1 Depth of Field Read Online Free Page A

Susan, Louisa, P—”
    “Isn’t he married?” I couldn’t help feeding into her gossip.
    “Oh, knew that, did you?” She pursed her lips. “Yes, he’s married. Or I should say he was married. Susan’s got everything now. Hm, that might be a motive. She’s something else.”
    So are you.
    A ringing and buzzing started up, and at first I thought it was my phone. Then I noticed the lump near her left hip. How could I have missed it? Talia raised her shirt and peeled the leggings down a little ways. I took an involuntary step back, thinking I would see something I never wanted to see. However, she retrieved her cell phone from the spot and answered the call.
    “Ollie? Yes! I saw her. The jury is still out on whether she was one of his girls. Did you get the food?” Talia continued to bellow into the phone as she started up the stairs to her apartment. I shook my head as she disappeared and darted into my place before she found more questions to drill me with.
    My one bedroom apartment was sparsely decorated since moving to Briney Creek with a full living room set, including modern couch, loveseat, armchair, and coffee table. I did not own a kitchen/dining room table or chairs. My full size bed was comfortable but pretty cheap, and I hadn’t sprung for a dresser. Most of my casual clothes were jeans and T-shirts, which I folded into a giant tub in the corner of my room. Blouses and slacks were hung in the closet where I hoped the wrinkles would fall out.
    You can pretty much gauge my priorities in that the walls were covered with framed photographs. One of my favorites was of the dogwood trees in full bloom in Cades Cove. I’d visited the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and in North Carolina and captured both the Cove and its fields as well as the snow-capped mountains above. While I had fallen in love with the landscape, prompting my choice to move to North Carolina, I would not repeat my mode of transportation. The rented recreational vehicle was not for me, and I stuck with my car. My travels had taken me as far as the state of Washington to photograph Mount Rainer on a day when cloud cover didn’t hide it from view. In my photo, taken with a wide angle lens, I had captured the mountain’s snow-covered tips toward the top of the frame and its majestic reflection on the water. In the foreground, most vivid were the fields of wildflowers with their fiery reds, yellows, purples, and blues. Every time I traversed my hallway, decked like a gallery, I sighed in wonder.
    As soon as I left Talia, my own cell phone started going off. I fielded calls from customers asking if their photos were ready or if not when they might pick them up. I was pretty sure everyone knew what had happened that morning and that they were fishing for information they thought the sheriff had shared with me about the case. When what felt like the fiftieth call came in, I admit I snapped my hello into the receiver and bit my tongue afterward.
    “I’m sorry, Makayla,” Peony Trevor said in her gentle, tired tone, making me feel guiltier for biting her head off, “I know you must be busy. I can guess half the town has called you by now.”
    “Oh, no, it’s fine, Peony,” I lied but not very convincingly.
    “I’m afraid I’m like everyone else.”
    “You want to know what the police said to me too?”
    “Uh…no, I meant I’m worried about my baby’s pictures. You took the first one at the hospital, and then the ones we had done at your shop. Now I feel stupid for calling. It could have waited until tomorrow. Sasha is just my first little one, and I think it would kill me if I lost that first photo.”
    She made a strangled sound, and my stomach clenched thinking something had happened. “Peony?”
    “I can’t believe I said that.”
    I rubbed my forehead and rushed to reassure her. No one could blame the woman. Those first moments were precious. The problem was I couldn’t be sure if the photographs were okay. I did have files