The Photographer (14 page)

“Wake up, Megan. Surprise.”

Megan had been down a long tunnel. She heard Derrick's voice echo with a hollow tone. Fight, she willed herself. Fight to come back.

Her eyes fluttered open and she tried to focus. Derrick stood in front of her, grinning. “They really aren't as bad as I'd thought. If you knew how to use makeup, you could cover those freckles, bring out your cheekbones.” He held several dripping, shiny photos before her. The face that looked out was frightened at first. Then it settled more and more into a stuporous look.

“Oh, sorry, the lights. You're too hot.” Derrick snapped off the big photographer's lights. In the dim light she could see. Around her head and body in each of the photos was the glow, the light, as if something were either escaping from or surrounding her.

“See, this one is the best.” Derrick held up one shiny pasteboard.

The girl in the photo smiled at Megan, a tiny smile she hadn't remembered. Was it automatic? Did everyone feel obligated to smile when confronted with a camera?

“I have to go now, Megan. You've had enough of my time. My time is getting more and more valuable, since my work is progressing so nicely. Don't bother to call out. Mother is asleep, or dead drunk. You shouldn't have given her the sherry.” He smiled again. “But I don't think she could have helped you anyway.” Derrick went back to his darkroom for a few moments. Megan wiggled and tugged at her bonds, but it was no use.

“Actually,” said Derrick, returning, “it's too bad you're so smart, Megan. It got you in trouble. And I liked you, Megan. I really liked you.”

“Wait, Derrick. Where are you going?” Megan's tongue felt thick. Her speech was slow and slurred. “Don't leave me here tied up.” She struggled with the few ounces of strength she could summon.

Derrick took his camera from the tripod, snapped it into a case, and placed it around his neck. “Bye, Megan. You realize I can't let you go now that you know. And Mother has gotten to be such a burden. I'll make it look like she did this to herself. People may wonder what you were doing here, but you won't be able to explain it to them. They'll just have to keep wondering. ‘So sad. Such a tragedy. Megan was such a nice girl. Everyone liked her.' Go back to sleep, Megan. It will be easier.” Slipping the tripod over his shoulder, he left the room. Megan heard him go down the stairs. She heard the front door click closed.

Again she shook her head, trying to will herself some strength. She felt heavy all over. Her head was heavy, her eyes … Easy … Let go … Easiest way …

Even when she smelled the smoke, it didn't seem to matter.

Chapter 17

Thoughts swirled through Megan's head. Derrick's mother saying, “Help me, Megan, help me. Why does Derrick hate me?” Robert's smile. “Fight, Megan, please fight it.” And Cynthia, always Cynthia, shimmering and beautiful in a soft glow of light. “Go back, Megan. I love you, but you don't belong here. Fight! Go back.”

Megan opened her eyes slowly, and immediately started to cough. Smoke filled the darkroom and curled its long fingers into Derrick's bedroom. Fire! Derrick had set the house on fire in an attempt to destroy Megan and all she knew. She had to get out! But how? She struggled with the cords around her wrists.

“Help me! Someone help me!” Even to her own ears her voice sounded weak and soft. No one could hear her. And who was here to help? Mrs. Ames? Why hadn't she called an ambulance for the woman? She hadn't, though. And Mrs. Ames was in no condition to come to Megan's rescue. It was up to her.

Her dream about the airplane crash popped into her mind. It had been no dream. She had seen this, this horror she found herself in now. She was tied, trapped, and soon flames would flick around her.

Megan coughed, feeling the smoke sting her eyes. Tears ran down her cheeks. The fire crackled as it licked up photograph paper. Then a soft
pop
suggested a bottle of chemicals exploding.

Her feet were tucked up onto the base of the office chair. Now, straining, she was able to touch the floor with her toes. She pushed. Inch by inch she worked the chair over to the bed. By the time she got there, she felt as if she had run a mile. Her legs ached and her toes cramped. Reaching out her arms, she hooked the cords that were around her wrists onto the knobs at the foot of the old-fashioned bed. She tugged until her wrists burned, red, raw, but the rope would not slip off.

Through her tears and the haze of the smoke-filled room, she saw now that snow was falling in soft, fluffy flakes. The world was quickly being covered with a blanket of white. The evergreens outside Derrick's window started to droop with the cottony covering. Megan felt she would like to get a picture of it, the wintry wonderland scene. She blinked and forced her mind to stop wandering. Acrid smoke filled her nose. She wasn't going to take any more pictures.

“Fight, Megan. Go back. I don't want you here.” The smell of Cinnabar mixed with the smell of smoke.

Megan shook her head as if to clear the smoke from her brain, the smoke that filled her mind, clouding her thinking. She wasn't attached to the chair. Inching her hips forward, little by little, she leaned forward. Catching herself as best she could, she bumped the bed and fell onto the floor. The chair skidded out from behind her, softly rattling across the carpeted floor. Her coat had padded her fall, but the jarring hurt. She lay still, dozing. No. No! She shook her head. She couldn't sleep now. Like an inchworm, she scrunched forward, together, then forward again. She pushed her knees against the rug and scooted.

Surely this was not her body, but that of some elephant baby or a whale out of water. She slumped, her cheek against the short nap of the blue carpet. I have blue carpet, she thought. I like blue carpet. She shook her head again and rubbed it against the fiber until it stung. She didn't want to die on blue carpet.

The air was better on the floor. She must think only of good things. When I get out of this, I'll lose some weight. If she had a tiny, little body she could wiggle faster, easier. She started to giggle.

“Stop it, Megan. Stop it. You must stay in control. You are in charge here. Fight!”

Megan fought to control the wave of hysteria that threatened to engulf her. Down on the floor the smoke was not so thick. She took deep breaths of the better air and started to inch toward the bedroom door again. Using her tied-together hands, she pushed against the carpet to get a grip and then pulled herself forward. Stretch out, scrunch up. Stretch out, scrunch up. As she made progress, she began to gather strength and hope that she could get out.

But it was getting hotter. The fire crackled behind her. She felt perspiration pour down her body. Her head bumped wood. The door was closed. Please, Derrick, you didn't lock the door.

Pushing herself to a kneeling position, she twisted the knob with both hands. With relief, she felt it turn. The air was fresher in the hall, but opening the door allowed the oxygen to feed the flames behind her. Fire licked around the darkroom door frame. Megan felt encouraged by getting this far. She could get out. She'd crawl down the stairs and then out the door if she couldn't reach the phone in the kitchen. Her energy seemed to be returning with her forward progress.

Of course. The fire had burned the photos of her that Derrick had returned to the darkroom. Had he thought of that? Had he given her this small chance to escape? He hadn't tied her to the chair. And he had to know that destroying the prints would give back his victims some of the strength the camera had taken from them. Or had he slipped up in his hurry to destroy Megan and all the evidence? Had this one flaw in his plan escaped his thinking in his haste to cover his actions?

There wasn't time to wonder. Megan reached the stairway and started to crawl backward down the steep, rough-carpeted stairs. She grasped the low shag with her fingertips, not wanting to chance rolling to the bottom and maybe lying there injured as the flames crept down to the first floor.

She was about halfway down when she heard the doorbell ring and pounding at the front door. Someone was there. Who? She hadn't called the ambulance. Maybe a neighbor had seen or smelled smoke. Maybe someone had called the fire department. But she couldn't count on their getting in. Keep going. Keep going. At one point she slipped and slid down two steps, bumping her chin on a step. She grabbed an edge and hung on, stopping her forward motion.

“That's it, Megan. Hurry. Let Robert in. He'll help you.”

Robert? Of course, it was Robert at the door. Robert would help her. He was worried, so worried. She lay at the bottom of the stairs, exhausted. She shivered as the cold of the flagstone entry seeped into the palms of her hands, her cheeks. The pounding started again.

Sliding to the door, she pulled herself to her knees and twisted at the knob of the massive oak door. She fell backward as Robert pushed it open.

“Megan. Megan! Are you all right? Oh, Megan.” He gathered her into his arms. Megan felt the dampness of melted snow on his coat, then the warmth of his lips on her cold face. Quickly, he began to untie her wrists while her father untied her feet.

“Megan, my God. What happened to you?” Mr. Davidson asked. “Who did this to you?”

“Derrick. Oh, Daddy, in the living room. Get Mrs. Ames. Hurry. The fire …”

Mr. Davidson rushed past them as Robert helped Megan to her feet. “Can you walk, Megan? Are you all right?”

“I—I think so. The pictures … I feel better now.” She coughed again, but breathed in the cold, frosty air from the doorway gratefully.

“She's not in there, Megan. Do you think she's in the house?”

“Yes, I'm sure. I'm sure she is. She's in the other bedroom, Daddy. Derrick took her there. Hurry.” Megan looked up. Flames snapped and crackled from the top floor. Thick, black smoke was coming down the stairway. “No.” Megan grabbed her father's arm as he started to climb the stairway. “You can't go. It's too late.” Her father started upstairs despite her pleading. Megan screamed.

“Let him try, Megan. Let's get outside.” Robert pulled Megan out of the house, and they stumbled across the street. He asked a neighbor to call the fire department. Megan couldn't stay inside and wait. Wrapped in a blanket the neighbor provided, she stood in the snow and watched Derrick's front door. She didn't have to worry for long. Her father stumbled out of the house coughing.

“Daddy, Daddy.” Megan ran to him. “I was so afraid for you.”

“I couldn't get up there, Megan. I went to the kitchen and soaked a towel in water to put over my face. But it was useless. The smoke is too thick and the fire has spread quickly. It seems to be coming from two directions, as if it started from both sides of the house.”

Apparently Derrick hadn't relied on the fire in the darkroom being enough. He had started another fire in his mother's bedroom after taking her there.

“Let's get you home, Megan,” Robert urged. “I know the police will want to talk to you, but they can come to the house later.”

Megan told them her story after her father had treated the abrasions on her face and legs and wrists. Robert filled her full of hot tea. She shivered again, however, thinking she wouldn't feel warm or safe for a long time.

“When you weren't home, I called the school.” Mr. Davidson explained how Robert had come to their house. “Since the TV was on, I looked all over. I couldn't believe you'd gone out.”

“Fortunately, I guessed where you'd gone,” Robert said. “Oh, Megan, why did you take such a chance?” Robert kept holding Megan's hand, as if he couldn't believe she was safe.

“No one would believe me, Robert. I had to know. And I would have still been—sick, if I hadn't gone there. He'd still have the pictures. You wouldn't believe that Derrick was causing all this. My illness, all of the sickness.”

“Megan,” her father said after listening to the whole story. He sat at the kitchen table with her. “Megan, baby, do you think anyone will believe you, even now? They'll believe that Derrick is sick, very sick, to do this to you. But to believe that his camera was—well, was taking your soul—your life, no one—”

“You don't believe it, even now, do you, Daddy?”

“I don't know. I just can't—I don't know. I know you appeared to be ill … that Cynthia is dead. I guess I'd prefer to think it was a virus, some germ, and that the connection with Derrick was a coincidence.”

The tape recorder. Megan patted her pocket. Gone. Where was it? Somewhere in Derrick's house. What was left of his house. It must have fallen from her pocket when she fell to the floor or crawled … She sighed.

“Then you both think I shouldn't tell the police the whole story—the camera part? You think they'd laugh at me?”

“Probably. The newspapers would print it—they'd love it, but …”

“Everyone would think I was crazy too?” Megan looked at Robert and her father. They loved her. They wanted to believe. But if
they
didn't … couldn't … “Okay, we'll just say that Derrick was ill. But when they find him, what about the camera?”

“Let's wait and see. Maybe we can think of some way to destroy it. Just in case.” Robert smiled at her.

“Do you think the police will find him, Robert?”

“Of course they will, Megan. I don't understand how he thought he'd get away with killing you, and his mother.”

“I wasn't supposed to have escaped, Robert. It was supposed to have looked like an accident. Like his mother started the fire—when she was drunk. And somehow I was trapped there. In the fire.” Megan shuddered again.

“It's okay, Megan. You're safe now.” Robert hugged her tightly.

“Dad, will you call the hospital? See if Bunny and Roxie are better. If they are—”

“If they are, we'll be glad. Okay?” Megan's father smiled and kissed her.