“Oh Angelica,” I crowed, “you were so right. This morning light is much more flattering.”

“I told you so,” she replied with the mixture of sass, excitement, and haughtiness that seemed to be her default, “I just knew that it would be a totally different feeling if we did this when the light was better.”

I was again lying on my belly on the tennis court, a position that was not particularly comfortable. It was beginning to get old, honestly, this whole business of groveling and sucking up to Angelica. Thankfully, I reminded myself, this was the last day of spending time with her. All I had to do was get through the next few hours. And take a picture of Marcus for Nathan.

I’d looked all through Angelica’s Instagram feed to see if I could find a photo this morning, but he was nowhere to be found. Most of Angelica’s past male accessories showed up in at least a photo or two, but not Marcus. His absence was almost significant all on its own. My journalistic spidey-sense was tingling, although Nathan seemed to think it was nothing. At least having a side objective for the morning’s photoshoot made it halfway interesting. It was like working on a real story again.

I’d made a discovery this morning when I was leaving Nathan’s. In his office, sat a framed clipping of one of the articles I’d written about him from a few years ago when I was still an intern. It had surprised me to see it there. Although I’m sure that was a low point in Nathan’s life, it had been a period of great optimism for me as I got my first taste of real journalism. I wanted that feeling of pursuing hard news back in my life, like I had when I worked for the Philadelphia Monitor. I’d felt like I was doing work that mattered. The idea that Marcus might somehow be involved in the hacking propelled me forward with new enthusiasm.

Just like yesterday, Marcus was lurking on the sidelines. He was just watching us. He didn’t seem to actually know a thing about tennis, I’d realized. I only ever played tennis in my public-school PE class in high school, and of course I learned absolutely nothing about the sport. But I had eyes.

Marcus had no tan lines on his shins from tennis socks, nor any callouses on his hands from tennis rackets. Angelica, for all her silly self-absorption, actually seemed to know quite a bit about tennis, and she had both. She was the daughter of a congressman, I supposed. While not wildly wealthy growing up, she was from Waterloo and would have been in the extreme upper edge of the middle class. She knew the Durant and Breyer families, and had mentioned before that she’d been playing on these courts since childhood.

Why then would Marcus exhibit no aptitude for tennis? Perhaps an injury had kept him off the court? I tried to reason through all the strange things about the man but couldn’t come up with a believable explanation. Obviously not being a real tennis pro wasn’t the same as being a hacker, but it did raise questions about the man’s identity.

“Alright,” I said to Angelica, “I think these action shots are just about perfect. We won’t need to even retouch them. Do you want to go ahead and do the stills now?”

I prayed she would say yes and I could finally get up. My neck and shoulders sincerely didn’t appreciate being twisted upward to wield the camera from such an awkward angle.

“Oh, let’s do another round,” Angelica begged, “just in case.”

By the time I was finally granted permission to get back up on two legs, it felt positively transcendent. I managed to engineer an angle for the portrait session that would allow me to take oblique shots of Marcus, but as soon as I got Angelica in place, he moved. So, naturally, I repositioned Angelica and got ready again. He moved again.

When I attempted to pretend to drop something to get a shot, Marcus was suddenly very interested in a bird and had turned to face the opposite way. When I spun around suddenly to scratch an itch and snap a photo of Marcus behind me, he was instantly seized with a need to stretch his hamstrings while facing the wall. He was impossible to get in the frame.

Nothing in his face or demeanor suggested he was aware of my interest in getting him on film, but his constant movement was making it impossible to get a clear photo. He made everything look so natural and normal, but it was impossible to snap a picture of his face. So, after three attempts, I changed my tactic.

“Angelica,” I exclaimed, “are you tired? Why don’t we take a short break? Surely, you’re feeling tired. I don’t want you to resent me being such a task-mistress.”

“I suppose I could use a bit of a break,” she agreed. “Tara,” she then ordered, “would you go and grab us something to drink? And a couple of rice cakes?”

Tara shuffled off obediently.

I sat down on a bench and started to shuffle through the photographs, keeping one eye on Marcus while I did. Upsettingly, as I looked through the shots I realized that Angelica was actually correct about the lighting. How frustrating. As much as I wanted to believe she was a dunce, she did have an eye for what looked good. I guess it made sense that she would become something of an expert in packaging her product (herself).

From my new vantage point, I’d expected to be able to aim the camera more easily at Marcus, but he shifted behind me immediately. If I didn’t know better, I would think he was avoiding it after thirty minutes of cat and mouse. He seemed casual enough, but every time a camera pointed in his general direction, he either turned around or disappeared. This was so much harder than I expected.

I had only one idea left. When Tara came back with Angelica’s snack, I was ready to make my final move. I stood up and casually slung the camera around my neck, having switched surreptitiously into video mode. Then I just walked past Marcus on my way to grab a water.

Point. Set. Match.