Carol O'Connell - Bone by Bone

Now it was easy to lift the broken back, but there was no roll of film inside. Isabelle aimed the flashlight beam at the open compartment. A small piece of torn film was snagged in the spool. "My mother didn't kill

Josh. Mom knows how to operate a camera like this one. Somebody else ripped out the roll-and botched it."

"A prosecutor will argue that she panicked."

" Addison, did you ever try to rip something like this, a piece of plastic or a negative? It's not easy." She stared at the mangled snatch of film, all that remained of Josh's last roll. "This was a violent act. And the killer knew nothing about cameras."

"Like me?" He squatted down beside her. "Burying the body-that's what made the blisters on Sarah's hands. Remember how beautiful her hands were?" He pointed to the camera. "Your mother brought home that little souvenir the following day. She waited for the cover of night to put it in the ground. Sarah was drunk by then, and she couldn't find the key to the toolshed. No shovel. She dug the hole with a spoon and her bare hands. That was just hell on her manicure. You remember the broken fingernails? You even asked her how she broke them. Is it all coming back to you now?"

Isabelle dropped the camera back into the hole.

"What are you doing? Belle, this is the time to get rid of it. If we wait too long, your mother might dig it up herself. She's coming apart. Throw it into the sea."

Isabelle shook her head. "Bad idea."

"All right, here's a better one. The grave in the woods. There's no one guarding it anymore. And now that they've closed up the hole, it's the perfect hiding place."

"No, Addison, I don't think so. That would be tampering with evidence. So you'd better hope I never testify in court. I'd have to say that I saw you smash the camera with this." She took the shovel from his hands and steeped it into the pile of loose dirt. "It was all so long ago. I can't say I remember seeing blisters on Mom's hands," she lied, "or broken fingernails."

She filled in the hole and tamped it down with the flat side of the spade. "And the camera's buried on your land, isn't it? What a crazy thing to do. And you knew where to dig. You led me right to it."

Isabelle handed him the shovel. "If this ever comes back on you, Addison, you can always plead insanity." And that plea might ring true.

She picked up the flashlight and switched it off, not wanting to see his face. Was he grinning in the dark?

He stood at the door to the attic darkroom, unable to cross the threshold. The tools of his brother's art were arranged in the same old way. The chemicals in the bottles must have degraded by now, but no dust had been allowed to settle here. Josh might have walked away only an hour ago to have his breakfast downstairs in the kitchen.

Oren was afraid to go inside that small room. He might get lost in there, and a search party of a thousand townspeople would not be able to bring him back this time.

He heard wooden clogs on the attic stairs and turned to see Hannah pause on the top step.

Her eyes were on the darkroom's open door. "I told you, that's the last place I would've put those old pictures."

He nodded absently. Inside the room, only inches away, was a drawer that he might search, but it was too far to travel just now. Maybe tomorrow.

"I had your black suit dry-cleaned," said the housekeeper. "I'm not going to the birthday ball." Hannah's clogs were coming up behind him, and he could hear determination in every step.

"The judge wants you to come with us. Come-just to make your father happy for one night."

"He thinks I killed Josh."

The wooden clogs came to a halt. "You can't believe that."

"That's why he sent me out of town. He was right to blame me. Josh and I had a fight in the woods that day. He wasn't just stalking strangers. Sometimes it was people we both knew, and I called him on it. The last time I saw my brother, I was chasing him down, and I was angry."

Josh had shown him a photograph of two lovers on the porch of Evelyn's cabin-one captured instant of a slow kiss. Oren had torn this picture to shreds. And then he had reached for his brother.

"I know he was afraid of me. He ran off. I followed him. I hunted him all day long. And I would've found him if he was only lost… but he was hiding from me. He was scared."

Each detail of that day into night was so clear. The judge and Hannah had waited dinner, though the hour was late. They were sitting at the kitchen table when he came banging through the back door, out of breath and sweating-and bleeding, his face badly scratched by low-hanging branches after sundown.

The judge had been surprised to see him this way-and alarmed-and slow to ask him where his brother was.

That was the first time Oren had felt fear. He felt it now, standing in the open doorway of the darkroom-a time machine. Josh might still be wandering the woods, only missing his supper. The judge must be worried. It was so dark outside.

Hannah was shaking him back into the solid world, where it was morning.

A truck larger than a moving van caught Sarah Winston's attention. What now? All the flowers and the rented furniture had already been delivered, and the caterer's vehicles had arrived an hour ago.

She drank her breakfast slowly, for this single glass was the only alcohol she would be allowed all day. "Happy birthday to me."

The rear door of the giant truck was rolled up, and two large men climbed inside to stand among tall blocks of ice. They slowly moved one of the blocks toward the edge of the truck bed and onto a waiting forklift. This small yellow machine and its massive cargo turned and rolled across the grass, then up a wide plank and through the open doorway of the lodge.

As she followed the forklift inside, she felt the cold chill of air conditioning cranked to Arctic temperatures. Awaiting the ice block was a standing army of men and women with chain saws and more traditional carving tools. Addison was in their midst, talking to a man with a clipboard.

Delighted, Sarah called out, "Ice sculptures!"

Her husband whirled around and smiled, as if he had not seen her for years and years. He walked toward her. "Not to worry, Sarah. These artists work very fast. They'll be done hours before the first guest arrives." He put one arm around his wife's shoulders and guided her through the doors to the foyer. "It's too cold in here, I know. Can't have the ice melting before the ball. But there'll be at least a thousand candles lighting this room tonight. That should take the chill off." He closed the doors behind them. "Promise me you won't go in there again. I want the sculptures to be a surprise."

She kissed his cheek and climbed the stairs, glass in hand, sipping her way toward the tower room, where she had found a new hiding place for contraband. If she were to turn around right now, Sarah knew she would see the maid close behind her. Hilda must find it miraculous that her employer's wife could nurse one drink all morning. And the legend of the bottomless glass would grow into evening.

"It never fails," said Hannah. "Guilt always comes with a death in the family." The housekeeper pointed Oren toward an old trunk in a silent invitation to sit down.

She stood over him, hands on hips and great concern in her eyes. "This is how I remember the day. Josh asked me to make him a sandwich for his knapsack. But not you. So I know it was a last-minute idea-you going into the woods with your brother. You were keeping close tabs on him in those days. I bet Josh was the one who started the fight."

When Oren hesitated, she leaned down to peer into his eyes and smiled, liking what she saw. "I'm right. That boy meant to ditch you from the moment you set out for the woods. He had plans of his own that day- plans you wouldn't like."