“That’s Claire’s shop,” Astrid said as they passed by River Wild Books. A few customers milled around inside, a woman with blue hair manning the counter.
“Mmm.”
“You went there a lot as a kid, didn’t you?” Astrid asked.
Delilah leaned her head against the back of the seat. “Mmm.”
“It’s different now. Claire’s turned it all modern and beautiful.”
“Mmm.”
Astrid huffed an irritated breath that made Delilah smile. She pulled up outside the Kaleidoscope, and Delilah leaped out like the car was on fire.
A bath. That’s what she needed. A bath, some room service, a huge glass of wine. But when she turned to wave goodbye to Astrid, spit out something polite like thanks for the free spa treatments even though you’d rather I hadn’t been there at all as evidenced by your three-person reservation, her stepsister had rounded the car, purse on her shoulder, eyes wide with expectancy.
“Um . . . are you staying here too?” Delilah asked, jutting a thumb toward the inn. “Spencer snores, huh? Or wait, he makes you sleep on the couch when you’ve eaten garlic and you just can’t handle that lumpy sofa anymore.”
Astrid, unfortunately, did not take the bait. “I’d like to see the pictures I’m paying a fortune for, if you don’t mind.”
“You mean Mommy Dearest is paying a fortune for.”
Astrid just pursed her lips and continued to stare at Delilah. The woman would win a national blinking contest, hands down.
“What, you don’t trust me?” Delilah said, pressing her hand to her chest. “I am an artiste. A visionary. An intrepid explorer through the wastelands of time. A veritable—”
“I’ll just get the key from Nell,” Astrid said, brushing past Delilah and heading into the three-story brick building.
“Oh, well played,” Delilah said, following after her.
Once in her room, she tossed her suitcase onto the bed and removed her camera from its bag. Hooking it up to her laptop on the desk, she clicked around on the camera until all the photos she’d taken so far started uploading into Lightroom, which she’d always preferred over Photoshop. Less flashy, but simple was good in Delilah’s opinion. Cropping, exposure and white balance, contrast and color, vibrancy and saturation. That’s all she needed to play with. The real art was in the eye, the angle, the moment she hit the shutter.
“Keep in mind, these aren’t edited,” she said as Astrid sat at the desk and watched as images flipped onto the screen, piling into Lightroom like a deck of cards.
Delilah felt a flare of nerves. She’d never shown Astrid her work. Not once. Not the unflattering photos Delilah had taken of her and her coven back when they were teenagers, not a single wedding shot or portrait or a black and white of a piece of gum on the sidewalk. But now, she was going to see a lot. Wedding stuff, sure, but also just random shit Delilah snapped when she was walking through town after talking with Claire in River Wild, images she took just because they caught her eye, like a lollipop stick in the grass and a crack in a wineglass and—
Delilah’s posture snapped straight.
And Claire when she didn’t know Delilah was watching. Lots and lots of images of Claire when she didn’t know Delilah was watching.
Well, shit.
“Um, what do I do?” Astrid asked when a notification popped up announcing the upload was complete.
Delilah didn’t move, wondering if she could make some excuse as to why Astrid couldn’t see the photos yet, but there was nothing. They were right there already, in front of Astrid’s eager face, and the woman was like a dog with a very expensive bone when she wanted something. No way she was letting go.
It was fine. Delilah had taken candids of Astrid and Iris too . . . hadn’t she?
She leaned around her stepsister and tapped on the first image, then showed Astrid where to click to move to the next. Astrid leaned in as the photos of everything Delilah had taken over the past three days bloomed onto the screen.
Delilah perched on the side of the bed, her stomach suddenly in knots, not just over the photos of Claire—which she could totally play off as an attempt at intentionally driving Astrid bonkers, which Astrid would have no trouble believing—but over her perfect stepsister digging through her work, her brain, her heart.
Jesus, Delilah, your heart? Get a damn grip.
So she did. She gripped her thighs and stared down at her jeans while Astrid silently clicked . . . and clicked . . .
. . . and clicked.