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“He’s on his way home from the gala.”
“I’ll help you with the baby while we wait for him.”
Annabelle closed her eyes. She just wanted to climb into the car with Preston and Charlotte and get as far away from Cedar Creek as possible. Running on very little sleep, she had no energy to deal with her mother-in-law.
Tilly came over to the sink and reached for the bottle Annabelle was cleaning. Annabelle pulled it away.
“Tilly, I can’t do this right now. I was up all night with Charlotte and just don’t have the energy to fight with you.”
“Who’s fighting?”
Annabelle finished rinsing the bottle and then went to the cupboard and removed Charlotte’s formula.
“Where are you going, Annabelle? With all your bags packed and so late in the afternoon?”
The condescension sent Annabelle over the edge. She turned around to face her mother-in-law as they stood in front of the sink.
“We’re leaving, Tilly.”
Tilly let out a patronizing laugh. “Who’s leaving?”
“Preston and me. We’re leaving this house and this town and all the crap that’s attached to it.”
“Oh, that’s silly. If you’d like to leave, that’s fine. It’s welcomed, actually. But my son? You think you’re going to take my son away? Who do you think you are?”
“His wife! I’m his wife, Tilly. Do you even hear yourself? You talk about your thirty-year-old son the same way I talk about my infant daughter. Preston is a grown man, and grown men make their own decisions. They don’t do what mommy tells them to do.”
“And you think Preston wants to leave Cedar Creek?”
Now it was Annabelle’s turn to laugh. “You think you control everything that goes on, but you know so little. And when you find out, your perfect little world with all your money, and the cookie-cutter houses you make your kids live in, and your country-club lifestyle, it’s all going to crumble. And the sad thing is, you don’t even know it’s about to happen.”
Charlotte began to fuss. The rising tone of Annabelle and Tilly’s exchange caused her to cry and squirm in her bassinet.
CHAPTER 64
Bend, Oregon Friday, August 2, 2024
“I HAVE NO IDEA,” NORA SAID IN RESPONSE TO SLOAN’S QUESTION about who was operating the camera in the photos of Annabelle and Tilly.
“How many negatives are left on the roll?” Sloan asked.
Nora went to the enlarger. “Four.”
“Let’s go. Let’s see what’s on them.”
A frantic energy filled the darkroom. As Sloan and Nora stood in the red glow of the safelight, they both sensed they were on the precipice of solving a decades-old mystery, even if they could not comprehend what they were about to uncover.
Nora worked expertly now. She was no longer a teacher taking Sloan under her wings. She was a master, running through the developing process like someone who’d done it thousands of times before, pointing and giving orders that Sloan followed without hesitation. Nora exposed the negative onto the photo paper in twelve-second increments to make sure they’d have a clear image. Then she ran the blank photo paper through the developing baths. This time, though, as they waited while the image sat in the final tray, Nora got busy working on the next negative. By the time she had the photo submerged in the developing solution, the first image was ready to come out of the fixer.
While Nora prepared the next negative on the roll, Sloan clipped the photo to the drying rack and then she used tongs to move the second image to the stop bath. Her movements were rushed, but under Nora’s guidance, each step of the process was done correctly. Finally, they had four photos hanging on the drying rack, each in different stages of development.
The first image, still dripping with fixer solution, had come to life. Slightly blurred, it showed Tilly with a handful of Annabelle’s hair and Annabelle’s head pulled down from the force.
“They’re . . .” Sloan pulled the photo off the drying rack. “Fighting.”
Nora removed the second photo from the drying rack, and they stared at it. The seconds passed at a snail’s pace as they waited for the image to form. Finally, the color came through and they witnessed Annabelle pinning Tilly against the kitchen counter with outstretched arms.
Nora grabbed the third photo from the drying rack. She and Sloan were breathing heavily, the pictures were a portal to the past that put them both in the middle of the battle being waged inside Annabelle Margolis’s home nearly thirty years earlier. Nora blew on the blank photo to hurry the developing process. As the image visualized, she gasped.
