Exposed

by Suzanne Ferrell

  “He’s sure,” Jake said, coming over to look over their shoulders at the screen. “It’s our duty to notice anything and everything. Like the color of his skin. Definitely Caucasian. Any chance there’s another picture of him?”

  “Of course. I was using one-two-hundred-and-fiftieth-of-a-second shutter speed. He should be in the next ten frames, at least.” She opened all the frames with that car in them, enlarging them and focusing on the driver. No real definition of his face in any of them. “Sorry guys, between the distance from my camera, the shade from the house behind him, and the sunglasses he has on, it’s hard to get a good image of him.”

  Jake reached up and tapped the third from last image. “Let’s take a closer look at that one.”

  Doubtful anyone could really get a detail, she enlarged the picture again just the same.

  Either the man in the car had moved, or the sun had flashed momentarily inside the car.

  “Does he have blond hair?” Matt asked, having come to join them.

  “Very blond or white,” Jake said.

  “He’s tall,” Frank added.

  “How can you tell?” Sydney asked, marveling at how much information the men were gleaning from the grainy image.

  Frank pointed to the top of the windshield. “His head almost touches the top of the roof over it.”

  “So we’re looking for a tall, blond, Caucasian man who might’ve been in the crowd the night before?” she asked, pulling up another window on the computer in front of Doyle. He’d shown her earlier how one mouse could control browsers on both monitors.

  Working carefully, she brought up scene after scene from the night of the fire.

  “This film was taken by a woman,” she said as image after image of the firemen working to try to put out the fire flashed on the scene.

  “How do you know that?” Frank asked.

  Sydney gave him a little smile. “She has a thing for firemen.”

  The men all chuckled.

  Nothing useful was in those pictures, so she pulled up the next one. It had lots of images of the fire itself.

  “Can you send this video to my phone? And do we know who did this one?” Jake asked.

  “Luke archived all the accounts that he hacked the videos from. I can get the username and IP address for you,” Doyle said, pulling up the notebook he’d jotted down the information in. “Any particular reason?”

  The FBI agent added the information to his phone. “Whoever it is, they have a fire fetish. Might want to alert the arson investigator about him.”

  Once Sydney determined there were no crowd shots in the photos from the fire fetish guy, she moved to the next one. It took three more sets of video photos—some of which had captured her reaction to the fire and explosion, and Castello’s rescue of her from the scene—before they found someone matching their culprit’s description in the crowd.

  “That’s him,” Jake said, once again moving in close. “Same jaw line. Pale skin.”

  “Good height. Probably six-four,” Frank said.

  “And that’s very-light-colored hair sticking out of the edge of that ball cap he has on,” Matt added, tapping the area he was talking about on the screen.

  “Too bad he has a camera up in front of his face,” Doyle said. “Facial recognition isn’t going to have much luck with him.”

  “It’s okay, old man,” Jake said stepping away from the computer and tapping away on his phone again. “Your program isn’t going to be able to identify him.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because it’s Geist,” Frank said.

  “Geist?” Sydney asked, seeing Frank and Jake staring intently at each other. “You know this guy?”

  “We know of him,” Frank answered. “He’s an international hit man that’s been on Interpol’s most-wanted list for years.”

  A sinking feeling settled in her stomach.

  “He’s wanted in half a dozen assassinations around the world, both political and corporate targets,” Jake said, his thumb moving over the keys of his phone as he read the information. “And no one’s ever gotten a clear picture of him.”

  “Then how do you know it’s him?” she asked, even though she could see the resignation on both men’s faces.

  “Description fits. Tall. White-blond hair. Pale skin,” Frank said. “And in German, geist means the ghost.”

  “And this is the man trying to kill me?” Sydney asked.

  “That’s the bastard we’re going to keep from hurting you,” Frank said, hating the man for putting the tremor in her voice.

  “Really? He’s never been caught. No one’s ever gotten a good picture of him. He’s called the ghost.” Sydney swiveled around in her chair to look at each of them, one by one, as she spoke, finally stopping to stare unflinchingly at him. “You think you can stop him? My brother’s the gambler in my family, remember? Right now the odds are definitely not in my favor.”

  He took both her hands in his. “We know who we’re looking for, so that gives us an advantage.”

  “He’s already missed twice,” Matt said. “That gives us another advantage.”

  “How?” she asked. “Won’t that make him more determined to succeed?”

  “His ability to deliver results is what keeps his business in demand. The pressure to complete his assignment will make him take risks. Maybe even get sloppy,” Jake said.

  “Like trying to run me over with the detective’s car?”

  “Like that,” Frank said, his thigh still aching from the incident. Anger at someone trying to injure her surged through him once more.

  “So, as I see it, we have two issues,” Jake said. “We have a known hit man for hire to find and stop.”

  “What’s the other issue?” Sydney asked, pulling her hands from Frank’s, the fear gone from her voice once more.

  “We have to find out who sent him. Because if we don’t, but we manage to stop Geist—”

  “They’ll just send someone else to do the job,” Frank finished for him.

  “Oh, great. This is not reassuring me, guys,” Sydney leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “I may have a lead on who sent him,” Doyle said.

  The others all focused their attention on Jake’s former police partner.

  “What have you got, old man?” Jake asked.

  “Well, Rookie, I managed to find the email account Sydney’s brother used to send the photo—”

  “Wait,” Frank interrupted. “I thought he used Sydney’s computer to send the email? That’s how we found the picture on her cloud.”

  Doyle gave him a nod, like some patient teacher with all the answers. “He did. But he didn’t use her email account to send the photo. He sent the image through a few routers, before sending it to a bogus account. Then he sent the email from the bogus account back through more dark sites to its final destination. I followed the trail, and finally came up with a name.”

  “Well, don’t keep us guessing.” Matt said.

  “Congressman Blanton.”

  “The one Annabeth Kelly was interning for?” Sydney said, more a question than a statement.

  “The one and only,” Doyle confirmed.

  “Didn’t the FBI clear him in the case?” Frank asked Jake.

  Jake shrugged. “He had an alibi for the night, and passed a polygraph test.”

  “If they asked if he killed her, he could say no,” Frank said. “Which would be the truth if he hired someone to do it.”

  “Why would he have her killed?” Sydney asked.

  “Older, powerful man. Younger, pretty woman.” Frank shrugged. “You do the math.”

  “Well, that covers two of the deadly sins,” Doyle said.

  Sydney cocked her head slightly to the side. “How do you mean?”

  “Greed on your brother’s part. Lust on both the Congressman’s and his intern’s. Him for sex, her for power.”

  “Well, if you’re going down the list, we could chalk pride up t
o the hit man who doesn’t want his perfect record tarnished,” Matt said.

  Jake shook his head. “This has nothing to do with someone working through the deadly sins. It isn’t a serial killer case. It’s someone tying up loose ends that started with this young girl, Annabeth Kelly. Somehow she became a threat to the Congressman, and he wanted her eliminated.”

  They were all quiet for a few moments.

  Something didn’t fit into all this and it was bugging Frank. “Why two hit men?”

  Now it was the other men’s turn to look confused.

  “What do you mean, two?” Jake asked.

  “We’re pretty sure Geist is the one coming after Sydney, right?” Frank pointed to the screen still holding the two images of the man. Then he picked up the black-and-white still shots Sydney developed earlier of Annabeth’s actual murder. “Then who is this guy?”

  “It’s not Congressman Blanton, that’s for sure,” Matt said, standing with his brother-in-law to study the image of the man with the gun. “I did security at one of his rallies when he was running for re-election last year. Guy’s in his late fifties, balding, and slight of frame.”

  Jake nodded. “This guy is probably around six-two, probably two-twenty-five, depending on how much padding is in the coat he’s wearing.”

  “A little hard to tell at this distance, but I’d say he’s around forty to forty-five, dark hair,” Frank added.

  “So, if this isn’t the Congressman shooting Annabeth, who is it?” Sydney asked. “And why would my brother send the blackmail image to Blanton when he wasn’t the one who killed her?”

  “Well, Blanton had something to do with it,” Frank said.

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  He ground his teeth a minute and inhaled deeply, refraining from cursing her brother out loud. “Because. Your brother sent him the image and next thing we know, you’ve got a target on your back.”

  * * * * *

  Just before midnight, Castello walked back into the computer command center.

  Doyle had scanned the black-and-white of the shooter into his computer and put it into the facial recognition program. He’d said the program could take hours, and since he was an old man who needed his sleep, he was headed to bed.

  Sydney had asked if she could use his computer to work on her photoshoot images. Her smile had disappeared again while they’d been talking about the case, and she’d tensed up when her brother’s actions were mentioned, almost turning into a statue at Frank’s proclamation that the hit man after her proved the Congressman was involved.

  Doyle had patted her on the shoulder as he stepped by her and told her she was welcome to use whatever she needed.

  Frank, Jake, and Matt had silently agreed that she needed some alone time and left her to work. They’d raided the kitchen for the leftover pizza Matt had brought, and the cookies Sami had sent with Jake. Now Jake had headed up to bed, and Matt was settled in the dark front room, watching for any unusual movement on the street. Doyle had the place wired for anyone crossing his perimeter, but the brothers had decided taking turns being awake would assure no one could sneak up on them. None of them wanted Sydney to realize they’d gone into lockdown mode to keep her safe.

  He expected to find her curled up in the overstuffed chair, or asleep with her head on Doyle’s extra-long computer desk.

  No. Not his Syd. She didn’t give in that easily.

  Instead, she was still wide awake, watching videos of the fire that had consumed her home and started this spiral into danger.

  He stood in the doorway, watching her slowly rock back and forth as the video played in slow motion. Of course, she’d chosen the one the possible future arsonist had filmed. It never wavered from her house. The flames were alive, eating up the haven she’d built for herself.

  Then the explosion blasted debris up, out, and toward the camera.

  Sydney jumped as if it were the first time all over again.

  Suddenly, the camera’s focus changed, as the videographer swept the crowd, coming to rest on Sydney in his arms. It zoomed in to show the terror and despair he’d seen in her that night.

  Anger surged through him once more. He marched over to the computer and shut off the monitor. “Enough, Sydney.”

  She reached for the monitor’s On button. “I was going through the videos again, just to see if I missed anything. Or if Ian—”

  “I said, enough.” He caught her hand before she could bring the macabre images on the screen back to life once more, and slowly pulled her out of the chair. “You need rest. You’re not staying up all night torturing yourself.”

  “I don’t think I can sleep,” she said, even as she let him usher her out of the electronic workspace.

  He flipped off the lights as they left the room.

  “One thing I’ve learned in all my years of being with the Marshals is you have to get rest when you can. No one can think clearly when they’re dead on their feet.” He laid his hand on the small of her back and guided her through the darkened house to the stairway.

  “You know your friends all know we’ve slept together, since you put our things in the same room,” she said over her shoulder as they climbed the stairs.

  “Yep.”

  “Don’t you think they’ll think it’s rushed? I mean, we just met.”

  “Nope.”

  He pushed open the back bedroom door, waited for her to enter, then closed and locked the door behind them.

  “You don’t care what they think?”

  “They’re guys, Syd. They’re not judging you and me.” He pulled off his holster, laid it on the bedside table so his weapon was within reach. Then he kicked off his shoes.

  “You’re sure? I mean, I could sleep down in the computer room. That big chair is roomy enough for me.”

  “No.” He pulled back the covers.

  “You know, you might not care what your friends think of us sleeping together when we barely know each other, but maybe I do.” She took a step towards the door.

  He was beside her in two strides. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t be embarrassed, or don’t leave?” she asked, tilting her head to look up at him.

  Reaching out, he stroked the side of her face with his hand. “Don’t leave this room. Don’t worry what my family thinks of us. Don’t think about anything.”

  He lowered his mouth onto hers for a slow, sensual kiss. Before it could escalate into the raging inferno that seemed to erupt between them whenever she was in his arms, he pulled back, took her hand, and led her to the bed. Not breaking eye contact with her, he reached down to undo her jeans, then knelt to slowly pull them down over her hips, curvy ass and lean thighs.

  Standing once more, he shucked his own jeans.

  “I don’t think I can make love with all your family in the house, Frank,” she said, worrying her lower lip between her teeth.

  Damn. If she kept doing that, he’d break his own good intentions and make love to her despite whoever the hell was in the house. But the dark circles under her eyes told him just how exhausted she was.

  He lifted the corner of his mouth slightly. “I told you that you need rest. We’re just going to sleep, Syd.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but a yawn came out instead.

  He cocked a brow and tilted his head in a silent see-I-told-you-so.

  “All right, I’ll get in bed, but I’m telling you I’m not going to be able to sleep.” She huffed like a teenager giving in and crawled into the bed. He tried not to grin as he watched her ass move.

  Once she was in and on the side of the bed farthest from the door, he slid into the bed beside her, flipped off the lamp and pulled her in close, her head resting on the side of his chest. One arm wrapped around her, he slowly rubbed his hand up and down her back.

  “Mmm, you’re warm,” she murmured, snuggling closer and laying her hand over his heart.

  He covered her hand with his free one, listening to her breathing slow into a steady rhyt
hm. She’d been wrong. It wasn’t her that was going to have trouble sleeping. It was him.

  Now that she was asleep, he let his mind wander and his anger with it.

  She was so little, yet so determined and courageous. She was scared. Hell, who wouldn’t be, to know one of the world’s most elusive hitmen was on her trail? Yet, she was using all her skills to try and help them solve this mess.

  Dammit, she shouldn’t have to be going through this. She should be walking around taking pictures of beautiful people wearing weird clothes. He’d seen Project Runway once while guarding a witness, and he was pretty sure all the clothes fashion designers created were weird. Although, he had to admit that little wine-colored lace thing Sydney wore to the wedding had been very nice. It showed off her curves in all the right places, and the color seemed to highlight her skin.

  He shook his head, squeezing her hand a little tighter.

  How had it come to this? One little photographer had caught him in her spell so much that he was waxing poetic about clothes she wore?

  Good thing none of his friends knew he was getting so mellow.

  He’d meant it when he told Sydney the Edgars and Carlisles were his family. They knew she was in danger and had come to help him keep her safe. It was important to him, and therefore important to them. It was what family did.

  Family didn’t set you up to take the fall, or put you in danger because of their selfishness.

  Sydney moaned slightly, and he realized he was squeezing her tightly to him. He relaxed his hold and stroked his hand up and down her arm to calm himself as much as her. As he held her, he started making a mental list.

  When you’ve got a problem, make a list of all the things you think you need to do to solve it. Start with the hardest one first. Everything else will fall into place.

  Granddad taught him that when they started work on the old ’58 Chevy he’d found in a junk heap and wanted to restore. The lesson had worked well in helping him focus on the task at hand and not get overwhelmed by all the work. It took them two years, lots of sweat and cursing on both their parts, but eventually they’d got that thing running. In fact, it sat safely in the garage of the Victorian Village house to this day.

  Now the most important task on his list was to keep Sydney safe.