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Sloan stood next to Nora. In front of them was a long workbench stacked with photography and developing equipment.
“This is the enlarger,” Nora said, adjusting the machine in front of her. “The film from the camera gets fed into the negative carrier here.”
Sloan watched as Nora placed the roll of film into the machine.
“Then, the enlarger projects the image captured on the film onto a piece of photo paper that we place here.”
Nora secured a sheet of glossy photo paper into the easel below the enlarger, then used the focusing scope to check the sharpness of the projected image.
“After the image goes through several seconds of exposure, which invisibly imprints it onto the photo paper, we move the paper through a series of chemicals.”
The exposure process took nearly a minute before Nora unfastened the still blank piece of photo paper from the easel and used a pair of tongs to submerge it into a tray of liquid.
“This first tray is developing solution. We leave it here for about sixty seconds.”
Sloan moved closer and watched over Nora’s shoulder.
“Then,” Nora said, using a different set of tongs, “we move it to the stop bath. It stays here for just a few seconds before we transfer it to the final tray here, the fixer.”
“I still don’t see anything,” Sloan said as she stared at the photo paper that rested below the surface of the liquid.
“It takes a couple minutes. Keep looking.”
Eventually, after three minutes in the tray, an image began to take shape on the paper. Faint at first, and then more vivid, Sloan watched the image of herself smiling into the camera come to life, slowly developing into a vibrant photo.
Nora used the tongs to remove the photo, which she clipped to a clothesline to dry. As the photo dripped, Sloan’s face came fully into focus.
“There you have it. Nice picture of a beautiful young woman. It takes a long time, and it’s a lot of work compared to today’s world of instant gratification.”
“Yeah,” Sloan said. “But I can see why you love it so much. I knew what was on the film, and I was still excited to see how it turned out.”
Nora smiled. Her face glowed in the red light of the darkroom.
“Your mom loved it, too.”
Back in the studio, Sloan and Nora made it through the first box. They spent the morning poring through the photos Annabelle had taken the summer she disappeared. Nora gave a tutorial of every part of town captured in the pictures, and explained the techniques Annabelle had used so expertly. Annabelle was, Nora told her, becoming quite a photographer. After a couple of hours they decided to save the other two boxes for next time.
“This has really been a special morning for me,” Sloan said. “Thanks for showing me Annabelle’s photos. In some small way, I feel like these pictures have helped me connect with my birth mother.”
Nora smiled. “And there’re still two more boxes. We can go through them this week.”
“I can’t wait.”
“I’m busy the next couple of days with photo shoots, but then I’m wide open.”
“Tilly and Reid wanted to see me again this week. I’ll call you Wednesday or Thursday?”
“Perfect.”
A minute later Sloan sat in her rental car. Before she pulled away from the studio, she took out her phone and found Nora Margolis in her contacts. She clicked the edit button and changed the information to read Aunt Nora.
CHAPTER 31
Raleigh, North Carolina Monday, July 29, 2024
RYDER HILLIER’S REPUTATION AS A TRUE CRIME REPORTER AND breaking-news podcaster had been partially built on her ability to give her fans new details about some of the country’s coldest cases. But Ryder Hillier did not just break news. She found answers. And soon, after she broke the baby Charlotte Margolis story wide open, the mainstream media outlets would jump on the bandwagon and Ryder would be up against the bigwigs like Dante Campbell and Avery Mason and the lot of network reporters who had unlimited budgets and massive teams to chase the story. Ryder had spent the night in her car in the parking lot of Sloan’s apartment complex. The apartment had stayed dark all night. If Ryder wanted to find Sloan Hastings, she needed to get creative.
In a strange twist to the story, Ryder had learned that Sloan Hastings was studying under Dr. Livia Cutty, who was a medical consultant for NBC, HAP News, and a number of other networks, which meant those outlets would have an inside scoop that Ryder did not. The pressure was on. Getting the first interview with Sloan Hastings, even if it was just an ambush video on her cell phone, would be huge for Unsolved and would generate millions of views on her YouTube channel. If Ryder could capture the first baby Charlotte sighting, it would have her ravenous audience salivating. The stakes were high to make something happen, and make it happen soon, which was what brought Ryder to Hastings Family Dental & Orthodontics Center under the ruse of a molar gone rotten.
