Chapters (54)
- Cover
- Epigraph
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Epilogue
- A Note from the Author
- Discussion Questions
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Acclaim for David Rawlings
- Also by David Rawlings
Simon stroked his chin. “Didn’t I say it would be easier to come clean about your secrets? I know what’s on this film.”
A tired sigh escaped from Daniel. “What?”
“Truth. Inescapable truth.”
Inescapable. “When will they be ready?”
“In an hour.”
An hour. The usual length of a counseling session. Daniel always expected that the couple in front of him would commit to accepting the truth he’d spotlighted for them within that hour. Now, standing in the first seconds of an hour, he realized just how long sixty minutes could be.
“That will be fifty-five dollars.”
Daniel’s blood thumped in his ears. “Fifty-five? For developing my photos in an hour? It was only thirty-three dollars the first time and forty-four after that! This is extortion!”
A warmth filled Simon’s eyes. “Surely you of all people know that the price is always higher the longer secrets remain.”
Incredible. “You can’t do this!”
Instead of defense, there was an understanding, a compassion, but no backing down from the price. Daniel meekly reached for his wallet.
“You think the price today is high? Wait until your secrets fester even longer.”
Daniel flicked a glance at the frames on the wall, faces caught in a moment, their pain visible to all. And his book still on display at the end of the row.
Simon picked up the film canister with white-gloved fingers. “I’m so pleased you want to see who you are rather than who you want others to think you are. I’ll see you in an hour.” He shuffled to the back of the lab and creaked open a door on the side of the huge film processor.
The tiny bell jingled Daniel’s arrival back into the real world. What was real, anyway? What we see? Or what is just behind it?
A woman dressed in Lycra powered toward him, a screaming child in the stroller she pushed between heavy breaths. She threw Daniel a sweet smile as she passed him, but it slipped as she resumed her pace. A Lexus cruised past, a meaty, hairy arm resting in the open window, two-hundred-dollar sunglasses nodding to the pounding drum and bass. Was that Lexus a hard-earned luxury? Or a ball and chain, trapping the driver under a mirage of wealth propped up by shaky financing?
Almost on autopilot, Daniel trudged up Northbound Avenue, the homing beacon of work drawing him in. Like it did most days. He had an hour to kill and nowhere else to go.
Thirty-Seven
Daniel’s entry to the practice was greeted by neither a ruby-red smile nor a flirty hello. The reception desk was as empty as the wall opposite. Silence filled the offices of Crossroads, an eerie portent into a future of consequences when he’d be run out of the industry as a fraud because the guy behind the bestselling book No Secrets had kept a secret of his own. A big one.