than it was. As the two sped off, Shep studied the spot across the street where Charlie had seen the figure she thought was this Lindy person.
There was no one standing there at the moment, but he could see how it was a perfect spot for someone to appear—and disappear—quickly.
He turned from the window and looked around the apartment, aware of how much it reflected the Charlie he’d known. The place felt cozy, lived in, loved. He stepped to one of the pen-and-ink drawings on the living room wall. It was a girl standing at the edge of a lake, the water shimmering with the last of the day’s warmth as the sun set off to one side of it. On the other side of the girl, black clouds gathered for what appeared to be an oncoming storm.
The one side of the painting radiated hope. The other...fear of something approaching? Maybe he was reading too much into it, but it made him wonder about the woman who’d drawn it. He couldn’t help the disturbing feeling that came over him. He thought of the girl he’d known. Whether or not she was the woman in the painting, he feared trouble wasn’t coming for Charlie. It had already found her.
Opening the refrigerator, he found a beer in the far back and helped himself as he wondered what else Charlie had lied about to her boyfriend. Taking the beer into the living room, he settled on her turquoise couch. All of the furniture he noticed was brightly colored. Somehow that seemed like a good sign, he thought, like the sunshine in the drawing.
The place had been tastefully decorated. No clutter. Just a few books and some photos of what appeared to be Charlie with young women friends. He took a sip of his beer and noticed a worn leather binding facing him on the bookshelf. Recognizing it, he rose and went to it.
Pulling out the old leather-bound photo album, he ran his fingers over the soft cover. At the judge’s boot camp, everything of value that they had was stored in lockers for the day they either returned to society or the police bagged their personal possessions and took back to jail.
Shep recalled Charlie saying she had only one thing she would never part with—a family photo album. He’d gotten the impression it was her only valuable possession. While she’d never let him see the photos inside it, he wasn’t surprised that she still had it.
Plopping down on her couch, he slowly leafed through the pages. There was Charlie as a baby with her mother and father. Apparently she’d been named after her father, Charles Farmington. He continued through the album until he realized there were no more photos of Charlie’s mother. Just a teenage, sad-looking Charlie and her father.
After that, there were only a few photos. One of Charlie’s father with another woman. It appeared to be a wedding photo. It had never been tacked down.
Like the wedding photo, the last photograph was also loose on its page. It was of Charlie about the same age as she was in the photo with her and her father. But in this one, she stood next to a blond girl. The other girl looked older. Neither girl appeared to be happy about having her photo taken. They stood just far enough apart that he suspected they weren’t friends. Charlie especially seemed wary of her.
He started to put the album away when another single photo fluttered to the floor. Stooping to pick it up, he was surprised to recognize a much younger version of himself. The shot had been taken at the boot camp the judge had sent them to. It was a photo of the two of them, both grinning, both sunburned and looking tired—but also happy.
Shep couldn’t help but smile at the young Charlie and Shep. Fraternizing with the opposite sex at boot camp was prohibited. But still, they had, even knowing what it could cost them because they couldn’t seem to stay away from each other. This photo alone could have gotten them kicked out.
That she’d kept the photo sent a wave of warmth through him. They’d broken the judge’s rules that day by slipping away and going skinny-dipping in the icy creek. He chuckled, remembering the foolish chance they’d taken even before they’d dressed and were heading back and asked a kid from a neighboring boot camp to take the photo with his instant snapshot camera he’d snuck in. If they