Exposed (3 page)

“Nope. You know I hate photographers, and my job requires I blend into the woodwork,” he said, gladly stretching the unwritten rules of witness protection to include avoiding family photographs.

“It wouldn’t be a family photo without you in it,” Abigail said, giving him that hopeful look.

Frank huffed out all the air in his chest. “Okay, but only for you. One.”

Abigail leaned over from her chair and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Besides, my photographer isn’t like the paparazzi, I promise. You’ll love Sydney.”

* * * * *

Sydney Peele dropped her favorite jeans and lightweight sweater in on top of her hiking boots, shaking her head. When she’d agreed to do this fashion shoot for one of the up-and-coming new designers, she’d assumed they’d be doing it in New York, or some other mecca for fashion, like Milan or Paris.

No, Liv Cartwright wanted something different for her first editorial shoot.

So instead of spending the week in a city full of posh hotels with room service, celebrity-chef-owned restaurants, and catching a play or jazz group, Sydney was going to be hiking through the muck and mire of a New England spring out in the wilds.

The sound of her front door opening echoed up the stairs of her townhouse.

“Sydney, you here?” her brother Ian called. The only person with a key to her house—which she still regretted giving him—Ian had a bad habit of dropping in unannounced, after weeks or even months with no communication between them.

Great.
Just what she needed today. Ian only showed up when he wanted something.

“Up here, packing,” she yelled loud enough for him to hear over the radio playing
Barracuda
in the background.

One of the reasons she bought one of the newly renovated row house townhomes in the Italian Village portion of Columbus was the second-floor bedroom area. After their father died, her mother had moved them into an apartment. It was roomy enough, especially after Ian left home to travel the world, but she’d missed the upstairs bedroom she’d had as a child. It had made her feel like a princess safe in her castle. When she finally decided to make Columbus her home base once more, she’d indulged in a home that provided that feeling.

Another feature was the small powder room and closet off the kitchen. First thing she’d done was convert the two rooms into one and made it a darkroom. A space where she could develop her non-digital photos. Before her father died, she’d spent many hours in the darkroom with him, learning how to develop negatives into pictures. He’d taught her the safe ways to use and store the chemicals.

Her eyes shifted to the black-and-white image of an apple tree in full blossom above her bed. It was the first picture she’d taken and developed all on her own. Dad had it framed professionally, and gave it to her on her twelfth birthday.

Ian’s feet pounded on the stairs.

She wiped at the tears the memories had elicited. The last thing she needed today was her older brother teasing her about crying over silly sentiments. Focusing on her packing, she grabbed her Ohio State sweatshirt off the bed, and dropped it on top of the other clothes. With her luck it would be a very cold spring up in Vermont.

“Hey, sis!” Ian grabbed her from behind in one of his notorious bear hugs, lifting her up off the floor.

“Stop it!” she said, slapping his hands. “God, you smell like a locker room full of dirty jock straps and old uniforms. Put me down, you big idiot.”

Instead of doing as she asked, he leaned back and hauled her higher, eliciting a scream from her as he roared like a bear. Just as suddenly, he dropped her. She stumbled and landed on her butt.

“God, you’re such a jerk,” she said, coming up sputtering and glaring at him.

“I’m not going to ask how you know what a locker room full of jock straps smells like.” A grin split his face beneath the scruffy beard, and he shoved his designer sunglasses onto his head, pushing back the thinning strands of his shoulder-length salt-and-pepper streaked hair. He was dressed in black cargo pants and a khaki jacket, both of which seemed to have a year’s worth of dirt and dust on them.

“You look as bad as you smell. Where have you been for the past six months?” She went back to packing, knowing her brother wouldn’t really answer her questions. As a freelance journalist, he traveled to some of the darkest, most dangerous areas of the world.

“Now, Sydney. You know I’d tell you if I could, but then—”

“—you’d have to kill me,” she finished for him, shaking her head at his lopsided grin.

“You know me so well.” He flopped down on the other side of the bed near the window, casually looking out the curtains to the street below. “Can’t a guy just stop to see his kid sister without a full-on interrogation?”

A little spark of worry skittered across her nerves.

Since they were kids she’d been able to read him like a book. All the extra-jovial teasing and too-bright smile meant he was hiding something, and she suspected what that was.

He was gambling again
.

“How long are you in town for this time?” she asked, instead of prying into the psyche of her brother. Some things even family couldn’t fix. She pulled out her camera bag from the closet and set it on the bed next to the suitcase, two cameras, and various lenses she’d already laid out.

“Why don’t you just use the digital camera like the rest of the fashion pros?” He lifted the Canon 35mm camera from the bed beside him. “I don’t know why you insist on doing black-and-white shots with this antique. Don’t you have to Photoshop most of your pictures, anyway?”

“I don’t Photoshop anything. Besides, I like to do some non-digital shots, too. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to develop some pictures without using the computer. That way, if there’s a worldwide computer apocalypse, I’ll still have the shots I wanted.” She snatched back the camera and carefully put into her bag. “Besides, that Canon is my good-luck charm.”

They both knew why the camera was so important to her. Their father had given it to her on her sixteenth birthday, on September ninth. Two days before he’d flown to New York for a meeting in the One World Trade Tower, where he worked as a freelance photographer for one of the news agencies.

“And I’m not the only one who goes old-school sometimes.” She pointed to the framed photos on her wall. Black-and-white images of the Alaskan wilderness where he’d spent the last summer. “You took those with the same manual camera Dad gave you.”

“So, where you heading?” Ian asked, avoiding any talk about his connection to their father. Nearly fifteen years, and he had yet to forgive Dad for leaving them that day.

“I have a fashion shoot up in Vermont this week.”

He peeked through her bags, picking at the shoe string of one of her boots. “What kind of fashion are you doing? Mountain men’s newest hunting-gear styles?”

A laugh burst out of her, because she’d been thinking almost the same thing moments earlier. “The designer is new and wants to ‘make a statement’, juxtaposing her soft urban designs against the harsher elements of nature.”

It was his turn to laugh. “Man, sounds like you’ve been drinking the propaganda punch.”

“No, just had that exact sentence repeated in my ear and on my computer for the past two weeks by the hot new designer of the month. Apparently, she’s going to brand herself with it.” She folded up her chargers for her various pieces of equipment—phone, tablet, laptop, cameras—and slid them into the pockets of her carryon bag. “So how long are you in town? Please tell me long enough to shower and shave.”

“Yes. I plan to do that. I was hoping I could crash here for a few days.”

Sydney fought the urge to heave a sigh. It wasn’t like she didn’t know that was what he wanted. Even before their mother died a few years back, he’d refused to fly to Florida to stay with her, just to avoid any contact with their step-father. Whenever his sporadic visits occurred, he preferred staying with her as opposed to actually spending any money on a hotel. Her place was his first choice, probably because she had junk food in the cupboard, beer in the fridge, and didn’t harass him about settling down to a regular-type job. Not that she could blame him. Until she’d taken part-time positions as a staff photographer for two fashion magazines, she’d suffered the same inquisition every time she went for visits with the family.

“How many days are we talking?” she asked, as she headed into her bathroom to gather up her travel organizer. Not that she’d need much makeup, but it held her extra toothbrush and paste, deodorant and band aids, all of which she was certain to need for this fun outing.

“Probably just a few days, maybe a week,” Ian said.

Grabbing a few extra items—a bottle of pain reliever, her favorite hair brush and the special organic moisturizer that had sunblock in it—she finished loading the organizer and headed back to her bedroom. Ian was messing around with her camera case.

“What are you doing?” she asked as she tossed the paisley-designed organizer into her suitcase.

Ian grinned up at her. “Just helping you pack. You left the wide-angle lens out of the bag.” Then he held up his hand, and in it was the printout of her flight information and boarding pass. “And I found this on the floor.”

This time Sydney did roll her eyes and sigh, holding out her hand for the paper. It had always been a family joke that she’d lose her head if it weren’t attached, and she never traveled without forgetting something vital she’d need on the trip. She slipped the boarding pass into her bag, double-checking to be sure her phone was in there already.

“Is it a good-paying shoot?” Ian asked, too nonchalantly.

Dammit. Here comes the request for money.
Too bad, she’d decided last year she wasn’t going to help him anymore. It was his addiction, and he was going to have to figure out how to pay off his bookie on his own. Enabling him just because he was the last blood relative she had was going to bankrupt her as well as him.

With a deep breath, she turned and fixed her best imitation of their mother’s stare at him. “Ian, I told you last spring I can’t give you any more money. You promised me that was the last time.”

He held up his hands like he was under arrest. “I didn’t ask for any. Besides, I’ve got something paying out and it will take care of anything.”

She squinted at him and opened her mouth to tell him she knew he was up to something.

A honk sounded outside.

“Crap. That’s my taxi. Want to grab the suitcase for me?” she asked, slinging her camera bag over her shoulder and slipping her purse into her carryon bag. It also had a few pairs of underwear, her pjs and a change of clothes in case her suitcase didn’t arrive with her.

“Sure, if you say I can stay here while you’re gone,” her brother said, already pulling the bag down the hall to the stairs.

“Of course you can,” she said at the front door, handing her bags to the taxi driver. “Just do me a favor and stay out of my darkroom.”

“What can go wrong, sis?” Ian said, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

“I’m serious, Ian. Don’t trash my home like you did last time.”

He gave her another big hug and a wet smack of a kiss on her cheek. “Go have fun. I promise to take such good care of the place, you won’t recognize it when you get back.”

Sydney climbed into the taxi and watched her brother out the back window as they pulled away. A niggling sense of unease ran through her. She loved her brother, but wasn’t naïve about his faults. He’d always liked to live on the edge, almost dangerously on some of his adventures. She just prayed he never crossed the line.

CHAPTER THREE

Monday afternoon, Frank climbed out of his truck, intentionally leaving his cane in the passenger side. Determined not to limp, he walked straight to the door of the U.S. Courthouse in downtown Columbus, where the Marshals’ office was located.

His physical therapist had been quite impressed with his progress earlier in the morning. When Frank had first heard about his injuries and that he’d require not only surgery but months of PT to get into shape to return to work, he’d been afraid they’d assign him some cute little blonde thing fresh out of training for a therapist. He’d gotten one thing right. Mike was blond. But as a former football player, the guy was nearly six-six, and had to weigh close to three-hundred pounds. Mike was sympathetic, without being soft. When Frank had wanted to cry off or stop before the required reps of an exercise were completed, Mike pushed his ass into getting it done. Now, he was thankful for the not-so-subtle torture, and intended to send the big guy tickets to the first OSU home game in the fall as a thank you.

Thankfully, the few steps from the sidewalk to the main entrance weren’t too steep. Normally, he’d take the staff entrance, but since he was still on medical leave, he needed to check in with security. He’d left his service weapon locked in the gun safe in his truck to save time.

Inside, he nodded a greeting at the chief security officer, Deon, who was watching for anyone not following the rules. Frank carefully headed to the security check. Obviously irritated with his slow progress, several lawyers hurried past him, placing their briefcases on the conveyor belt to take them through the X-ray machines then walking through the metal detectors. The unsmiling guards watched the lines and machines, alert for any trouble. Frank emptied his pockets of keys and change into a bowl, sending them in behind the briefcases.

Mike had been so impressed with his progress today at therapy, he’d replaced the bulky, metal-hinged brace with a neoprene sleeve around his knee. The theory was, instead of giving rigid support to his knee, the sleeve would compress the area around it. Mike said studies showed this therapy also helped develop neuromuscular control of the reconstructed ligament and joint. All Frank knew was, right at this moment, he could walk through the metal detector and not trigger alarms, saving him the embarrassment of being pulled to the side and the guards having to use an electromagnetic wand on him. He hated being in the limelight. Hated being embarrassed. His job was to blend in to the background, and he was damn good at it.