Daniel winced at the sting from the memory. He became a marriage counselor to stop anyone else from feeling the pain he had when his family home fell quiet one night and stayed quiet. Then a chill washed over him as Milly’s innocent accusation raised its head. She couldn’t have seen him holding Anna’s hand that night, because he hadn’t. She must have seen the photo, but how? And what else had she seen?

His mother wasn’t finished. “And I’m really concerned about her schooling, Daniel. I’ve asked her a few times now about her school report, and she keeps avoiding the question. She has always been such a good student. What about her scholarship? Won’t that put extra pressure on your finances?”

Daniel absorbed the barrage of questions from his mother with a sense of annoyed urgency. He needed to get her back on track. “I think by tomorrow I’ll have some answers to what’s bugging Milly. Anyway, I need to know more about Gramps’s camera.”

His mother folded her hands. “Something has been bothering me since you mentioned it. Who would take a photo of him with a betting slip?”

“I don’t know. Probably Garth.”

“So why wouldn’t Garth tell me?”

“Sometimes coming to terms with things is the hardest part of being honest with people. Maybe he didn’t want us to think badly of Gramps. So, back to the camera—when did he get it?”

“Ten years ago, maybe? When he first got it he took photos of everyone around him but showed them to no one. He was so possessive of it but so generous with everything else.”

“Do you know where he got it?”

“No, I don’t.”

Daniel deflated. Another dead end.

His mother clicked her fingers. “Although if you asked Garth, he would almost certainly know.”

*  *  *

Daniel strode up the well-kept path that wound its way to the neat ground-floor apartment. He breathed in the smell of fresh paint on the front door and the perfume wafting from large pots filled with flashes of color. Then he glanced down at a mat that welcomed friends to this home. The photographs in Gramps’s photo album flashed back to him. Garth, slumped in the doorway in a back alley, broken teeth jagging at all angles below a beanie jammed down over wispy white hair. Homeless.

He had just ten minutes until his photos would be ready.

The front door opened to a beaming grin of pearly white teeth above a crisp, white linen shirt and a full head of white hair slicked to one side.

Well, that answered that. That photo must have been Garth’s time volunteering in some kind of homeless program.