Allison took one last look. Why had the photo shown her this man and this woman? Not only was the intended victim ungrateful, but she’d attacked and threatened her. It made no sense. By the time Allison had walked to her apartment, it was 3 am. After showering and putting her bloody, urine-soaked clothes and shoes in a garbage bag, she decided to head back to the college’s darkroom. She wanted to ask Vanessa why she’d not shown her the ultimate outcome. That she would stop the murder but become a murderer in the process. The dumpster was almost full. Allison knew that meant that it was due to be emptied soon. ‘Good.’ She thought as she tossed the bag over the heap of other debris. Rich, the security officer watching the library, had left the well-hidden, auxiliary door to the library annex unlocked for her. For some reason, he’d attached himself to her. She never knew what to say to him, though. She was never good at small talk. And when she’d talk about things she liked, she never noticed when people were getting bored or wanted to change the subject. She’d been that way for all of her twenty-one years on earth, she supposed. Always an outsider, always alone. Nobody understood her. That’s why she loved mathematics. When the other women in her classes would ask her questions, she could talk and never run out of things to say. She felt herself at least getting better at reading faces enough to know when they looked lost in her world of numbers. And though she’d never really socialized with them, she thought the women in her class were pretty. She felt flattered that they even talked to her. ‘That’s why I love Vanessa.’ She almost said out loud when she opened the outer door of the darkroom. ‘She’s so pretty and she doesn’t get bored when I talk.’ Allison closed the first door, walked through the short vestibule, and then opened the second door. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim, red light.

“Vanessa.” Allison was surprised at her longing. She’d never realized that the discomfort she’d felt all her life was loneliness until Vanessa found her.

“Well, I went to stop the murder like you directed me to. But I actually ended up murdering the person I was supposed to save. Imagine that.” She chuckled. As she set up the trays of chemicals and the water bath, Allison became aware of the heaviness in her gut and the impending terror that indicated Vanessa’s presence. When she first felt it, it vexed her. She couldn’t figure out why she felt afraid. When her photography professor mentioned off-hand that a girl had been murdered in the darkroom back in 1981, she hadn’t given it much thought. He said that her murder, after these past eight years, was still unsolved. Allison simply said, “So what?”