“What film camera do you shoot, by the way?” he asked. “I don’t know if you ever mentioned it.”

“Oh, I don’t.” When Christopher regarded her curiously, she added, “I found a roll of film among Eleanor’s things. Thought I would develop it for her as a surprise, if it isn’t corroded.”

“Did you, now? Well, how ’bout that.” He smiled, but his bottom lip quivered, revealing a row of coffee-stained teeth.

Morgan paused as a chill gripped her spine. Was it the note of intrigue in his voice that caused it, or the fact that he looked like them—white-collar moguls from Chicago’s business district who escaped their corporate constraints for an hour to visit The Ruins. The same kind of people who entered the house on Winslow Street, trading cash and cigarettes for time alone with a little girl who learned not to cry or show weakness until after they had gone.

Morgan swallowed the lump in her throat, suddenly intensely aware of the absolute silence. It was so quiet, she could hear the snowflakes kissing the glass. Mechanically, she skirted around Christopher and scooped up the darkroom supplies. “I should be going,” she said, “I, um, have a shoot in less than an hour. Thank you for this.”

“Oh, okay then.” Though he seemed taken aback, he recovered quickly. “I’d love to see them sometime.”

Morgan stopped, her hand on the door handle. “See what?”

Christopher chuckled. His lips stretched across his teeth as he smiled. “The secrets Eleanor’s been keeping in that canister.”

26 HUDSON

His brother’s last known address was a literal hole in the wall. Hudson parked across the street and two houses down, his SUV sandwiched between two cars with illegal window tint. He didn’t have long before someone started sniffing. His vehicle was too clean, too prim for this part of town. How funny it was, then, that this part of town was only a four-minute drive from Hudson’s own place, and therefore, the police department. He thought of the neighborhoods in Black Harbor like cancer cells. Once one got infected with poverty and violent crime, it spread to others.

He couldn’t see anything of Tobias’s dwelling, only an alley disrupting two houses with flaking paint from growing together. It was tucked back there, Tobias had assured him, at 1104 Northridge Drive. That was the address he remembered Muntz telling Kasper yesterday.

Now, he waited outside for a sign of Kai Steele. It was a long shot that he’d be there, but it was the only shot he had at the moment. Hudson tore his eyes from the alley and unlocked his phone. He scrolled through Kai’s social media, not knowing exactly what he was searching for, but searching nonetheless.

Red treads. Red treads. But even if he could find a picture of him with red shoes, or even better, spray-painting his red shoes black—the equivalent of expecting a lobster dinner at a Denny’s—it wouldn’t prove anything. The only thing “red treads” corroborated was a witness statement, and with each day that passed, Hudson was becoming less and less sure about Morgan Mori. He hadn’t spoken to her since the eve of Garrison’s funeral.