Page 32 of A Killing Cold

I hesitate only briefly before opening the door to the bedroom. I’m just here to collect a book for a toddler, not root around in people’s private things. Surely I can be forgiven.

Inside, a rollaway bed has been set up against one wall, clearly for Sebastian. There’s a small stack of books next to it, but a quick perusal revealsWhere’s Spot?and a grab bag of Sandra Boynton, but nothing that might answer to the name Fergus. I linger briefly over the stack of board books, imagining Alexis and Paloma sitting with Sebastian, reading to him. They’d do silly voices, hiss for the snake hiding in the clock, not let up until Sebastian was shrieking with laughter.

I remember being curled in the crook of an arm, warm and sleepy. My hands fanned over the pages, refusing to let them turn. It’s one of the few memories I have that I’m certain is from before I went to live with the Scotts, and sometimes I will myself to turn my head, to see who it is who’s holding me.

The woman in the red scarf?

Liam Dalton?

I shake the memory and my questions away. Still no Fergus. I’m out of places to look without digging through their things, and I can’t. Sebastian is just going to have to do without.

“Fergus,pwease,” he hollers right at that moment, and what am I supposed to do, say no? Pretty sure that’s illegal.

I’ll just take a quick look. There’s a set of suitcases in the corner. None of them look particularly kid-like, but I gamble on the smallest one, unzipping it before I can think better of the whole thing. Sure enough, it’s full of kid clothes—but no sign of any books.

I close it back up. I take hold of the zipper of the next one along. What the hell. I’m just looking for a picture book, I remind myself, and open it.

I’m relieved to find neatly folded clothes and, tossed on top as if at the last minute before heading out the door, a book about a bear named Fergus.

“Found it!” I report, and I’m rewarded with a singsong “Hurray!” I pick up the book. My fingers snag on what’s beneath it. A plain manila envelope. I pause, staring at it.

This is Alexis’s suitcase—I can tell from the size zero clothes.

Alexis, who’s been so kind.

Alexis, who keeps pulling Connor away to talk to him about somethingimportant.

The text messages are still waiting on my phone, my little gift hidden away. The envelope probably has nothing to do with any of it—but what if…?

I carefully lift the flap and slide my fingers inside. I touch the glossy surface of photographic paper—several sheets.

I slide the photographs out. The first shows a young woman from behind. She’s slim; her hair is honeyed brown. She sits on the edge of a bed, a sheet covering her lower body, her upper body completely bare. She’s looking over her shoulder at the camera, but her expression is anything but alluring. The point of the photo is not the woman’s body but the marks on it. Bruises at the hip, the shoulder.

I’ve seen photos like this before. Because I took photos like this once. An inventory of harm. She’s not me, but she could be—I recognize that blank expression in her eyes, the way her body is tense and limp at the same time. There’s only one reason to take photos like these. As evidence.

As ammunition.

Another photograph. The same woman, this time shown from the front, chin tilted slightly up, an arm covering her petite breasts. A deep bruise at her shoulder. A split lip, not apparent on the first photograph. She’s young. Not as young as I was—early twenties, maybe. Like me, she looks lost. As if she’s receded inside herself.

A third photo. The woman’s side, a bruise mottled deep purple covering most of her hip. More bruises—too many to count. Someone savaged this girl. Someone tried to destroy her.

I slide the photographs back in the envelope, feeling sick. Who the hell is she? And why does Alexis have these?

When I took those photos, it was to protect myself. They were proof. Leverage.

Blackmail, if you want to call it that.

I zip up the suitcase and get to my feet. Whatever the reason for those photographs, they’re dangerous to someone. And I could get myself into trouble digging into things that don’t concern me.

The safest thing would be to forget the things I’ve seen.

Someone told me to stay away from here. I thought it was a threat. But now, looking at these photographs—this woman, wounded, damaged— I wonder uneasily if they were meant, instead, as a warning.

14

I read the book to Sebastian until the words don’t make sense anymore. I read him all the others, too. By the time Paloma and Alexis arrive, I have come up with a hundred explanations for those photographs and rejected them all. I have tried to stitch them together with the photo from the cabin, construct some kind of narrative that would bind the two together, but I have nothing but questions and a growing sense of unease.

“Theo!” Alexis says with surprise as they enter, stowing their gear by the door. Sebastian throws himself at Paloma and wraps around her leg like a jellyfish. “Where’s Olena?”

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