Free Double Image by David Morrell Page A

into the distance. “That was a one-time only chance. Even if another helicopter flies past, the odds are it’ll never be in the same spot as Packard’s falcon.”
    Jennifer studied the sky. “You’re losing the light faster than we expected.”
    “There might be enough for a couple more.”
    A soft voice asked, “Do you suppose . . .”
    Puzzled, Coltrane looked at Diane.
    “When you’re finished taking pictures of the house . . .” Diane hesitated.
    “Yes?”
    “Could you take one of me?”
    “Of course. It would be my pleasure.”
    “You’re sure I’m not imposing?”
    “Not at all. You made us feel welcome. I’d enjoy repaying the favor. If you turn this way . . . yes . . . with the sunset on your face . . .” Coltrane smiled. “It’ll be lovely.”
     
6
     
    “SHE’S DYING,” Coltrane said, driving from the mansion.
    “Something’s definitely wrong,” Jennifer said.
    In his rearview mirror, Coltrane saw Diane standing in her driveway, her arms crossed on her oversized sweater, forlornly watching them head back toward Benedict Canyon Drive. Then he rounded a corner, and she disappeared.
    “Studying her through the camera made it even more obvious,” Coltrane said. “The hollows around her eyes. I don’t think she has any hair under that kerchief. I think she’s bald from chemotherapy. I think getting married on Saturday is her attempt to grab at life.”
    Jennifer didn’t say anything for a moment. “Yes. To grab at life.”
    It was after dark, around six, when they pulled into the garage beneath Coltrane’s town house in Westwood. Jennifer’s BMW was at the curb.
    “Do you want to get something to eat?” she asked.
    “What I’d really like to do is go into the darkroom and develop these negatives.”
    The photographs of Falcon Lair turned out to be excellent. Most were a close match to the angle Packard had used, but close wouldn’t do it. For the exercise to work, the match had to be perfect. The one with the helicopter in place of the falcon did the trick. All Coltrane had to do was crop it a little and print a slight enlargement of the cropped area so that Falcon Lair was precisely the same size in both photos. Eerily, the helicopter was almost exactly where the falcon had been. By modifying the development period, Coltrane was able to get the same crisp black-and-white definition that Packard had. When he glanced from Packard’s photo to his own, he had the odd sensation that he was looking at time-lapse photography, that both pictures had been taken by the same person, who had made himself wait motionless in one spot for two-thirds of a century. Staring at that relic from the past, he couldn’t help recalling that after Valentino’s death, Buster Keaton had moved into the area and put up an Italian villa. John Gilbert had built a Mediterranean palace. Other movie stars — their names no longer familiar — had built their own mansions. All lost and gone. Only Falcon Lair remained. And
would
remain as long as Packard’s photo and his own survived.
    “It’s a keeper.” Jennifer put an arm around him.
    But the photograph of Falcon Lair wasn’t the treasure of the day. That honor went to the image of Diane.
    He had done it in color. The glow of sunset chased the wanness from Diane’s cheeks. Her face was raised yearningly, her recessed eyes sad, her gaunt features determined, her frail shoulders braced as she smiled wistfully toward the sunset of her life.
    “
That
I want my name on,” Coltrane said. “Her bravery’s an inspiration.”
    “Packard would have been pleased to take that picture,” Jennifer said.
    While they worked in the darkroom, they heard the phone ring on three different occasions. Each time, it stopped after four rings, the limit Coltrane had set for the answering machine to engage. “It’s probably more reporters wanting an interview about those war-atrocity photos. I hope my fifteen minutes of notoriety soon stop,” he said.
    But