Chapter 11 - The Girl in the Photograph
The photograph was real. That was the first thing the digital examiner told Marcus. It came from a security camera at Blackthorn House and showed me carrying a red fuel can up the garden path at 6:18 on the night of the fire.
"Juliette asked me to fill the old generator," I said. "The lights kept going out."
"Did you fill it?"
"No. The tank was already full. I left the can outside the shed."
Marcus kept his voice steady. "A photograph isn't proof you started a fire. But she'll use it to challenge your credibility."
That evening we went to the hospital for fresh dressings. A nurse lifted a strip of gauze from my shoulder and I flinched. I had wanted to walk into that church showing the damage Juliette had done. I hadn't thought about how much it would hurt afterward.
Ruth sat by my bed. "You don't have to keep proving you're injured," she said. "You're allowed to heal."
"What if the jury looks at me and only sees a liar?"
"Then we give them facts. Not more pain."
Marcus returned with the fingerprint report. My prints matched those taken for a summer camp job when I was nineteen. The samples from Ravenwood matched too. The state vital-records office had opened a formal review of my death entry.
"So I'm alive again?" I asked.
"You never stopped being alive," he said. "But correcting a fraudulent record takes a court order. We're requesting one."
Evan arrived in the hallway carrying a sealed box of belongings that Juliette had left in his apartment. "I couldn't marry her," he said. "And I won't protect her."
Inside the box were perfume bottles, receipts, and a small silver recorder. It contained six seconds of Juliette's voice saying, "Tell Dad there's nobody left to save."
Before Marcus could play it again, Dad called. His words came in gasps.
May you like
"Caroline, Juliette's here. She says there's one more thing I need to sign."
Then the line went dead.
