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“Grace, Shane Malone was just a rude teenager. He didn’t hurt Christopher.”
She regarded him with that special look children use when they’re astounded by the stupidity of the adults who control their lives. “I wasn’t protecting Christopher. I was helping the girl with Shane. When the bright light flashed, I saw Shane hurting her, trying to do what my uncle used to do to my cousin, Lori, when he sneaked into her room at night. The girl screamed, but no one came to help, because everyone screams in that place. So I sent Shane away.”
“There you are,” Miriam appeared at the sliding glass door with the phone in her hand. “It’s the detective working on the Shane Malone disappearance.”
John accepted the receiver. The mild summer air felt as treacherous as a riptide.
“Sorry to bother you again, Mr. Harrigan,” the detective said. “I happened to notice a discrepancy. The credit card records indicate you paid for five admissions, but your family photo shows only four people. Who’s missing?”
John’s hand tightened on the phone. “Uh… Grace. She’s nine. She was hiding behind me because she was scared. When the flash went off, she must’ve jumped back and got cut out of the picture.”
How quickly the lie had formed in his mind. How glibly it flowed from his lips. John realized he was holding his breath, waiting to hear if the detective accepted this explanation.
“That’s what I figured, but I had to check.”
John could hear the disappointment in the detective’s voice.
“Just for the record, Grace is your daughter?”
John looked across the deck. Grace stood by the railing, her fair hair illuminated by the rising moon. She’d caught a firefly in her hand and was studying its rhythmic flashing. Then she shook her hand and smiled as it flew into the night.
“Yes,” John said. “Grace is my daughter.”
Sift, Almost Invisible, Through by Jeffrey Somers
I
“What am I looking at?”
The little man, Richard Harrows, pushed his thin wire glasses up the bridge of his nose and leaned forward a little. Philip K. Marks looked up at him and kept his face blank.
“A photo, Mr. Marks.”
“Did you take it?”
“No. This was last year, on vacation. I’d asked someone to take my picture.”
Marks hoped the little man wouldn’t launch into a description of the trip. “Okay. Why am I looking at it?”
“Because of him.”
Harrows reached over the desk to point a nail-bitten, shaking finger at the photo. Marks followed it to where a thin man had been caught by the camera, leaning against a railing. Marks glanced up.
“So?”
Richard Harrows was a balding, short man with a precise and nervous air. Marks had seen plenty of people in his time, and his professional opinion of Richard Harrows was that the man was the sort of honest-by-default person you could trust but never rely on.
“Look closer, Mr. Marks.”
Marks sighed and returned his attention to the photograph. The man was tall, and wearing a dark suit and white shirt. He was off to the left side of the framed area, behind Harrows’ shoulder, leaning casually against the railing, one hand in a pocket. Marks studied his blurry form and blinked, looking up at Harrows.
“You know this guy?”
Harrows laughed nervously. “I’ve never seen him. Not in the flesh.”
“Because I would swear he’s looking at you. Or at the camera.” Marks shook his head. It was an odd impression, the more so because the focus of the camera was obviously nowhere near the man.
“Ah, yes,” Harrows said with another little laugh, “you see, Mr. Marks, that was the begi
Marks glanced up sharply. “Excuse me?”
“Look.” Harrows produced a small stack of photos. “Here are samples from the past year. The one you have is the first, and it is from almost a year ago exactly. Here are others.”
Marks took the stack and examined them in turn. In each photo of Harrows, obviously taken at different times, during different seasons, in different places, the thin man appeared, in the same dark suit, looking directly at the camera, always just off from the actual focus of the picture.
“You’re sure you’ve never met him? That you don’t know him?”
Harrows shook his head. “Mr. Marks, I would swear that he was never there. I would have a photo taken of me somewhere, anywhere-I like to travel, you see-and be sure he wasn’t there. This is more recently, when I became aware of him, you see. Then, I’d develop the film, and there he’d be.”
Marks shook his head. “It is odd how he seems to be following you, and how he seems to know you’re posing for photos, but I still don’t see-”
“Mr. Marks, I came to you because of your reputation-”
“For being someone who believes every line of bullshit that comes through my office,” Marks finished. “I’m well aware of my reputation, Mr. Harrows. I’d like to think I also have a reputation for getting paid to look into things.”
“Mr. Marks,” Harrows said slowly, “I think you will be interested in my story, because if you look at the photos again-they are arranged in chronological order-you will note that he appears to be getting closer.”
Marks looked through the photos again and felt a chill go through him. He could see, over the course of the fifteen or twenty photos, that the thin man was slightly closer to the camera each time.
Marks looked up. “All right, Mr. Harrows-”
Harrows held up a hand. “Finally, Mr. Marks, there is this.” He pulled another photo from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to the reporter. “Taken just two days ago, at my father’s house. Family reunion, of sorts.”
Marks looked at the photo. He picked out Harrows, two men who appeared to be his brothers or close cousins, and an older man unmistakably his father, mixed in with about ten or fifteen men and women. They stood in an attractive and comfortable-looking living room, sporting two large bay windows. Marks almost jumped when he noticed the thin man standing, partially obscured by a drape, outside one of the windows. He appeared to be bending down slightly to see around the fabric.
“Damn near shit myself,” Harrows said.
“I’ll bet.” Marks considered. “May I keep these?”
Harrows smiled. “You’ll look into it?”
Marks smiled and raised his eyebrows. “You’ll pay me?”
II
Phillip K. Marks was a man in his late thirties, a slight dusting of beard on his face, and a sloppy suit of brown clothes on his broad, tall frame. He smoked cigarettes in a never-ending chain and had a half-full bottle of cheap bourbon in one desk drawer that would be empty within a month. He made a small living doing whatever people wanted to pay him for, relying on word of mouth for advertising. A man lacking any remarkable skills at all, he was proud of himself for having found a niche, even one whose only requirement was a tolerance for pain, humiliation, and dogged relentlessness.
After Harrows had left his small, rented office, Marks pulled out the bottle and poured himself two fingers of liquor, lit a new cigarette off the coal of the old one, and sat back in his chair contemplating the photographs for some time. Without taking his eyes from the newest one, he reached for the phone, dialed by feel, and waited a moment.
“Ralph Tomlin, please.”
He turned the family reunion upside down thoughtfully.
“Hey, Ralph, Phil Marks. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Listen, you think you could squeeze in a favor? Sure, it’s right up your alley. Some photos. Well, I just want to see if they’ve been faked or altered in some way. Ah, peace of mind, you know. You’re handed something and told, hey look at this, you want to be sure you know what you’re looking at. A bunch of photographs-maybe fifteen. You got time?”