Free The Photographer by Barbara Steiner Page B

Didn’t all camera manufacturers label their cameras? The camera suddenly felt hot to her touch, and she set it down quickly, as if it could burn her fingers.
    Again she looked at all the photographs. She stared at Cynthia’s smiling face. Anger started deep inside and crawled up Megan’s spine until it reached her throat, choking her.
    She tried to swallow it, push it down. Anger wasn’t going to help her right now. She tried to think, be logical. Logically.… Megan stopped. None of this was logical. That was the problem. But if the photos somehow made the girls ill, would destroying Derrick’s work make them feel better? If it did, she would at least have more evidence in her mind—still not concrete evidence, but proof for her idea. Maybe then … But there wasn’t time to formulate a further plan now.
    Quickly, with no more time to speculate on the situation, Megan started pulling the photos off the wall. She dropped the pins to the floor as she grabbed each pasteboard face. Click, click, click. When her fist was full, she piled them up and started another row. So many—a larger number of Cynthia, and Cynthia was the sickest of them all. But there were at least ten or twelve of each girl. Megan wished she had a sack, her backpack, anything. For a second she hesitated as she knelt at the bottom row. Then she grabbed the four pictures of Derrick’s mother.
    Clutching the awkward pile of photos, most printed on slick paper, Megan piled them outside the darkroom door, snapped off the light, and turned the key. Jumping on the chair, she returned the key to the shell, placed the chair back under Derrick’s desk, and prepared to leave the room. Silly—he would know someone had been there when he saw the photos were gone.
    In the hall, she hesitated. It took both hands to clasp the pictures to her chest. Pulling up the bottom of her jacket, she made a kind of pouch to help hold them. She could scarcely see and couldn’t believe a house could be so dark. One flip on and off of her flashlight showed her the stairs. She started down. Then her foot slipped and she had to grab for the bannister. Fortunately, she didn’t drop her light, but all the pictures slid downward with a soft rustle.
    Damn. For a moment she froze on the second stair and waited. Had Derrick’s mother heard? Would she investigate? Megan could tell her the story quickly, but would she believe it? She would believe she hadn’t felt well—but that her son was doing it? No.
    Snapping on the light again, she started gathering up pictures as fast as possible. Turning, she flashed the light up and down the carpeted stairway. Did she have them all? Quickly she stripped off her jacket and wrapped the photos in it. She couldn’t risk dropping them again. Her light showed one picture in the downstairs hall. Cynthia smiled up at her as she grabbed it and added it to the pile.
    She tied her jacket arms over the package and pressed it to her. She listened again. There was a tinkle of ice and the murmur of Mrs. Ames’s voice. She was still on the phone. Thank goodness. Hurrying out the door, Megan had reached Mrs. Ames’s station wagon when the lights of an approaching car lit up the street. The rattle and clunk was familiar. Derrick was home! She shuddered as she imagined those steel gray eyes on her as she knelt on the stairs picking up his photos.
    Huddling into as small a heap as possible, she leaned on the right front tire of the wagon as Derrick parked on the street. The cold of the hubcap seared through her sweater. Without her jacket, she started to shiver. The slam of the van door echoed across the dark streets. Then there was the soft thud and crunch of his shoes on the flagstone walks and the gravel in between the stones.
    She heard Derrick swear as he found his mother’s keys in the door. He would take them in, find his mother on the phone, show her how careless she was when she was