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.”