Page 68 of The Death Row Club
A shudder erupts across my skin at the thought of being trapped in that tiny room with Connor, but she’s right. I nod my assent, and after a moment’s hesitation, so does he. We shuffle into the bathroom—Greer perching herself on the edge of the tub, Connor and me on either side of the sink.
I watch while he peels off the wrapper and cracks the back of the camera open, changing bag at the ready. While he loads the film onto the reel, I mix the dilutions. The entire time, I’m painfully conscious of how close he’s standing to me—how easy it would be for him to snap my neck, slam my forehead into the mirror. Every time he shiftscloser, pouring in the developer, agitating the film, my hand reaches for the hobby knife. He checks the watch on his wrist. “Five minutes. That sound all right to you?”
I nod. The film goes through the stop bath, then the fixer. The minutes stretch as water crashes into the canister, rinsing the negatives. Greer offers me a reassuring smile from across the bathroom, but it does nothing to alleviate my fear. Finally, the faucet’s switched off. Droplets cling to the film. Connor uses a washcloth to wipe them dry before revealing the finished product.
The images are perfectly clear.
Each orange-tinted square contains a different club member: Hannah first, then Ros, Imogen, Kemy, and Connor. There’s even one of Steffani, captured through the crack in her door. “Fuck,” Greer murmurs, rubbing her forehead. “I can’t believe it. I mean, Ican, but…”
I understand what she means. The notebooks were bad, but this feels like an entirely different level of offense. The images switch to ones of her, then me—so many photos of me. It’s surreal, trying to work out all the times Zach must’ve snuck away to take these photos from upstairs windows or around corners.
The next one is of a crumpled sheet of paper: the portrait of not-Claire still on my desk. “When exactly did you draw that?” Greer asks.
“Late, after midnight.” Which means these next photos must’ve been taken right before Zach was murdered. I wrap my fingers around the hobby knife.
Connor shifts the strip farther up, so we can inspect the final images. It takes me a moment to decipher what the shadows are:
They’re me.
“What the…” I reach for the negatives, to take a closer look, but he pulls them away. That can’t be me. The last time I saw Zach was downstairs in the kitchen, when he drunkenly sobbed on my shoulder. And yet, there I am: negative-white eyes widened in shock.
In the next image, my eyes have narrowed. My mouth has unlatched, and the inside glows with a terrifying light.
Dread fills my chest, as I realize what must’ve happened. Zach came upstairs that night and, finding my room empty, realized he had the perfect chance to search my luggage, capture some more photos for his book. I returned from the balcony, drunk, and stumbled in on him snapping away.
One more image, and as Connor lifts the strip to the light, my blood seems to thicken, then stop entirely. Shadow hands reach for the camera. My face blurs in violent outrage. I’m lunging for the camera, attacking the man holding it. Attacking Zach.
These negatives don’t incriminate Connor.
They incriminateme.
28NICOLA
ASHRILL BUZZ VIBRATESagainst my eardrums as I stare at the negatives. It’s been a long time since I felt as angry as the woman in that photo. Disappointed, frustrated, resentful, yes; those were all emotions I allowed myself to have. But rage—the kind that resulted in actions that couldn’t be taken back—well, it’s been twenty years since I feltthat. I swore I’d never let myself go down that road again, and yet, here’s photographic proof that I did just that.
The fog clouding my mind begins to burn away, just in time for me to hear Connor’s voice.
“She killed him.”
I hurry to correct him. “No, I didn’t.”
I know, without a single doubt, that I didn’t murder Zach. If I can’t remember confronting him, that means I must’ve been blackout drunk. How could I possibly have bludgeoned someone in that state? Dragged him downstairs, dumped him in the lake? (A lake I hadn’t even known existed until the following day.) The thought of me hot-wiring a car when I couldn’t have even counted the number of fingers someone was holding up is laughable.
And yet, the two of them are not laughing.
Not at all.
“These,” Greer says, gesturing to the negatives, “don’t tell us anything, except that she caught Zach in her room that night and decked him. The same way any of us would have. Are you honestly going to stand there and tell me that you wouldn’t have done the same thing?”
“Maybe,” he says. “Maybe not. What I would’ve done is irrelevant. The fact is, we have photographic evidence that right before he was murdered, she attacked him. I think the others might draw the same conclusions.”
Her jaw tightens. “You’re not going to show the others.”
“They have a right to know—”
“Connor, you arenotgoing to show the others. They’re already on edge, and if you share these photos with them, you’ll just be adding fuel to the fire. Wait until we get back into town. We’ll put the others on their flights, and then we can let the police handle it.”
When she says “put the others on their flights,” does that include me, or are they going to transport me to the nearest station, leave me in police custody?
