Exposure

one taken. That nice house with the picket fence — she wanted it ringing with kids’ noise and laughter. Friends coming over to play, slumber parties, and afternoons of baking cookies. Martin was a good father. She could see him on the floor with the kids, reading them stories, wrestling with his sons . . .

Lorraine’s dreams were built on hope. And on Martin. She would be nothing without Martin.

And some greedy, scum-of-the-earth criminals had held a gun to his head.

“Mommy!” Tammy called from the living room.

Loraine closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath. “Coming, sweetie!”

Rising from the bed, she pushed down her fear and anger. As she headed up the hall she managed to paste a smile on her face. “Guess what, Tammy? Daddy will be home soon!”

EIGHT

Kaycee slumped on Tricia’s couch, one leg stretched out on the cushions. Her elbow dug into the back, her head resting on a fist. Exhaustion and anxiety warred in her nerves. Not to mention concern over her own sanity. She’d told Tricia everything, wanting, needing empathy. But the further Kaycee got into her story, the less plausible it sounded.

Still — that dead man’s face. The gore smeared in his hair, his half-open eyes. We see you. The picture wouldn’t go away. It floated in Kaycee’s brain like a photo on ocean waves, first bobbing on a crest, then pulled under only to resurface.

Now after midnight she and Tricia sat, each deep in thought, trying to find an explanation for the inexplicable. Tricia was in her rocker-recliner, the footrest popped up. Her ample frame, some forty pounds overweight, filled most of the chair. In jeans and a sweatshirt, no makeup, she looked tired, her plump lips drawn down, her eyes at slow blink. Tricia worked as an administrative assistant to the dean of students at Asbury College — which meant reporting to work first thing in the morning. She should have been in bed long ago.

Kaycee rubbed her forehead. “I’m losing my mind, Tricia. This is the fifth time since Mandy’s death I’ve called the police to my house. Before it was just thinking I’d seen a shadow or something. But I swear this camera was real.” Kaycee squeezed her eyes shut. “Tomorrow the chief of police will be coming around to cart me to the loony bin.”

Tricia shifted in her chair. “I have a theory. Just hear me out, okay?”

“Okay.”

Tricia looked away, as if gathering her thoughts. “We both know you’ve been really struggling since Mandy’s death. Long before she got sick you’d gotten your paranoia under control, and your ‘Who’s There?’ column was helping people with their own fears. Well, it still is. But in this past year you’ve been fighting this whole your-worst- fear-really-can-come-true thing.”

“Yeah, and tonight it has.”

“That’s just my point. At least you think it has. It’s like since Mandy died your mind has been conjuring up your own worst fear, culminating in actually ‘seeing’ the camera. You of all people know how fears can color our perceptions.”

“But I saw that dead man’s pic — !”

“Just hold on.” Tricia raised both hands, palms spread. “Three weeks ago you wrote a column about one of your readers who’s scared of having her picture taken, remember? You titled it ‘Exposure.’ The mere sight of a camera drives the woman into a frenzy. With that in the back of your mind, added to your heightened fear these days of being watched, your brain came up with tonight’s scenario. Kaycee, think about what you ‘saw.’ A picture of somebody dead — think Mandy — and the most frightening words of your life printed on the photo — We see you. ”

“Then why didn’t I see Mandy in the picture?”

Tricia shook her head. “You couldn’t have handled that. So your mind came up with . . . someone else.”

Tricia’s words drifted through Kaycee slowly, pebbles through thick oil. They made some sense, but . . . “Tricia, if I didn’t see that camera, if I didn’t hold it in my hand and see a picture of myself and that dead man, then I really am going crazy. Even my mother never did anything like this.”

Tricia let out a long sigh. “Kaycee.” Her voice was gentle. “You were already upset over your visit with Hannah. Like you’ve told me, you hate what’s happening to her, but you know you can’t interfere. She has to make her new family work, because that’s her reality. So it doesn’t make you crazy that in the midst of all you were dealing with tonight, you thought you saw that camera.” Tricia fell silent for a moment. “I mean, consider the alternative. Do you want to believe someone got into your house without breaking a window, set up some high-tech camera, waited until you ran out of the house, took away the camera and disappeared — all without leaving a trace? Do you really want to believe that?”

No.

Kaycee’s throat tightened. She swiveled to press both feet against the floor and thrust her head in her hands. Tricia was right. Her mind had just crumbled for a moment. Kaycee imagined herself walking into her kitchen that evening. The flash that lit the room — could that have been car headlights through the dining room windows? She wasn’t used to a sight like that; usually her curtains were closed after dark.

Tricia’s phone rang. Kaycee barely registered the sound.

“Who in the world could that be at this hour?” Tricia’s chair creaked as she leaned over to pick up the receiver on a nearby table. “Hello?”

Kaycee stared at the carpet between her feet. The camera was all in her mind. It had to be. If it was real, how could she ever feel safe in her beloved home again? How could she ever fight her way back to the strength she’d had before Mandy’s death?

“You’ve got the wrong number,” Tricia said into the phone. “There’s no Belinda here.” She dropped the receiver back into its cradle with an irritated tsk. “Some people.”

Silence.

“Kaycee, you okay?”

Kaycee raised her head. She felt sick. “I think I better go back into therapy.”

“Maybe you should. And how about praying?”

Back to one of Tricia’s favorite topics. “You know I’ve already done that. It didn’t keep Mandy alive. And it hasn’t helped me in the last year — not at all.”

Kaycee had started going to church when she moved to Wilmore five years ago, shortly after her mother died. But Mandy’s illness and her own downward spiral had soured her on God. He could have saved Mandy’s life if he wanted to. And he could whisk away Kaycee’s fears. But he hadn’t done either of those things.

Empathy creased Tricia’s forehead. “Kaycee, I can’t tell you why God chose to let Mandy die. But I do know he’ll help you fight your fear. You have to keep praying. Ten, twenty, thirty times a day if you need to.”

Kaycee shrugged. She didn’t want to fight it thirty times a day. She just wanted it gone.

“You know he helps me fight my own,” Tricia said quietly.

But your fear can’t begin to compare to mine.

Kaycee winced. She knew better. One thing she’d learned from writing her column — everyone seemed to think his or her own fear was the worst. People understood those with the same fear, but thought others who struggled with different ones rather silly — “Why can’t they just get over it?” As for Tricia, she was thirty-seven, a born mother with no solid prospects for a husband in sight and her biological clock ticking away. That, Kaycee knew, was a real fear many women faced.

Tricia shoved down the footrest of her chair and leaned forward. “Kaycee. Do you think you could have imagined the camera?”

Kaycee’s finger traced a circle on her jeans. “I don’t know. Yes.” There. She’d said it. “Because . . . it’s like