Chapter 11
The red glow of the safelight paints everything in my darkroom the color of dried blood.
It’s hard to focus on developing yesterday’s film with police swarming Ivory’s house and my mother’s voice still echoing in my head, but my hands move on autopilot as I’ve done this a thousand times before.
Something about the chemical smell wraps around me like a warm hug.
When I shut off the light, my darkroom is sealed from the world. The black is thick enough to feel against my skin. It’s absolute—no shadows, no edges—just my breathing and the soft sound of film unspooling in my hands. The strip is curled tight, like it wants to hide what it’s holding.
I load the film by memory alone. Fingers tracing the edges, the curl of it fighting me as I place it into the developer tank. When the tank finally seals, I exhale.
The chemicals are already measured. They have to be, because color doesn’t tolerate mistakes.
I pour in the developer and start the timer.
I don’t look at it, though. I always count in my head, the rhythm tight.
The temperature has to be exact. Too warm and the colors bloom wrong.
Too cold and they never arrive at all. I keep my hand on the tank, feeling the faint heat, like a pulse.
This is the worst part—working blind. With black-and-white developing, you see the image form, watch it decide what it’s going to be. But color developing gives you nothing. It keeps its secrets until the end.
At first, nothing happens. Soon the images will begin to surface. Not all at once—just hints. Shapes pushing through the gray. The watery wall of Doomwood Falls materializes first. Then hazy figures emerge from behind it. Although it’s too pitch-black for me to watch it unfold, I imagine it.
Once the initial developer is done, I bleach, fix, and wash the negatives.
I remind myself not to rush. Rushing makes mistakes permanent.
When the process is finished, I take the tank to the sink and open it.
The film slides free, slick and fragile.
I hang it to dry, the strips swaying slightly in the air, a thin ribbon of truth I wish I never stumbled on.
Standing longer than I need to, my hand rests on the light switch, but I don’t flip it yet. Because once the light comes on, there’s no going back. No more uncertainty. Just the facts. I breathe, then turn on the light.
The negatives glow softly, orange-brown and translucent. I lift one strip and hold it up. At first it looks ordinary. Then my eyes adjust on a detail that turns my unease into certainty. The color separates itself from the rest.
Red. A precise, deliberate red where it shouldn’t be. I choose that frame to enlarge.
The room goes dark again, then I prep the paper for exposure, when I burn the image onto it. After the print is ready, it disappears into the chemical bath, and once more I’m waiting, blind and breathless.
This time, when the light returns, there’s no doubt. The red holds. By the time the print is dry enough to touch, my hands are shaking. Not because I don’t understand what I’m seeing, but because I do.
Two figures are tucked behind a wall of rushing water, the woman’s body angled so that her face is mostly turned away, blurred by spray and motion.
If only I could get a better look at her.
I skim over the colorful images—the green edge of shoreline, the gray curve of rocks, the silvery blur of the waterfall… and a ribbon of red blood in the water.
I hadn’t noticed it at the falls yesterday, because I was too focused on the people. But now that it’s frozen in time, it’s as clear as day. There is definitely blood at the base of the waterfall where Fred and the other woman are standing. But whose blood?
“Stop!” Now I’m more certain than ever that’s what I heard the woman say, because here I am staring at a picture that looks like a crime scene. If Fred was capable of hurting whoever this woman is, he could be capable of anything. Including Ivory’s disappearance.
The sound of footsteps echoes outside the darkroom door. Luca’s looking for me, but I don’t want anyone to see this. Not until I know what to make of it. My hands act before my brain catches up. I yank off the gloves, grab the photograph, and bolt out the darkroom door, running into my brother.
“Whoa there. What’s wrong?” he asks as I bounce off of him.
“I’ll explain later,” I say, snaking around him toward the front door that he has yet to fix. For the time being a planter sits on the floor blocking it from blowing open.
“Where are you going?” he presses.
“I’ll be back shortly. I need to do something.” I shove the planter aside with my foot, something an intruder could easily do. This is practically an invitation to break in. “And fix this door, Luca!”
The cool air whips me in the face, but it barely registers. I’m already crossing the street, immediately noticing that the cop cars are gone, the news van has vanished, and Fred’s house looks like it does every other day. Way too normal for its lead resident to be missing.
I pound on the door until my fist aches.
It swings open to reveal Fred, eyes rimmed in gray circles, shirt wrinkled like he grabbed it from the dirty clothes hamper.
Freida appears behind him, arms crossed, her expression permanently carved into disdain.
Good—at least I have a witness in case I go missing next.
“Where’s Ivory?” I shove the damp photo toward Fred’s face, but he reels back and squints at it. “And who is this woman I caught you with?”
He blanches, then grabs my arm and mutters, “Not out here,” while dragging me inside. He shoots his daughter a tense look. “We’re going out back to talk. You stay here.”
“Oh please,” I snap. “Freida’s an adult and should be part of this conversation. Her mother is missing, Fred.”
Freida unfolds her arms and flings them up in exasperation. “Dad, just let her talk. I already know Mom put you in an impossible situation.”
I whirl toward her. “What are you talking about? And why are you blaming your mother?”
“Mom likes attention.” She shrugs, bored. “She’s probably holed up somewhere five-star getting room service and will come back when she feels Dad’s been adequately punished.”
“Your mother is missing, Freida.”
“And?” She lifts one brow. “It’s not the first time.”
Fred shoots her a warning look, but Freida ignores him.
“She used to leave all the time when I was a kid,” Freida says, twirling her hair. “Sometimes for days. She called it me time. I call it being irresponsible. Honestly? I figured she’d leave for good eventually to go back to her ex.”
I had no idea Fred and Freida knew so much about Ivory’s ex-husband.
Certainly he couldn’t have anything to do with this, could he?
But she had been acting cagey two days ago when we were having coffee at The Alibi Café and she had seen someone outside the window.
Maybe it was her ex. Even all these years—and two divorces—later, she still carries a torch for him.
Fred closes his eyes like he’s in pain. “Freida, that’s enough.”
But it isn’t enough, not for me. The way Freida says all of this—like Ivory’s an annoyance instead of her mother—makes my jaw clench.
Even I don’t treat my mother this way and she may as well have disowned me.
But Fred hustles me out the sliding back door before I say something I won’t regret but probably should.
It’s early evening, and the backyard is quiet.
Immaculately neat. The only sign of disrepair is their neglected garden shed barely visible along the woods.
There’s no trace of yesterday’s fallen leaves, and the trays of flowers have been planted in the grave-sized garden bed, which I find odd.
I can’t imagine gardening being on Ivory’s to-do list immediately after finding out her husband is cheating on her.
But Ivory tends to make sure nothing looks wrong on the outside to hide the chaos going on inside.
As soon as I step onto the patio I round on Fred. “I saw you yesterday at the waterfall with another woman.” I hand the photo to him again, and this time he actually accepts it. “Notice anything interesting about this picture?”
He examines it for barely a moment. “Well, first of all, that’s not me,” he says instantly and hands the photo back.
I bark out a laugh that sounds nothing like laughter. “Right. Because you have an identical twin we don’t know about.”
“Prove it’s me.”
“I will,” I threaten. “There’s more film developing right now.” Which isn’t exactly true. “And I’ll take all of it to the police if you don’t start explaining.”
His eyes glint—with fear, or something close enough to count—before he looks away. “I don’t know what else to say.”
“Start by explaining why there’s blood in the water.” I jab my finger at the blossom of red right below the waterfall. “What did you do to Ivory, Fred? Tell me!”
He rubs a hand over the dimple in his unshaven chin. “Shari, I swear… I don’t know where she is. I came home from work last night and she was gone. I already told the police everything. If they thought I hurt her, do you think I’d be standing here talking to you?”
I stare at him so hard my eyes burn. Every part of me wishes he was telling the truth, because that would make this simple and Ivory ran off for some me time without telling anyone.
But the wizened part of me knows the truth is never simple.
Sick, twisting guilt coils through me that if I had kept my mouth shut, if I hadn’t told Ivory what I saw, none of this would have happened.
“Did you tell the police who your mistress is?” I scoff.
Fred doesn’t answer, and his silence sounds worse than a confession. “I’m done talking, Shari.” When he storms away, I chase him to the gate that leads out to the front yard. He opens it, turns to me, and waits for me to leave. “Go home.”
“Not until I have answers.”
“Well, I can’t give you answers, because I don’t have them either. If you want to help Ivory, find out who she’s been meeting with during the day when she doesn’t think I’m watching.”
I don’t like the sound of that—Ivory having mysterious meet-ups.
Or Fred watching her. What did she get herself into?
Maybe she’s been meeting up with her ex.
Maybe she confronted the mistress. Maybe she found out something she shouldn’t have.
Every second that ticks by feels like it’s counting down to something terrible. I just hope I’m not already too late.
I’m halfway to the curb when Fred calls after me. “Shari—wait.”
I stop only because the desperation in his voice doesn’t match the cool, defensive act he was giving me seconds ago. I turn slowly. “What?”
He’s walking across the front yard, hands dangling at his sides. “You… you really think I hurt her?”
“I think somebody did.”
His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “I would never—”
“She’s missing, Fred,” I cut in. “Vanished. After finding out you were cheating.”
“That wasn’t me,” he repeats, and I swear if he says it one more time, I might shove the photo down his throat.
“It. Was. You.” I toss the photo on the grass at his feet, because I can develop more. Lots more. “And I’m not the only one who will see it.”
He looks past me toward the darkening street, the row of matching cookie-cutter houses full of witnesses to this conversation. He lets out a shaky breath, rubbing the back of his neck. I can practically see him calculating, plotting his next move. “You didn’t tell anyone else, did you?”
“Does it matter?”
His gaze snaps back to mine. “Yes.”
There it is. Not concern. Not grief. Fear. But fear of what? Being exposed for the cheating, lying murderer that he is?
“No one else will know,” I finally offer, “until I’m done checking the rest of my film. And then—”
“You’re going to the police,” he finishes bleakly.
“Yes.”
He doesn’t respond. The silence between us stretches, constricting like a rope around my neck. He looks past me toward the dark street again. “Just… be careful, Shari.”
The hairs on the back of my neck perk up. “Why?”
He meets my eyes, and the misery I see nips me in a way I didn’t expect. “Because you don’t know what you’re getting into.”
A hollow pit opens in my stomach. “Is that a threat?”
But Fred only shakes his head and leaves me standing awkwardly at the edge of his front yard wondering what his warning was all about. Obviously I don’t know what I’m getting into, which is kind of the whole point in a missing persons case.
The blood in the water, the mystery other woman, my missing best friend—all of it spirals into one truth I can’t ignore: Fred is lying, and I have no idea how to pry the truth out of him. As I head home, my skin prickles with the sense that someone is watching me.
It wouldn’t be the first time. And it’s easy enough to do in this housing plan.
Cramming as many houses onto tiny lots produced the most profit, despite the discomfort that no one wants the whole street to be able to watch them wash their dishes or do Pilates in their living room.
But that’s the price you pay when you want a brand-new home with an HOA and neighborhood watch. You get watchers.
From my own front yard I can easily observe half a dozen neighbors.
My gaze passes over Zala’s dark house made to look empty, then glides over Wren’s windows brightly glowing with what looks like a selfie ring light used to film her podcast. Ali’s blinds are open and dimly lit, and a figure blocks one of the first-story windows… until the blinds suddenly flip closed.
Someone on Hemlock Drive had to see something, so why are they all hiding what they know?