Sliver of Truth Read Online Free PDF Page A

orange, and red in the changing season. We’d asked a young woman strolling by to take a picture of us on our blue picnic blanket and cuddled in close. She got only our heads near the bottom of the frame and everything irrelevant behind and above us. It had been a good day. In the photo I noticed that our smiles looked forced and fake. But they weren’t. At least mine wasn’t. I felt hopeful for us, I remember, like a terminally ill patient who thinks a brief cessation of symptoms heralds a miraculous recovery.
    The final photograph before me was a snapshot from the miserable Sunday we’d spent with my parents. We went to the River Café in Brooklyn for lunch and then on to the Botanic Garden. This used to be one of my favorites dates with my father when I was younger. Arranging this get-together was my pathetic and desperate attempt to pretend we could act like a family. Well, we did act like a family, a hateful and unhappy one. Ace, who was also invited, didn’t show and didn’t call. My mother took an attitude of stoic endurance, issuing the occasional passive-aggressive comment under her breath. My father and I chattered on like idiots, mirroring each other in our efforts to keep the faltering conversation flowing. Jake was silent and sullen. We shared an awkward meal. Then, unable to admit defeat, we proceeded to the Botanic Garden. My father used my camera to take a photo of me, my mother, and Jake. I put my arm around my mother’s shoulders and smiled. She turned up the corners of her mouth reluctantly, but I swear she shrunk from me. Jake stood near us but just slightly apart. He looked distracted, seemed to have gazed off in the last second before the picture was snapped. We looked like a group of strangers, uncomfortable and forced together.
    A powerful sadness and embarrassment washed over me. I looked up at Agent Grace with what I hoped was barely concealed hostility.
    “It’s not a crime to have a shitty relationship with your family, is it? Or to document your sad attempts to save your failing love affair?”
    I leaned away, looked at the wall over his head. I didn’t want to look at his face.
    “No, Ms. Jones, it isn’t,” he said softly. “Can I call you Ridley?”
    “No,” I said nastily. “You can’t.”
    I thought I saw a smile tug at the corners of his mouth, as if he found me amusing. I wondered how much trouble you could get in for slapping a federal agent.
    “Ms. Jones,” he said, “what interests us about these photographs is not the subjects, it’s the background. Take another look.”
    I glanced at each picture and saw nothing unusual. I shrugged at him and shook my head. He kept his eyes on me, nodded again toward the photos. “Look closely.”
    I looked again. Still nothing.
    “Why don’t you just cut the crap,” I suggested, “and tell me what you see.”
    He took a black Sharpie from his lapel pocket and circled the figure of a man behind us at the Botanic Garden. He was more like the specter of a man, tall and thin. His face was paper white, little more than a ghostly blur. He wore a long black coat, a dark hat. He leaned on a cane. He seemed to be looking in my direction.
    Agent Grace circled another figure behind us in Central Park. Same coat, same cane; this time the man in the picture wore sunglasses. The figure in the photograph was so far away it could have been anyone.
    He took the Sharpie again and marked another man in the doorway of Notre-Dame. This time he was caught in profile, more clearly, closer. Something about the shape of his brow, the ridge of his nose caused me to lean in. Something about the slope of his shoulder made my heart flutter.
    “No,” I said, shaking my head.
    “What?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. Those eyes of his were weird, at once sleepy and searing.
    “I see what you’re trying to do,” I said.
    “What?” he repeated, leaning back. I expected to see smug satisfaction on his face but I didn’t.
    “It’s