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CHAPTER 59

Bend, Oregon Friday, August 2, 2024

SLOAN FOLLOWED NORA OUT OF THE KITCHEN AND THROUGH THE long hallway, at the end of which was a door to the cellar. Nora opened it and clicked on a light before starting down the rickety wooden steps. Sloan followed close behind. The staircase was dark and damp, offering a scent of cold and mold. At the bottom was the door to the darkroom. They both slipped inside and turned on the lights. Waiting on the table was all the photography equipment Nora had introduced her to back in Cedar Creek.

Nora placed the Nikon FM10 onto the table and removed the roll of film that had sat dormant in Annabelle’s camera for nearly three decades. Nora held it up.

“Wanna give it a shot?”

“Me?”

“Sure. I bet you know what you’re doing. Just like Annabelle.”

“I can try. As long as you don’t let me ruin anything.”

“You won’t ruin anything,” Nora said, handing Sloan the film roll.

A sensation came over her when Sloan took the film in her hand, as if some personification from the past had reached across time, hurtling three decades in the blink of an eye, to place the film in her hands. Sloan shook her head to dispel the sense of déjà vu that came over her.

“Okay, I know that we start with the enlarger.”

“Yep,” Nora said. “The film gets loaded here, and then we focus the image of the negative onto the easel below and imprint it onto the photo paper.”

“Got it,” Sloan said. “But first we dim the lights.”

“Correct.”

Nora turned off the lights, momentarily sending the room into pitch-blackness that blinded Sloan. It was so dark that blinking had no effect on her vision. After a few seconds, Sloan heard a click. The crimson glow of the safelight returned Sloan’s sight. Nora helped her load the film into the enlarger and focus the first image onto the photo paper below. After a series of exposures, Nora handed Sloan a pair of tongs.

“Take the paper from the easel and place it into the first tray of liquid,” Nora said.

Sloan carefully lifted the blank photo paper and slid it into the tray, submerging the paper. She remembered from her time in the darkroom at Nora’s studio that this first tray was filled with developing solution, and that the photo paper remained there for sixty seconds.

“Get ready,” Nora said, looking at her watch to gauge the time. “Okay, move it to the stop bath.”

Sloan used tongs to lift the still-blank paper from the developing solution and transfer it to the second tray, where it remained for a few seconds before Nora prompted her to transfer it to the final tray—the fixer. It was there, Sloan remembered, that the image slowly came to life on the photo paper.

After a couple of minutes Sloan saw a faint image forming. She squinted through the red glow of the safelight until the image came fully into view. Pictured was a Cooper’s hawk taking flight from a tree limb—wings outstretched and ready to soar.

“It’s a hawk,” Sloan said.

Nora removed the photo and hung it on the drying rack while she studied it. “This was taken . . .” She leaned closer to the photo. “From Annabelle’s driveway. Look.”

Nora pointed at the photo and Sloan moved closer.

“This is the side of their house and the pool in the background. She had to have been standing in the driveway when she took it.”

Sloan pointed to the bottom of the photo. In red block lettering was the date: JULY 4, 1995.

“So,” Sloan said as her mind pieced together that fateful day nearly thirty years ago. “The last photos we saw—the ones you had previously developed—were taken by Annabelle at the July Fourth Cedar Creek Gala in town. And these, whatever else is on the film roll, must have been taken once Annabelle arrived home.”

“It looks that way, yes.”

Sloan had yet to mention to Nora that Annabelle’s blood had been found inside the home. Perhaps Nora knew this fact, but didn’t have the heart to tell Sloan. Either way, Sloan was looking at photos Annabelle took on the day she disappeared, taken at the home from where she vanished.

“How many photos did you say were on the film?” Sloan asked.

“Twenty more,” Nora said.

“Let’s see what else Annabelle took photos of that day.”