The darkroom smelled of chemicals and secrets. Mara locked the door behind her, sliding the bolt home with a metallic click that echoed in the converted shed. Red light bathed everything in blood, transforming familiar objects into something sinister.
She'd been avoiding this place since finding Daniel's journal. The darkroom had always been her sanctuary, but now it felt like a tomb—airless and suffocating, filled with evidence she didn't want to see.
The cassette tape burned in her pocket. 𝘚𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 4 - 𝘚𝘶𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵: 𝘔. 𝘓𝘰𝘤𝘬𝘸𝘰𝘰𝘥, 𝘈𝘨𝘦 16. She'd found it in the attic after Daniel left, half-hidden beneath a water-damaged box. Her name. Her voice. Her forgotten childhood bleeding through the cracks Daniel's confession had opened.
Focus. She had work to do.
The film canisters sat in neat rows on the counter, labeled with dates and locations. Some she remembered shooting. Others felt foreign, like artifacts from someone else's life. The damaged roll from Clara's murder night sat apart from the rest, its metal container dented and scratched.
She'd tried to develop it three times already. Each attempt had yielded nothing but black shadows and chemical burns. The negatives were warped, possibly from moisture damage. Or heat. Or something else entirely.
But tonight felt different. Tonight, she needed answers.
The enlarger hummed to life, its lamp casting harsh shadows across the workspace. Mara loaded the damaged film with steady hands, muscle memory guiding her movements. Twenty-seven years of photography had taught her to coax images from the most stubborn materials.
The first frame was garbage—overexposed, meaningless. The second showed the edge of their kitchen window, nothing more. But the third...
The third frame made her blood freeze.
A car. Clara's Honda Civic, parked at the trailhead overlook. The timestamp read 9:15 PM—eight minutes before Clara's body was discovered.
And there, reflected in the driver's side window, was a face.
Her face.
"No." The word escaped as a whisper.
She adjusted the contrast, sharpening the image. The reflection became clearer, more defined. Mara's own features stared back at her—eyes wide, mouth open in what might have been a scream or a gasp.
She was holding something in her hands. Something small and metallic that caught the moonlight.
A knife.
The photograph trembled in the developer solution, its edges curling like burning paper. Mara's hands shook as she lifted it with the tongs, studying every detail. The angle was wrong, the perspective impossible. She would have had to be standing directly beside the car to capture this reflection.
But she had no memory of being there. No memory of holding that knife, of standing in the darkness while Clara Nguyen lay broken on the rocks below.
"I wasn't there," she said aloud, her voice cracking. "I was home. I was in bed with Daniel."
The red light pulsed, making shadows dance across the walls. The photograph continued to develop, revealing more details she didn't want to see. The knife was familiar—one of their kitchen knives, the one with the black handle and the chip near the tip. The one that had gone missing two weeks ago.
The one she'd assumed Daniel had misplaced.
More images materialized in the developer bath. The car's interior, visible through the windshield. Clara's purse on the passenger seat. Her phone, still glowing with an unfinished text message.
And in the background, barely visible through the fog, a figure walking toward the cliffs.
Daniel.
The timeline didn't make sense. If she'd been at the car when this photo was taken, and Daniel was heading toward the murder site, then neither of them had been home that night. Both of them had lied to Detective Finch.
But only one of them remembered lying.
Mara's chest tightened. The darkroom suddenly felt smaller, the walls pressing in. She fumbled for the light switch, then stopped herself. Red light only. Never white light during development. The rule was sacred, automatic.
Even now, with her world crumbling around her, she followed the rules.
The final image emerged from the chemical bath like a ghost becoming flesh. This one showed the cliffs themselves, taken from the parking area. The timestamp read 9:23 PM—exactly when Clara's body was found.
But the cliffs weren't empty.
Two figures stood at the edge, silhouetted against the fog. One tall, one shorter. One holding something that gleamed in the moonlight.
Daniel and herself.
Together.
"This isn't possible." Her voice was barely audible above the enlarger's hum. "I would remember. I would remember killing someone."
But even as she spoke, fragments surfaced. The taste of salt air. The sound of waves crashing against rocks. The weight of something heavy in her hands.
And Daniel's voice, soft and hypnotic: "It's okay. She hurt you. She deserved this."
The memory shattered like glass, leaving only echoes and the sick taste of copper in her mouth.
Mara grabbed the photograph with bare hands, ignoring the chemical burns. She had to destroy it. Had to burn every trace of evidence that placed her at the scene.
But as she held the image above the enlarger's bulb, ready to watch it curl and blacken, she noticed something else. In the bottom corner, barely visible, was a date stamp.
Not from her camera. From another source.
𝘏𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘊𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘬 𝘔𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘊𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 - 𝘌𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘙𝘰𝘰𝘮 - 𝘍𝘪𝘭𝘦 2847
The photograph wasn't from her camera at all. It was from security footage, digitally enhanced and printed on photographic paper. Someone had placed it in her film canister, mixed in with her own shots.
Someone wanted her to find it.
The cassette tape in her pocket seemed to pulse with heat, demanding attention. She pulled it out, staring at the label in the red light. 𝘚𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 4 - 𝘚𝘶𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵: 𝘔. 𝘓𝘰𝘤𝘬𝘸𝘰𝘰𝘥, 𝘈𝘨𝘦 16.
Sixteen. The same age she'd been when she'd first arrived at Haven Creek. When she'd met a young therapist named Daniel Kessler and learned that memory was just another tool to be shaped and molded.
The age she'd been when she'd first learned to kill.
Mara fed the photograph into the enlarger's waste tray, watching it curl and blacken. The image dissolved, taking with it any proof of her presence at the murder scene.
But she kept the negative. Slipped it into her pocket beside the cassette tape.
Evidence. Insurance. Proof that someone was playing games with her memory, planting evidence in her own darkroom.
The question was who.
And why they wanted her to remember what she'd spent seventeen years trying to forget.
Outside, gravel crunched under heavy footsteps. Daniel was home from his evening walk, the walk he took every night at exactly 9:15 PM. The same time Clara Nguyen had died.
The same time Mara had apparently been standing beside her car, holding a knife.
The footsteps stopped at the darkroom door.