Simon’s hands shook as his voice tremored with anger. “You want proof of the camera’s power? Take a photo of the book, and if it still says you wrote it, then sue me.”

Daniel held the camera up to his eye and the lens twitched into focus. It couldn’t be. He lowered his hands.

The book still trembled in Simon’s hand, but there was flint in his voice. “Is there a problem?”

Daniel again looked through the viewfinder. His name was erased from No Secrets. He lowered the camera, his head spinning with secrets, cameras, books, and photos. “But how did Anna get into my photos?”

Simon’s voice softened. Warmed. “The camera is revealing the truth in your heart.”

“But I have done nothing wrong!”

“What would you say if you heard that from a man sitting on the couch in your office?”

Daniel stood admonished. He knew what he would say. He’d tell the guy if he’d already left emotionally, he might as well have left physically.

“You are seeing where your heart is.”

The words from Gramps’s letter. The film lab spun in Daniel’s vision.

“Who are you?”

Simon splayed his fingers on the counter as a fresh waft of chemicals hit Daniel. “I am a seeker of truth. I thought you were too.”

The decisions of the past swirled around him. He was under pressure with a fledgling counseling practice on the financial rocks, taking his career with it. Howard’s manuscript was just there, and Howard wasn’t.

Simon nodded knowingly. “There’s always a reason, but that doesn’t turn a lie into truth.”

Daniel blinked hard. “So now you can read my mind?”

A grin crept across Simon’s features. “No, your face. And you’re thinking you had a good reason for doing what you did. At the time, you probably did, but the consequences of today don’t always respect the actions of yesterday.”

Daniel couldn’t let this get out. If it did, his career would be over, and there was no way Kelly would accept that the photo on the deck, him holding hands with Anna, wasn’t real. He’d lose his career and his family. It all carried a high price.

Simon leaned across the counter to Daniel, his voice quiet. Sympathetic. Almost like a counselor. “The price will be higher if you don’t. The camera never lies, Daniel. You can try to hide from it, but I think it would be better if you dealt with your secrets, brought them out into the open and faced them.”

The knots in Daniel’s jaw flexed. “I’ll take care of it.”

“How has that worked for you so far?”

An escape hatch opened in his mind, a solution tinged with sadness. He just had to get rid of the camera, Gramps’s last gift to him.