There were a dozen photos of Belinda, brandishing a wooden spoon as she cooked, her hair piled up artfully, Belinda sleek as a seal at a lake in her bikini, Belinda on a stone bench reading, several of her in the pool at her own house, and of Belinda asleep on her bed (that chilled me). The scene shifted then. There she was with a group of girls in front of that restaurant in Black Creek where I’d eaten macaroni and cheese. And then there were a clipped batch of photos of Stefan and Belinda, her in a shiny top and jeans, him in a soft blue denim shirt. In several of those photos, they were with another girl, a dark-haired girl with a cap of short feathered hair, very slight but almost as tall as Stefan. They were all miming firing a gun at the photographer. In another photo, it was possible to see Belinda’s image in a mirror, as she snapped a picture of Stefan and that same girl, sitting on a cream-colored couch. I had seen that couch, in the crime-scene photos, splashed with Belinda’s blood and tissue. In a third photo, the girl and Belinda were wearing witch’s hats. They held up a sign between them that said, BOO! STEFAN. That one would have been taken before Stefan moved to Black Creek. Some of these photos were of different vintage. They were all relatively recent, but in some Belinda’s hair was shorter, in some longer, at least one dated back to junior prom.

There were twenty photos, and I wondered with a shock if Stefan had these with him in prison. But who would have sent these to him? Were they part of his belongings from the hospital? Was a murderer even allowed to have photos of his victim? On the other hand, how would anyone sifting through mail have known that this particular girl was Belinda?

Or who the other girl was.

It had to be her.

I was looking at her.

I put all the photos back except two. If my luck was extraordinarily bad, Stefan would notice what I’d done and hate me for the violation. If my luck was extraordinarily good, he would see what I had done as needs must and his relief would subsume all his qualms.

Pete Sunday rolled up to our house about twelve.

Pete praised the coffee. I offered him an egg salad sandwich and, to my surprise, he accepted, since he’d forgotten breakfast.