Don't open it, she told herself Throw it in the trash. Don't look inside. But her fingers were already tearing at the seal, ripping open the flap. she didn't hear Kate's exclamation of surprise as she upended the envelope, shaking the photographs out onto the floor. With a lit the keening sound, Jo dropped to her knees, shoving through them, pushing one after another aside in a desperate search for one. The one.
Without hesitation, Kate hung up on the reservation she was taking and rushed around the desk. "Jo, what is it? Jo Ellen, what's wrong?
What is all this?" she demanded, holding Jo under one arm as she stared at dozens of pictures of her young cousin.
"He's been here. He's been here. Here!" Jo scrambled through the photos again. There she was, walking on the beach. Asleep in the hammock, on the edge of the dune swale, setting up her tripod at the salt marsh.
But where was the one? Where was the one?
"It's got to be here. It's got to."
Alarmed, Kate hauled Jo up to her knees and shook her. "Stop it. Now. I want you to stop it this minute." Because she recognized the signs, she dragged Jo over to a chair, pushed her into it, then shoved her head between her knees. "You just breathe. That's all you do. Don't you go fainting on me. You sit right there, you hear me? You sit right there and don't you move."
she rushed into the bathroom to run a glass of water and dampen a cloth. When she dashed back in, Jo was just as she'd left her. Relieved, Kate knelt down and laid the cold cloth on the back of Jo's neck. "There now, just take it easy."
"I'm not going to faint," Jo said dully.
"That's fine news to me, I'll tell you. Sit back now, slowly, drink a little water." she brought the glass to Jo's lips herself, held it there, grateful when color gradually seeped back into them. "Can you tell me what this is all about now?"
"The photos." Jo sat back, closed her eyes. "I didn't get away. I didn't get away after all."
"From what, honey? From who?"
"I don't know. I think I'm going crazy."
"That's nonsense." Kate made her voice sharp and impatient.
"I don't know that it is. It's already happened once."
"What do you mean?"
she kept her eyes closed. It would be easier to say it that way. "I had a breakdown a few months ago."
"Oh, Jo Ellen." Kate eased down onto the arm of the chair and began to stroke Jo's hair. "Why didn't you tell me you'd been sick, honey?"
"I just couldn't, that's all. Everything just got to be too much and I couldn't hold on anymore. The pictures started to come."
"Pictures like these?"
"Pictures of me. just pictures of my eyes at first. just my eyes." Or her eyes, she thought with a shudder. Our eyes.
"That's horrible. It must have frightened you so."
"It did. Then I told myself someone was just trying to get my attention so I'd help them break into photography."
"That's probably just what it was, but it was a terrible way to do it. You should have gone to the police."
"And tell them that someone was sending me, a photographer, pictures? " Jo opened her eyes again. "I thought I could handle it. just ignore it, just deal with it. Then an envelope like that one came in the mail. Full of pictures of me, and one ... one I thought was of someone else. But it wasn't," Jo said fiercely. she was going to accept that. If nothing else, she was going to accept that one thing.
"I imagined it. It wasn't there at all. just those pictures of me. Dozens of them. And I fell apart."
"Then you came back here."
"I had to get away. I thought I could get away. But I can't. These are from here, right here on the island. He's been right here, watching me."
"And these are going to the police." Simmering with fiery, Kate rose to snatch up the envelope. "Postmark's Savannah. Three days ago."
"What good will it do, Kate?"
"We won't know that till we do it."
"He could still be in Savannah, or anywhere else. He could be back on the island." she ran her hands through her hair, then let them drop into her lap. "Are we going to ask the police to question everyone with a camera?"
"If necessary. What kind of camera?" Kate demanded. "Where and how were they developed? When were they taken? There ought to be a way of figuring some of that out. It's better than sitting here being scared, isn't it? Snap your backbone in place, Jo Ellen."
"I just want it to go away."
"Then make it go away," Kate said fiercely. "I'm ashamed you'd let someone do this to you and not put up a fight." Kate snatched up a photo, held it out. "When was this taken? Look at it, figure it out."