The photographer dunked a Lorna Doone cookie into a cup of iced coffee with her left hand and bit off the wet corner. Her name was Daisy Valentine. She was twenty-seven. A skinny old cat licked up the crumbs that fell on the floor of her
stucco bungalow. Daisy’s right hand worked a computer mouse, manipulating pixels on a photo of onion rings that she was editing. It was a job for a local burger joint.

The walls of her studio were cement. The floor was chipped old Moroccan tile. Deep pink bouganvillea vines crept inside through a screen-less arched window, open to the LA night. When she heard a coyote softly howl, she grabbed her ever-ready Pentax and took it out onto her back patio. She made her way across the flagstones and weeds to that low back wall just below the Hollywood sign. Beyond the forest and reservoir, the lights of LA glittered like distant sands. She sat on the wall as her eyes scanned the forest. Someone in a neighboring house played some old Stones… “Oh I am sleeping under strange strange skies…” She watched the tiny light shimmers drift up from the bramble. She didn’t take any pictures.

She heard a sound coming from her house and turned toward it. It was Travis, stepping out of her open back door onto her patio. He carried a small brown paper bag and a pastry box.

“Was it ready?” she asked.

He offered the paper bag. She got off the wall, walked to him and took it as she passed by and went back into her house. He followed, “I got some food. Gelsons was open.”

“In a minute.” she told him as she went back into her studio.

Daisy unlocked a steel cabinet and took out a half-full 12 inch reel of 35mm film. She took it to a second work table across from her computers. Wedged against it was an old tank of a film editor – a 1956 35mm Moviola. She removed a roll of film – uncut 35mm slides – from the bag Travis had given her. She slid it into the gears of the Movieola and turned on its light. Hand-cranking it, she viewed the uncut roll of slides: the pictures were good. There were six shots of the light shimmer coming up from the forest. There were nine individual shots of the three Domingos’ dead girls, two shots of the two girls holding each other and one group shot of the three of them. Each individual shot had a small ripple of light rising above each girl. She also had twelve exterior shots of three light ripples rising above Domingos and six shots of Rhea, three in the cement river bed and three behind Domingos. She opened a little bottle of film glue, scraped the edge of the strip of film and spliced it to the end of the film that was on the reel. She put the reel back into the cabinet and locked it.

“It’s ok?” Travis asked as she came back out of the studio. “Yep.” She said. “What do you have?” He opened the pastry box. She took the piece of Princess cake and bit into it. He watched her lick crumbs from her lips. He waited. “OK?” he asked as she put it on a napkin and headed back out onto the patio. He followed, waiting for acknowledgement. There was none. A coyote came up and sat by her feet. She scratched his ear and gave him a piece of her piece of cake.

“Some old chick tried to bang me.” He broke the silence.
“Bang?
“Screw. Do. Fuck—”
“I know what it means.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Old?”
“No. Older. like thirty five. I like old. Older—” Travis blushed. He had a crush on Daisy. Maybe he even loved her but she was completely indifferent.

She looked at the land, at the sloping hill just beyond her patio wall. She was impatient, a little agitated. Something was bothering her.

The coyote got up. He hopped over the low wall and walked to a flat spot of land just outside the left side of the wall. The spot was well worn. There were no plants, weeds or bushes on it. He lay down. Daisy watched him, gathering an idea.
She turned and hurried back inside. She rummaged through a cabinet where she kept all her important stuff: papers, lenses, a purple cat collar. She found a surveyor’s drawing of her property. She took it outside, comparing it to her back yard.

“Travis, come here–” she told her young assistant. He obliged. She showed him the drawing.

“You see this line, here? The edge of my property?” He looked; nodded. “Yeah–”

“Do you think Ralphie is inside it or outside it?” she asked, pointing to the reclining coyote.

Travis looked from the drawing to the hill back to the drawing then back to the hill. “Outside.”

“Yeah..” Daisy agreed, still thinking. “Bummer.”

Strickland couldn’t sleep. He could not get Rhea out of his mind. He had thought of her almost every day since she was sixteen but not like this. From the midnight he’d first met her on the dusty border in Tecate Mexico up until last night, his thoughts had always been about protecting her. But seeing her in the moonlight brushing crumbs off her breast, gave a jolt to his groin he’d never expected. He shook off those thoughts, got out of bed at five decided to go to work. He grabbed a raspberry yogurt from his fridge and left. He had to walk past Rhea’s apartment to get to the garage. He slowed a little and looked; her sheer curtains were closed but he could see her silhouette inside, bent over her table, asleep next to an empty Tommy’s bag.

He got to headquarters by five-thirty. He still hadn’t gotten used to the newness of the building. The cleanliness. The sterility. It was an environment that demanded precision and utility. It did not scream instinct or passion like the Hollywood Division on Wilcox but here was where exploited kids dept. coalesced with the global network. So here he was. He got to work.

At six-thirty, a ray of sunlight poured through Rhea’s window and onto her head. She resisted it and stayed asleep until her phone beeped five minutes later, waking her. She had a text. From Manny. He wanted her to come in at eight. She hoped it was good news, she hoped he liked what she’d sent him and was going to pay her. Today.