by D. D. Ayres
“What?” Georgie looked around her apartment with eyes wide. “Did one of your people find something? A bomb?”
“It’s just a precaution. We have your permission?”
“This is insane.” She shook her head. “Okay. Sure. But I’m calling my attorney.”
While Special Agent Clinton made his own call, Georgie got her D.C. bureau chief on the phone to ask her to please send a staff attorney over who could represent her. She only said she had been burglarized and the police suspected it wasn’t random. She was afraid if she said FBI they might not be able to find anyone willing to take her case, no questions asked.
As Georgie finished her call she heard sounds of footsteps outside her door. One of Clinton’s partners went to answer the knock. The first thing she saw was the golden head of a yellow Labrador retriever nose through the door. By the time her gaze rose to the man holding its leash, she was ten feet down the rabbit hole and dropping fast.
“Philip?”
Chapter Three
As he made his way through D.C. traffic to his target site, FBI Special Agent and K-9 Bomb Technician Brad Lawson wrestled with his conscience.
Seconds ago details of his dispatch had appeared on the laptop screen inside his vehicle. Above the address was the name Georgiana Flynn.
“Shit!”
With a yip of concern, Zander pushed his big satiny yellow Labrador retriever head through the opening that separated the K-9’s backseat crate from the front seat of the FBI vehicle.
“Easy, boy.” Brad reached up and gave his partner a pat under the chin. He knew Zander was reading the pheromones streaming off him from his agitation. That wasn’t good. They needed to be mentally calm and absolutely focused.
“Zander. Platz.” Zander instantly obeyed the German command that was also a signal that they were on duty. He pulled his head back and lay down in back.
Brad took a deep breath. He couldn’t allow his feelings to cloud his judgment where his job was concerned. But he was up to his butt in alligators, and he knew it.
The last person he’d expected to have professional contact with again had just turned up a second time as a person of interest in an ongoing FBI investigation, this time that of a would-be bomber.
This was going to be a first-class shit show. And there was very little he could do about it.
He was an experienced twelve-year veteran of the FBI, recruited right out of college. By consistently giving 100 percent, he had quickly gained a reputation as tough, honest, and nearly impossible to deceive. His ability to compartmentalize and bring a laser focus to every task made him tops in his present line of work: K-9 bomb detection and assessment, plus special FBI assignment work that could take his team anywhere at a moment’s notice. With that job priority, he didn’t think it right to promise a woman anything more than right now. Most women accepted that arrangement. That meant he’d had no long-term relationship in years. He was fine with that.
That is, until the game of hide-and-seek with a shadowy figure had brought Georgiana Flynn to the FBI’s attention two months earlier.
The guy was one of dozens of head cases they tracked routinely nationwide. Most suspects never got beyond the howling mad-dog rage stage. But then a few months ago, a new guy, code-named “Kodak” because of his obsession with photography, began making specific threats. Peppering various D.C.-area media outlets with untraceable e-mails, he railed against the Pulitzer Prize committee for their choices of winners for the Breaking News Photography and Feature Photography categories when, he’d written, better choices were available among their finalist lists. He promised to provide the committee with “explosive and unequivocal proof” of that photographer’s genius for next year’s awards.
That threat shifted Kodak’s file into priority status. It didn’t take long to gather names and do background checks on those photographers who had been listed as finalists for this year’s Pulitzers. The FBI concluded that Kodak’s concentration on D.C. media meant he lived and possibly worked in the nation’s capital. Only one finalist lived in Kodak’s apparent home base of D.C.: Georgiana Flynn.
There were a lot of different departments that worked on a case like this one. The preliminary workup on Georgiana by FBI Intelligence gave her a squeaky-clean record. Who the hell gets to be thirty years of age without even one moving violation? The FBI Criminal Investigation team assigned to Kodak agreed. On paper she seemed too good to be true. She needed to be checked out. That’s when Brad was drawn into the case.
The “Alpha Male K-9” calendar shoot at Harmonie Kennels provided the FBI with a perfect excuse to insert an agent into her life for a limited time to check her out without her getting suspicious. They had not officially agreed to send a man to be photographed half-undressed for public record, not even for Yardley Summers. However, as a K-9 handler as well as special agent, Brad Lawson uniquely filled the slot as hunk with a canine.
Brad shook his head in memory of his relentless hazing at the task force meetings leading up to the insertion. “Hot body” was not a job asset on the FBI intake form. Still, he got onto the roster for the photo shoot under the false name Philip Dexter, and right into the crosshairs of Georgiana Flynn’s camera.
His mission: get next to the FBI’s person of interest.
Next to. Brad flinched. He’d gotten more than next to Georgiana Flynn. He’d made skin-to-skin contact in the most intimate of ways. The encounter had been a revelation. She’d gotten under his guard and caused him to forget, for the hours he spent in her bed, that he was on the job.
Before going in to make contact with her, he had read every article and watched every minute of footage of her on file, most of it taken after she’d been announced as a Pulitzer finalist. She was a natural on camera, if a bit shy. She seemed genuinely amazed by the hoopla surrounding her sudden notoriety. She repeated over and over in various interviews that she preferred to be on the other end of the cameras recording her image. It was a nice image. Her natural red hair had a mind of its own, curling in riotous freedom in a world where TV hair was usually straight, smooth, and rarely moved. Her eyes were the color of aquamarines, clear and bright, and watchful. Her freckles were refreshingly on display, not covered by concealer as many women did. She seemed completely open. And yet, he had picked up on a few of her “tells.” When she felt cornered by an interviewer, she dipped her head a bit and her lids dropped. But that was not shyness. Her little smile gave it away. She was shielding her thoughts from the idiot who’d asked an inappropriate question, such as, “You ever take sexy selfies for Instagram and Twitter?” Or, “You got a boyfriend?”
She was a private person dealing in a very public world. He understood that. Being an FBI agent meant forgoing most of what civilians sought constantly in their daily lives: attention and praise.
Shots of her taking her photos as a professional photojournalist showed a shrewd and animated woman who unself-consciously moved with a dancer’s grace as she maneuvered for her shots. Behind the camera, she was fully engaged and in charge. He recognized that feeling of being behind the scenes and yet in control of a situation no one else even knew about. It pretty much described a special agent’s job.
When the research was done, he felt he knew and understood her. Yet it was only afterward that he realized something he had not given credence to ahead of time. By becoming so intimately familiar with her actions, attitudes, and gestures, he had also unconsciously fallen for Georgiana Flynn before he even met her.
Within moments of that meeting, he knew she was different from the people he worked with or against in his business life. She had seemed complete, and not interested in what everyone else thought of her. Totally professional but not in it for the power or the prestige. Unlike her assistant, who dressed to attract maximum attention, nothing about Georgiana yelled, “Look at me.”
When he’d come on to her when they were introduced at the shoot, she’d turned him away with an indifference that made him wonder if she might have an eye on another of the
hunky calendar men who’d had her attention before him. He’d learned differently from casual conversation with a few of those men. They all said the same thing, “Total professional.” In other words, she had turned down any who’d tried.
Brad smiled to himself. So, he’d gone back and made her really look at him. After that, he lost control of the situation. Everything buttoned up had burst from her in an intimacy of genuine feeling he’d rarely experienced in any form. It wasn’t just the sex.
He still couldn’t adequately explain the sensation that had gone through him when he woke to find her photographing him. Alarm, certainly, but also a sense that unlike anyone else in his life ever, she was really looking at him, wanting to see him as he was when the charm and shield of personality that made him so good at his job had dropped. It was damned sexy, too. She had been open about her reasons for photographing him, even sweetly embarrassed by her candor.
In contrast, he had presented her with a lie, from hello to good-bye.
The very last thing he could do was “be real.” But that’s what he had suddenly wanted. He had wanted her to know the real him, because that’s who had gotten into her bed and her body. He wasn’t an FBI agent in those hours. He was simply a man fascinated with a woman. She was like a photograph one could stare at a long time and never catch every nuance.
Served him right that the first woman in years that he was more than passably interested in was completely off-limits.
He’d filed his report in which he said he didn’t find reason to suspect a connection between Georgiana Flynn and the cyber ranter. He’d left out all details of their personal encounter because it wasn’t relevant. And because it was as personal for him as he knew it had been for her. So then he had tried to forget her. His part in the investigation was over.
It wasn’t until after the unexploded bomb was found last week that Kodak became a serious suspect and a third FBI division, Counterterrorism, took over the case.
He had not met the field agents he and Zander were on their way to meet. He was more concerned about Georgiana Flynn.
He was about to see her again, and the stakes were much, much higher.
Brad pulled in behind two other FBI vehicles and noted that neither was a bomb disposal team. The request for K-9 support had not described a potential bomb situation, only the need for a sniff and search, but he dressed in minimal gear then clipped a leash on Zander before heading into the building.
When they reached the elevator, Zander looked up at Brad and whined, disturbed by the sudden uptick of his handler’s heartbeat. Brad didn’t like tight spaces, a touch of claustrophobia he managed to keep hidden from his colleagues. But he could not hide his emotions from his canine.
“Gute hund.” Brad patted his partner, drawing him closer.
Familiar with this phobia in his alpha, Zander moved in close to lean against Brad’s leg. The comfort between them went both ways. K-9 teams were tighter than most law enforcement partners. They worked, played, and lived together, 24/7. That bond had made them hyperaware of one another’s moods.
Zander absorbed the world through his amazing nose. He could “read” the type of pheromones coming off Brad whether Brad was happy, sad, worried, scared, or angry.
Brad could do the same for Zander by using his less enhanced but more varied human senses. He knew by Zander’s stance, the set of his ears, the tightness in his muzzle, or if the hair on his spine suddenly rose, what Zander was thinking and feeling. Emotions ran up and down the leash like it was a neural pathway shared between them.
Constant contact eliminated misreading cues and encouraged complete mutual trust. That allowed them to do their job with efficiency and with complete reliability. There was no room for mistakes on a bomb team.
When the elevator doors opened on the third floor, personal considerations of every sort were suddenly put aside. They were a first-class bomb detection team on the job.
As he walked through the door of her apartment, Brad’s gaze went unerringly toward Georgiana but remained on her only a second. It was enough to record the widening of her aqua eyes as she came to her feet, and the faint blush flooded her freckled cheeks as a smile of greeting rounded her cheeks.
“Philip?”
He ignored her. He felt sorry for her, wished he could explain, but he could not.
He turned to the man in charge. “FBI K-9 team reporting for deployment.” Brad waited to see what would happen next.
Clinton nodded and glanced at Brad’s credentials. “Our preliminary search yielded nothing significant. Your turn to make a sweep, Agent Lawson.”
From the corner of his eye Brad saw Georgiana’s expression cloud. “What did you call him?”
Clinton turned to her. “This is Special Agent Brad Lawson, Ms. Flynn. Why? Do you know him?”
Brad could see her speed thinking her way through possible answers. In the end she just shook her head. “No, I don’t know a Special Agent Lawson.”
He let out a breath, faintly embarrassed that her response relieved him of the immediate need to explain to Agent Clinton how he already figured into the case.
He bent to brush soothing strokes down Zander’s back to calm him because his partner had begun dancing in greeting at the sight of Georgiana. Zander never forgot a scent but his handler couldn’t allow his partner’s reaction to Georgie to distract him from the job they were here to do.
“Let’s begin.” Agent Clinton indicated that Brad should start his search with Georgiana.
Brad took no more than a few steps when his gaze snagged on a photograph hanging on the wall to his right. He paused. It was a picture of him. Naked. Blown up to proportions that made the scene graphically erotic, yet tender and intimate as well.
The details of that morning came flooding back to him. How shy she’d been but intensely protective, too, of the pictures she’d taken while he slept.
“You an art critic, Agent Lawson? Or are you telling me something I didn’t know about you?” Clinton chuckled as he threw a glance in the direction of the other two agents present.
“It’s a personal photo. One of my favorites.” Georgiana’s voice had come to the rescue, allowing Brad to turn his head and focus on her as she continued to speak. “His name is Philip Dexter. You don’t know him, do you, Agent Lawson?”
Brad felt his face prickle with embarrassment as he gazed at her hostile expression. He hardly ever blushed. Well, fuck. The heat in his face told him he was now.
He shook his head. “Can we get on with this? My dog’s getting restless.” He directed his gaze toward Clinton. “I’d appreciate if you’d all clear the room while Zander and I do my job.”
“Right.” Clinton waved his colleagues toward the door.
“Wait.” Brad moved to block her path. “Ms. Flynn, please hold out your hands.”
Georgie did as he asked, avoiding Brad’s eye.
“Zander. Such.’’ The dog sniffed her hands and then gave them a lick.
Clinton glanced at him. Brad shook his head.
“Very well. We’ll wait for you outside.”
Zander was an active dog, moving quickly but methodically, as Brad directed him to sniff out every corner, drawer, piece of furniture, pillow, bedding, and closet nook, paying close attention to the doorknobs and area where her computer had been. He hoped that this search would eliminate Georgiana as a suspect.
Less than five minutes later, Brad exited the small apartment. Zander was stepping high, very pleased with himself as he chewed his favorite snack, a bit of beef jerky.
Brad’s face was grim and he didn’t glance at Georgiana. “We had three, maybe four hits. All of them appear to be residual. No equipment or traces of incendiary material located.”
Agent Clinton’s serious expression turned to granite as he turned to his suspect. “Georgiana Flynn, you will need to come with me.”
Chapter Four
Georgie hugged her arms to her chest as she sat in an interrogation room talking with Will Barri
s, the attorney sent to represent her. “Aiding and abetting domestic terrorism? They can’t possible charge me with that. I’ve done nothing, know nothing.”
“Unfortunately, Ms. Flynn, the laws have become quite draconian about things like terrorism. If they feel you are in any way a threat, or know someone who is, they could try to hold you indefinitely.”
“Oh, god.” Georgie pushed a hand hard against her mouth, willing herself not to panic. “All I did was get burglarized. What’s the connection?”
“They haven’t told me much. As you can imagine, the FBI isn’t required to divulge as much as a local law enforcement agency would. They did say this investigation may have something to do with a secret admirer of yours. Do you know who they mean?”
“Yes, maybe.” She repeated a quick version of all she had told Clinton about her online fan. “So, I don’t actually know him. I’ve never had any contact with him—except online through my blog.”
“You see? You do know how to find him.”
Georgia stiffened at the sound of the voice. She hadn’t heard the door behind her open. It was Special Agent Clinton.
“It must be quite a thrill for a person to have an avid fan. You said he knows more about your work than you do. Quite an ego stroke. Couldn’t blame you for encouraging him. When is the last time you were in contact?”
“I’m not sure. At least ten days.” Georgiana closed her eyes for a second as she tried to hold onto her temper. Two hours of questions, the same ones over and over asked in only slightly different ways, had given her a headache.
“We can check, you know. Check your Web site. Your e-mail.”
Georgie lifted her head. “Then do that. I have nothing to hide.” She had been acting on sheer nervous energy since Clinton arrived at her door. “You can’t arrest me for having a blog that strangers comment on.”
“I’d be more persuaded of your cooperation if you could produce that corrupted chip from your camera. We have experts who might find things you say aren’t there.”
