The safety deposit boxes were in a vault, a cool room hushed and full of hard surfaces. Corazon thought it had been nice of Kerry to volunteer to come with her, but now that he was here, he had no idea what to do with himself. He stared at the wall of boxes, the little numbers, the occasional thumbtack stuck in a box lock. Corazon's sister had briefly been a teller in a bank so Corazon knew what the thumbtacks meant. Yellow meant the owner was overdue on the yearly fee. Red meant the owner was so overdue they were going to drill the lock on the box and close it out. Black meant the owner was dead and the box couldn't be opened until probate was finished. Corazon looked away from the black ones. The bank manager opened one side of the box door, Corazon opened the other. The manager slid the long metal box out of the wall and carried it for her to a little table. Kerry hovered self-consciously, apparently torn between curiosity and the sense this should be private. The manager said, "Call me when you're done." Corazon flipped up the metal top of the box. Inside were big brown envelopes. The top one had her name on it. She picked it up and looked inside. It was photos of her. From their last session. Prints and negatives. He had made her look like Venus, like Aphrodite, like...like something extraordinary. Her heart stopped. Vic would never have left these if he was leaving town. Why had he given her the key? Because he didn't expect to come back. The photos slid from her hands and waterfalled to the floor. Something had happened. That's what the photos said. She could keep herself from screaming like some demented Elektra in an opera, but that was all she could do. She knew as soon as she started breathing again she was going to cry. Dimly she was aware of Kerry picking up the photos. "These are really nice," he said. He sounded surprised.
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