Chapter One: The Ninth Photograph

After the subway disaster seven years earlier, he no longer believed photographs were truthful. Every negative from the scene had been overexposed. Those blank images won him an award, then got him accused of fraud. He remembered almost nothing of that night except white light, the smell of rust, and a voice in his ear saying, Don't let them see you. “We should call the police,” Lin said. “And tell them someone with your face will ask for help on a bridge tomorrow?” “What do you suggest?” Shen copied the nine photographs onto three drives, then returned the original card to his camera. “We go to the hospital. We wait until 5:17.”