers together under her chin.
There was no other way to say it. “No Secrets was first written by Howard.”
Anna’s fingers froze mid-tap.
“When we were cleaning out his office after the funeral, I found the manuscript in his desk. I rewrote some of it, but it’s pretty much his.”
Anna’s eyebrow stayed low, but her mouth dropped open in shock. “You stole Howard’s book?” She retreated into professional silence.
“Yes.” He studied her.
Tears formed in Anna’s eyes. “How could you?”
Daniel knee-jerked into defense to justify what he’d done. After all, he’d saved the practice. But then he quickly thought better of it. “At the time it solved the problem of the bank wanting to shut us down, but that doesn’t change the fact that the book was Howard’s.”
“It’s not fraud, is it?”
Daniel shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve left a message with the publisher.”
Anna nodded, lips pursed, her eyes flicking around the room. “Well, even if it is, I’ll stand by you, as a professional and as a friend.”
Daniel was touched. “Thank you, and there’s something else.” The vertigo again pooled at the base of his spine as another uncomfortable revelation was about to be breathed into life. “Do you remember when we talked about Kelly thinking there was someone else? You asked me if I’d given her any reason to think there was. Well, I’ve been thinking about you inappropriately.”
Anna flushed. “Daniel!”
“No, not like that, but I’ve been relying on you more than I should be. More than on Kelly.”
Anna raised an eyebrow. That eyebrow. “So that’s why Kelly thought there was something between us?”
“There was also Monique. I could say Kelly was threatened by her—and she probably was—but I need to own my behavior. I might have been leading her on, and that wasn’t the right thing to do.”
“Monique needs to hear that.” She buzzed reception on her desk phone. “Do you have a moment?”
Monique trudged into Anna’s office, her usual bounce gone, her lips a dull shade of purple. “Yes?”
Her transformation shocked him. Was he responsible for this as well? He rubbed his hands and caught her eye. “Monique, I flirted with you, and I’m sorry. I meant what I said to you. You don’t need the attention of other people to justify being alive. You’re a great young woman who doesn’t need other people’s approval.”
She burst into a shower of tears.
“I mentioned to you before that your friend could have a more professional conversation. Would you like that?”
Monique bowed her head, a mumble coming from her chest. “You’ve got no idea how hard it is to work in a place where everyone else has it together. To be happy all the time when you’re broken inside.”
Actually, I do.
Anna leaned forward, offering Monique a tissue. “You’d be surprised just how many people feel that.”
The sense of vertigo was back. “Me included.”
Monique’s head snapped up to look at him. “Really?”
Daniel held back a laugh as Gramps’s wisdom again rang true. “There’s more to life than what we see. We all struggle with our own acceptance of truth, especially when it points to something we would prefer not to see.”
“Maybe you should put that in your next book.”
The spark within him flicked into flame. His next book. Maybe it was closer than he realized.
The phone out in the reception area rang, and Monique touched her Bluetooth headset as she gathered her composure. “Welcome to Crossroads Counseling. This is Monique.”
She nodded and shot another look at Daniel, her lips giving him a silent warning. Your editor.
Daniel took a deep breath. This was the call that could either save him or cost him everything. He hurried to his office to take it, steeled himself, and pressed the flashing red button. “Amanda!”
“Returning your call, Daniel.” Amanda’s voice was flat. Very flat.
A wash of anxiety covered Daniel in its usual anesthetic wave, but it was tinged with something different. Something almost justified. Something earned.
Daniel took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
Forty-Four
The reflections of Daniel’s family stared back at him from the polished front window of Simon’s Film Lab. It had been a roller-coaster twenty-four hours since Milly stepped down from the railing. A reawakening of connection. A realization of a now uncertain future. But certainty in facing it together.
“How about we get some dumplings after we’ve seen Simon?” It felt right to start the next phase of life with a celebration. They might be the last dumplings they had in a while.
The little bell jingled as Kelly stepped past Daniel and the wall full of frames opposite the shelves of cameras. She enveloped Simon in a hug when he stepped out from behind the counter.
“It’s wonderful to see you, too, Kelly.”
“I’ve got something to show you.” She reached into her handbag and pulled out a sheet of paper bearing a bright purple logo. “I closed it.” She tore the bank statement in two and threw both halves into the air.
Tears glistened in Simon’s eyes. “You’ve accepted your truth. Now you’re on a happier path.” To Kelly’s left, the slightest movement—the fluttering of butterfly wings. In the ornate gold frame, the bright purple sitting on top of her now-grayed suitcase drained of color before the entire picture dematerialized, leaving just a blank sheet of glossy white paper.
Daniel strode to a large pine frame at the far end of the wall. He stood before it as the front cover of his book evaporated. Relief washed over him as his secret was replaced by a curly-headed young man hurling a remote control at a basketball game on TV, a fierce desperation in his eyes.
Simon wiped the tears from his cheeks. “I’m so proud of both of you. Where is Gramps’s camera, Daniel?”
“It’s on my desk at home, and it’s taken no more photos.”
“Perhaps the camera has revealed its truth for you. Maybe you need to give it to someone who needs it as much as you did.”
He smiled at Kelly. They’d discussed that very thing an hour earlier.
“I must admit, I did toy again with the idea of using the came
ra in my counseling sessions, thinking it could help me cut to the chase with those people who sit in front of me in flat-out denial.”
“And how did that work out when you tried it?”
“It’s just disappointing not being able to use such a powerful tool to help people be honest with themselves.”
“Well, Daniel, even when you were faced with the truth, your life turned around only when you accepted it. When you decided to come clean with those around you.”
A low-burning flame within him that had started with the tiniest spark flared into life, fanned by his imagination. He could share his story of hiding secrets and working through the process of revealing them.
On paper.
In book two.
Daniel felt light-headed with relief as the story unfolded in his head, but the risk loomed large. Difficult, and out of his control. Coming clean with Kelly, Milly, work, his publisher . . . Doubt dripped onto one corner of his burgeoning resolve as he realized how hard he would have to work to win back their trust. And without a guarantee that the effort would work.
Daniel stepped closer to him. “May I tell the story of your film lab and the cameras you sell in my next book?”
Simon bowed. “If you like.”
“It would be a powerful accompaniment to how my life turned around when I had no option but to focus on the truth.”
Kelly stared at Simon. “Where did you come from?”
“The question you should ask is, where am I needed next?”
Daniel chuckled. He shouldn’t have expected anything different from this strange young man. “Thanks so much for showing us what we needed to see. You saved us.”
Simon looked past them to the girl standing just inside the doorway—without earbuds. He rushed to greet her with an outstretched hand. “It’s Milly, isn’t it? It is an absolute pleasure to meet you. Gosh, you remind me of your father.”
Milly winced amid an awkward handshake. Daniel smiled at his daughter. She had been so much happier even in one day.
Milly seemed to be sizing Simon up as she withdrew her hand. “Are you the guy who did something to make Mom and Dad patch things up?”
Simon nodded, once.
“Well, thanks . . . for whatever you did.”
Simon smiled. “You should thank your parents. They brought their problems out into the open. They each held a part of the solution.” He winked at Daniel. “All I did was comfort them in the knowledge that the truth—one of the most powerful forces in life—would set them free.”
“So long, Simon.” Daniel bid him farewell with a firm handshake. “I’ll make sure I tell others to come and see you—with or without cameras and film—or at least remind them there’s truly more to life than what they see.”
Simon bit his lower lip, his eyes again glistening. “Your next book will be more than reminding others of the truth around them. It will also be about accepting truth yourself. You may find the person who needs this book the most is you.”
Kelly hugged Simon again, and the tiny bell jingled their departure from the film lab.
* * *
The red-and-yellow paper lanterns fluttered as Kelly stepped into Ming’s Court Chinese Restaurant. The proprietor came to meet them, reaching out to hold Kelly’s hands.
“Welcome, welcome! So pleased to see you again, Daniel, and this time you have brought your family!” He bowed slightly to Milly. “And your daughter has grown so much.”
Milly smiled back at him. Another smile, so soon after the first. It was so good to see.
Mr. Ming flitted around them, scanning the empty room for a free table. “Please, please, I will find a table for you.”
A thought jumped up at Kelly. “Oh no! I left that bank statement behind. It’s better if I dispose of it. I don’t want my personal information out there for anyone to see. I’ll only be a minute.”
Kelly hurried past the bubbling fish tank, and the paper lanterns swung hard in her wake as she stepped outside. Her phone pinged. A text. From Jasmine. “Hey, check out the news tonight. I think you might have left Rubicon Pharma at just the right time. Tarquin was just marched out of the building.”
Smiling to herself, Kelly leaned on the door to Simon’s Film Lab, but there was no jingle. She looked up in surprise. The shop that was bright and welcoming a minute ago was now dark. Dust and cobwebs covered the window, and when she peered through, she saw no frames on the wall. No cameras on shelves. The glass counter was dusty as well, and in the faint light, she could see that the back of the film lab was empty.
And under her hand, a For Lease sign had been stuck on the middle of the door.
Forty-Five
As if to catch its breath, the blinking cursor screeched to a halt on Daniel’s screen. Then it resumed its scooting, chased by rapid-fire letters bursting from Daniel’s flashing fingers. He flicked a glance at Gramps’s open briefcase, now sitting on his home office desk.
Chapter after chapter of Coming Clean poured out of him at a rate of a thousand words an hour. And good words, not just verbiage that the cold light of a new day would slash and burn. He would be finished with his first draft today, and he just knew he could find another publisher. He had to. Amanda’s email was surgical and precise in its wording, as most emails drafted by a legal team are. They were looking at their options. Legal ones.
Each glance at the camera and album, which leaned against the worn and faded paisley pattern, revealed another inspiration as he added to his grandfather’s story. It was no longer just a journey of eighty-eight years; it now had an extra three weeks tacked onto the end, which even on their own felt like nearly nine decades.
A rising confidence he could pull this off overshadowed the usual numbing anxiety. He had to find a publisher. Coming Clean would not only have a powerful message about honesty but also an author living the consequences of keeping secrets in real time.
Daniel’s fingers flashed faster as the words continued to fly, telling how he’d accepted the fact that truth could be more a journey than a destination. How he’d accepted that challenge for himself, for those he worked with, and for those his experience had touched.
No chapter held back. As each of his failings presented itself for examination, he felt as if three years of stress peeled away like sunburned skin, revealing a fresh, vibrant layer beneath. Simon was right. The chief beneficiary of this book was him.
His fingers slowed as he approached the end of another chapter and the current point in his life. His index finger tapped at the keys. He couldn’t end the story here. Something was missing.
Daniel leaned across to the briefcase and picked up the photo album, the cardboard groaning as he flicked through its pages. His eyes were now open to the truth held under tiny black triangles. These photos didn’t show just the worst of the people in them; they were their truest representation. These weren’t people before the right moment; they were people right in the moment, or the consequence of it. Garth could have been homeless had he not addressed his drinking. Gramps’s other friends could have been destroyed had they followed their addictions. His own marriage could have been over.
Daniel laid the album back in the briefcase and pulled out the camera. The tiny window on top of it still read “1.” As it had from the moment they’d gone to counseling.
Daniel sighed. It would be so handy to have this camera in his office at Crossroads. But being confronted with truth was one thing; dealing with it was another. He placed the camera back in the briefcase, almost with reverence. He had been saved from a broken and lonely future. And he knew what needed to happen with the camera now.
Daniel pulled the envelope with familiar upright writing on it from the briefcase. He opened the letter inside and read it again. When he propped it up on a photo of Kelly, Milly, and himself, he knew how he would complete the book. At the beginning.
He closed his eyes for a moment. Then he scrolled back to the start of the document, and with a gentle sigh, his fingers moved almost of their own
accord.
Gramps, very little surprises me, but the gift of your camera did. It helped me see beyond the knowledge I thought I had, to see that sometimes the best way to come clean is to acknowledge that the peace of truth outweighs the pain of revelation.
You were right to worry about my family. I shifted the conversation away every time you tried to talk to me about what was going on because it was another reminder of my failure. I was less than the person I wanted you to see, than the person I wanted to be. Without the camera I wouldn’t have lasted. I thought I could work through my problems on my own, but I couldn’t. I needed the ability to hide my secrets taken away.
So thanks for your gift. I’m so sorry I couldn’t have helped you overcome your demons, but I’m forever proud that you did.
Now I talk with my clients differently. The camera has taught me there’s always more to life than what we see, and I truly believe it.
Tears streamed down Daniel’s face.
I love you, Gramps.
Daniel
He stared at the blinking cursor. The book was complete. He folded Gramps’s letter and returned it to its envelope, and then his eyes settled on the family photo on which it had rested. His mother had taken it after their first counseling session. They were sitting on their sofa, the sun flooding over them from the deck. Milly beamed from between her parents, Daniel’s arm around her shoulder and resting on Kelly’s. Renewed hope shone in three pairs of eyes—a hope not clouded by an uncertain future but ready to take it on.
Epilogue
The music drifted from Milly’s bookshelf, filling her room instead of being pumped into her ears. She turned the tiny canister over, its metal cold in her fingers, a foreign object to someone whose photos appeared in her hand in an instant.
Life had been better the past two weeks than for as long as she could remember. The low cloud that seemed to hang over every conversation had lifted, and Mom and Dad were trying, which was all she’d ever wanted.
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