“I need to.”
He called.
Claire answered on the fourth ring.
“Daniel?”
He could hear dishes.
Television somewhere.
Normal life.
“I found the pictures.”
Silence.
“What pictures?”
“Ava’s card.”
Claire stopped moving.
He could hear it somehow.
“What?”
“The lab recovered them.”
“Daniel.”
“The last ones.”
Her breathing changed.
“What do they show?”
He closed his eyes.
“The railing was gone.”
Nothing.
Then a sound.
Small.
Claire sitting perhaps.
“What?”
Daniel repeated it.
“The railing panel was gone.”
Claire did not speak for nearly ten seconds.
Then:
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Don't say yes because you want—”
“I have the images.”
He hated how defensive he sounded.
Claire hated what grief had trained them to become.
“What images?”
He explained.
Maintenance cart.
Removed railing.
Cones.
Chain on the ground.
Timestamps.
Melissa Grant.
The police confrontation.
Kessler.
By the end, Claire was crying.
Daniel was too.
Finally she whispered:
“I said it was your fault.”
He closed his eyes.
“That isn't what this call is about.”
“I said you taught her to do dangerous things for photographs.”
“Claire.”
“I said it.”
“Yes.”
She cried harder.
“I need to say I said it.”
Daniel leaned against his car.
“You were grieving.”
“So were you.”
“Yes.”
“That didn't give me the right.”
He looked toward the ocean.
“No.”
There had been years when he wanted nothing more than Claire to admit that.
Now the sentence felt small.
“I don't want you punishing yourself tonight.”
She laughed through tears.
“You learned therapy words.”
“Expensive divorce.”
That almost made both of them smile.
Claire became serious.
“What do we do?”
For the first time in years, she said we without referring to Ben.
Daniel looked at the camera.
“We get someone who knows what these pictures mean legally.”
“Not the city.”
“No.”
“Not social media.”
“No.”
“Ben?”
Daniel hesitated.
“He needs to know before the internet does.”
Claire understood immediately.
Because the confrontation on the boardwalk had already been filmed by strangers.
Within an hour, a twenty-eight-second clip appeared online.
POLICE SERGEANT GRABS PHOTOGRAPHER AT HARBOR POINT.
Daniel did not see it that night.
Ben did.
He called from Oregon at 10:11 p.m.
“Dad.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“You saw.”
“Everybody saw.”
“Great.”
“What happened?”