“Blur her twice,” I say again.
“Three times,” Blake says. “And I’ll ask legal to draft a check for her therapist.”
“Draft two,” I say. “One for the mom.”
We step into the hall. The building hums. The world outside is sun-bleached and suburban and full of people who will watch what I make and think they’re seeing the truth.
They will be.
In a way.
I will give them a light that flatters and a light that flickers. I will give them Shae—the mirror, the saint, the predator, the product.
Blake taps the elevator button. “If we ever air the Shadow, they’ll call us opportunists.”
“They call us that now,” I say. “They just do it more quietly.”
The elevator arrives. We ride down.
“You ever think about turning off the camera?” he asks.
“Every day,” I say. “Right after I think about where to put it next.”
In the lobby, the receptionist waves. Outside, a school bus sighs at the curb. A kid with a backpack dashes between palmtrees. Across the street, the flag in front of the municipal building snaps in the wind.
Blake holds the door for me. “After you.”
“Always,” I say, and step into the heat, the cameras, the church we built.
Chapter Thirteen
Shae
The light in this valley makes everything look dipped in sepia—golden, washed, like a memory you don’t quite trust. The kind of light that makes secrets feel romantic instead of grotesque.
Blake says he loves it here.
He stands barefoot in my kitchen, making coffee like he’s been living with me for years instead of three days. Tattoos peek from beneath his rolled sleeves. The film camera slung over his shoulder—his third limb—catches the morning sun.
“You’re quiet today,” he says.
I shrug, biting into a slice of apple I cut mostly for the optics. “Just soaking it all in. The quaint. The wholesome. Dawn Bergstrom from Hearth & Hands told me I’m a ‘beacon of hope.’” I roll my eyes. “I almost gagged on the granola bar she handed me.”
Blake grins, pouring coffee into the chipped blue mug I’ve started to think of as mine. “You’re a regular Hallmark movie now. Just missing the flannel-wearing carpenter who teaches you how to feel again.”
I smirk. “I already killed him.”
He barks a laugh. “Fair.”
That’s what I like about Blake—he doesn’t flinch when I say things like that. He doesn’t tiptoe around the truth the way everyone else does, like the monster is sleeping and we might wake her.
He already knows she’s awake.
And he doesn’t mind.
He joins me on the couch, sets his mug down, and angles the camera on the coffee table so it frames us both. “Ready for today’s interview?”
“Do I have a choice?”
