My Sister's Keeper

Chapter 12

12

I STARED AT THAT FLASHLIGHT and the red smear feeling as if I was standing before my father once again being accused of something I didn't do. Don't lie to me! The skin on my back felt as if it was crawling around under my shirt.

"Is this your flashlight?" Sam asked.

"It...looks like it."

"What's it doing here?"

"I don't know. I didn't put it there."

"You think Ashleigh did?"

The photographer nudged in next to me focusing his camera on the flashlight. I stepped back. "I swear to you I have no idea how it got there." The strobe went off and the camera beeped.

"Could Ashleigh have done it?" Lizard Lips asked.

My mouth felt hot. "Of course she could have. I was passed out on the deck. Anybody could have done it."

The man's tongue danced back and forth across his lower lip. "But, did she?"

My stomach soared and I burped. "As far as I know there were only two of us and I was passed out in the rain." Another burst of light from the camera's flash further aggravated my anxiety.

"And why would she come in here and put your flashlight there?" Sam asked, his eyes piercing me. They were my father's eyes. Hard. Judgmental. Don't lie to me!

"You're the detective, Sam. You should be able to tell me. I'd love to know. In fact, I hope to God you can tell me exactly who put it there. When and why."

Sam used his pencil to lift the other cushion. "Bag it."

"Because, Sam, the thing that scares me the most is finding out that you can't. And if you can't do any better with this than you did with Martha's case, I'm screwed." I crossed back to the sink, leaned, and drank directly from the faucet. Sam pulled two Polaroid photographs from an envelope he'd brought in with him and shuffled them in his hands. I took another swig, turned the water off, and leaned back on the counter. I knew what was coming next.

"You recognize this photograph?" He dropped one of the photos on the counter in front of me.

I didn't need to look, but rotated it anyway. It was the one of Ashleigh in the robe with her head on my chest. "Yeah, we took it Sunday night."

"Looks like you're a little more than an acquaintance, Richard."

"Well, I wasn't." Tearing another paper towel free, I wiped my forehead. "Sunday night was the first time I ever laid eyes on her."

"You have sex with her?"

"No sir, I did not."

He dropped the other photograph on the counter. Without looking I knew it had to be the one I took of her on the bed. "Is that you in this photograph?" he asked.

What? I leaned to look at the photo and felt a dagger pierce my chest. It was the picture Ashleigh had taken accidentally—or so I'd thought. You could clearly see her kissing me on the cheek and the fact that she was nude. Sweat beaded on my face and I could hear the blood rushing through my ears. "Yes sir, it is." Lizard Lips ran a vacuum over the love seat, couch, and floor. Staten took his black fingerprint brush and the photographer up the stairs. Sam just stared. Finally I said, "It's not what it looks like, Sam."

He closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. "It never is, Baimbridge. How do you explain it?"

"When she took this picture, I thought the camera had gone off by accident and didn't even know she'd gotten us in it."

"How do you explain the fact that she was naked, Richard? Kissing you naked. Appearing quite comfortable I might add. Kissing you in a very comfortable, very naked manner? You need to explain that, Richard."

I spun the photograph around for him to see. "Have you noticed how uncomfortable I look in this photograph?"

"Uncomfortable? It looks like heavenly bliss to me."

"Well, it wasn't."

"You said you hardly knew her. How do you explain the fact that she was naked?"

I wiped the towel across my face. "Sam, I am a photographer. The photographs she came to me about were necessary for her to audition for that Brad Pitt movie that's going to be made here. Nude photographs. After I got her power back on, she fixed me a drink, ran to her bedroom, closed the door, took her clothes off, lit a bunch of candles, and called for me to come in. Honest. I didn't know what she was up to. When I opened the door there she was." I could see he wasn't buying a single word of it and I was becoming more and more agitated. "She asked me if I liked that as one of the poses. I told her I did. Which was true, I did!" I waited for him to respond, but he just stared at me. "She had a Polaroid camera and asked me to take a photograph of the pose so she could see it. So I did. Did you find that one too? Where she's laying on the bed alone?"

"No, we didn't."

"And why did you let me think that she was dead last night? The paper says you haven't found her body. As far as you know, she could be out there somewhere right now praying for somebody to find her. To rescue her. You got anybody out looking for Ashleigh?"

"Tell me how you got that scratch on your face."

I stamped my finger on the photograph and shrieked, "Does it look like I'd have to force her if I'd wanted it?"

Sam grabbed my face and yanked it to the side. "Did she do this?"

I backed away and skulked off. "No she did not!"

"How'd you get it?"

"When I woke up yesterday morning it was there. And these on my arm." I unbuttoned my right sleeve and pulled it up.

Sam called Danny down from upstairs and scrawled in his notepad while photos were taken of my face and hands. "Sam, I know it sounds improbable, but I swear it's the truth. I blacked out around ten and when I came to, I was lying on my deck in the rain. I have no idea what happened after I passed out, how I got home, what time I got home, or how that flashlight got under that seat cushion." Sam said nothing, just dissected me with his eyes. The clock on the microwave read 6:10 p.m. I sighed, "How much longer is this going to take? I've got a rehearsal at seven."

Sam dropped onto a stool at the counter and flipped through his notes. "You can leave anytime you want."

I wished he'd told me that earlier. I would've taken off right then. As I reached for my keys, Staten came down the stairs toting a clear plastic bag containing something white. "Sam."

Sam met him at the foot of the stairs where they discussed the contents of the bag, then brought the bag to me. "Is this the shirt you had on Sunday night?"

There were several drops of blood on the sleeve, a couple more on the shoulder, and a large stain on the right-hand cuff.

"Yes. That's from the scratches on my face and arm."

There it was. That scorn in his eye that I feared most from my father. "Well I certainly hope—for your sake—it turns out to be your blood."

I flinched expecting his hand to bolt out and slap my face, then turned and walked out as bile rose in the back of my throat.