Chapter 40 The Photograph

Chapter 40 The Photograph
Liam

Maya and Sarah looked at each other. A quick exchange, the kind that covered an entire conversation in under a second.
"She left," Maya answered.
I looked at her. "She left? She always stays until—"
"She left early today," Sarah said. Her voice was carefully neutral in a way that Maya's never was, which meant she was working at it. "Like an hour ago."
Something about the way they were both standing — not unfriendly, but not fully open — registered as a specific kind of information.
"Is she okay?" I asked.
Another look between them.
"You should probably ask her that," Maya replied.
I looked at Maya for a moment. Maya looked back with the steady patience of someone who had decided exactly how much she was going to give me and had already drawn the line.
"Okay," I said. "Thanks."
I went back to the car.

I drove the route between school and the mansion on autopilot, not thinking about what Maya's expression had meant or why Daisy had left early or what the combination of those two facts added up to.
I was two blocks from the house when I saw her.
Walking on the right side of the road, bag on both shoulders, earbuds in, head slightly down. The late afternoon light catching the waves in her hair. Moving at the pace of someone who was thinking hard about something and using the walking to process it.
I pulled up alongside her and rolled down the window.
She looked up.
Our eyes met through the open window for one second.
Then she turned and walked in the opposite direction.
I sat there for a moment, genuinely confused. In the full catalog of Daisy Henrico responses I had developed over the past weeks, I did not have a category for turning and walking away without speaking.
I pulled the car forward, parked it half on the curb, and got out.
"Daisy."
She kept walking.
"Daisy." I caught up in four strides and stepped around in front of her, blocking the path.
She stopped. Pulled one earbud out. Looked at me with an expression that was completely flat in a way that was different from her usual composure—her usual composure had texture in it, the small movements of someone thinking. This was something that had been locked down from the outside.
"Move," she said.
"What's going on?"
"Nothing." Her voice was level. "I don't want any problems, Liam. Just let me walk."
"You turned around when you saw my car."
"I changed my mind about the direction."
"Daisy—"
"I said I don't want any problems." She looked at him directly. Something was running behind her eyes, hot and contained, like she had made a decision about how much of it to let show and was holding the line. "Just leave it."
"Leave what?" I stepped slightly to the side so she could see my face clearly. "What happened?"
She was quiet for three seconds. Her jaw tightened once.
Then her hand went into her notebook pocket, and she pulled something out and held it up between us.
A photograph.
I took it. Looked at the front—me and Tiffany at Dev's party last night, the lights behind us, her head tilted toward mine, my arm at her shoulder. Clean shot. Deliberately composed.
I turned it over.
DON'T DARE COME BETWEEN LIAM AND TIFFANY. OR YOU WILL GET IT.
The block letters were neat and deliberate. Someone who had wanted it to be readable. Someone who had wanted to make sure the message was absolutely clear.
I stood on the pavement in the late afternoon light holding the photograph and felt something move through me that started as cold and became something hotter the longer I held it.
"It seems someone isn't happy with us being together," Daisy said. Her voice was completely steady. Controlled in the way she got when something had actually gotten to her and she was not going to let it show.
I looked at the photograph. Then at her.
"How did this get to you?" I said.
"My locker," she said. "This morning. Someone opened it before I arrived and put it inside."
"Someone knows your combination."
"Yes."
"Tiffany," I said.
Daisy said nothing, which was its own answer.
I looked at the photograph one more time—at the image of me and Tiffany that someone had printed and delivered with a threat because they wanted Daisy scared enough to step back. And underneath the anger at Tiffany, underneath the calculation of what this meant for the situation, something else was sitting that I was not going to examine on a public pavement.
I looked at Daisy.
She was watching my face with the careful attention she always had, collecting information, waiting.
"I need you to listen to me," I said.
"I've been listening to you for weeks," she said quietly. "I'm starting to wonder how much of what I've been hearing is actually true."
The words landed cleanly and precisely, and I held her gaze and did not look away.
"Give me tonight," I said. "Session. Library. And I'll explain the photograph."
She looked at me for a long moment.
The afternoon sat around us, quiet and golden, the kind of California light that made everything look more significant than you were ready for.
"Fine," she said finally. "Tonight."
She took the photograph back from my hand, put it in her pocket, and walked past me toward the house.
I stood on the pavement and watched her go and held the photograph's image in my head—not the one of me and Tiffany, but the one of Daisy's face when she had pulled it out of her pocket.
Flat. Locked down. Working very hard at not showing the thing underneath.
I had put that look on her face.
Not Tiffany. Me.
I stood there with that understanding for exactly as long as it took to become uncomfortable.
Then I got back in the car.