Jeffery Deaver - Edge

She leaned close. I felt her arm against mine and the sweet aroma wafted around me. I must have eased away slightly because she laughed again.

I felt a ping of impatience. But I did as she’d asked and I looked at the computer screen. “The gallery show I was telling you about? I’m submitting one of these. I’ve got to send it in by Tuesday to meet the deadline. What do you think?”

“I… what’re you asking? Which one I like better?”

To me they were almost identical although one was more tightly cropped than the other. They depicted two somber men in suits, businessmen or politicians, having an intense discussion in the shadow of the government building in downtown D.C.

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I was just walking down the street last week, near the Treasury Building, and saw them standing there. They look powerful, they look rich. But don’t they seem like little boys in a way? On the school yard? Forty years younger, they would’ve started a shoving match.”

At first, I didn’t get that but then I saw, yes, she was right.

“The theme is about conflict,” she explained.

“I don’t see much difference.”

“The one on the left? It’s tighter. The emphasis is on the men. But there’re no angles, no sense of composition. The one on the right is better stylistically. You see more of the Treasury Building. You see the sunlight, that band of light there, cutting into the stairs near them? It’s aesthetically better… So?” she asked.

“Which one I like better?”

“That’s the question, Mr. Tour Guide.”

I felt suddenly awkward, like I was being tested on something I hadn’t studied for. I didn’t really know which one I liked more. The only photos I looked at regularly were surveillance and crime scene shots. Aesthetics didn’t count.

Finally, I pointed to the picture on the left. “That one.”

“Why?”

I hadn’t known I had to show my work. “I don’t know; I just do.”

“Uh-uh, commit.”

“I really don’t know. They’re both nice.” I glanced up the hall. “I’ve got to talk to your brother-in-law.”

“Come on, Corte. Humor me. You’ve screwed up my weekend pretty bad. You won’t even be my masseur. You owe me.”

I banked my irritation again and looked at the pictures. Suddenly I had a thought. “I like it because you have to ask yourself, what’s your goal? You said it was to show conflict. The one on the left does that better. It’s more focused.”

“Even though it’s less artistic.”

“I’m not sure what artistic means, but yes.”

She lifted her hand to give me a high five. Reluctantly I lifted mine and she slapped it. “That’s just what I was thinking.”

Maree then touched the pad. The GSI software instantly shrank the pictures to thumbnails and she directed them back to a folder. She then started a slideshow and the pictures faded up to fill the screen, remained for a few moments then went to black and a new one was displayed.

I have no artistic ability whatsoever but I can appreciate something that’s technically well executed. Her pictures were all in focus and seemed well composed. But it was the subjects that appealed to me. Had they been still lifes or abstracts I wouldn’t have been interested but Maree specialized in portraits and she seemed to be able to capture the spirit of her subjects perfectly, though I supposed since she used a fancy digital camera there were a hundred outtakes for every keeper. As the show continued I noted the controls and paused several of them. Maree was leaning close.

Workers, mothers and children, businessmen, parents, policemen, athletes… There was no theme, but whoever they were, Maree had caught them in a moment of emotion. Anger, love, frustration, pride.

“They’re good. You’re talented.”

“You do something enough times, you’re going to get a few chops down. Hey, you want to see who you’re guarding?”

I frowned.

She typed and another folder appeared. It took me a moment to realize what she meant-and what I was looking at. Family albums of Maree, Joanne and who I guessed were their parents and other relatives. Maree was calling out names and information.

I heard Abe’s voice.

Learn only what you need to learn to keep them alive. Don’t use their names, don’t look at their kids’ pictures, don’t ask ’em if they’re all right, unless you’ve been dodging bullets and you need to call a medic …

I said, “I really have to talk to Ryan.”

“Don’t be scared of a few family pictures, Corte. They’re not even your family. I’m the one who should be scared.”

A picture of a trim, crew-cut man in khaki slacks and a short-sleeved shirt faded in. Maree hit PAUSE. “The Colonel. Our father… and, yeah, people called him ‘the Colonel,’ capital C . Lieutenant colonel, a little bird, not a big bird.”

Still, the man was imposing, no question.

Maree’s voice dropped. “Don’t tell Freud but Jo thought she was marrying him. She got Ryan instead. Dad was career military, strong, quiet, distant, didn’t laugh… Ha, like you, Corte… Hey, you know I’m messing with you.”

I ignored her comment and continued to look at her pictures. Many of them showed Maree by herself and Joanne with their father.

“She was his darling, Jo was. The perfect athlete, the perfect student in school. Not a lot of fun, I have to say… Dad’d take her to her soccer matches and track events. He tried with me, I’m not saying he didn’t. But I sucked at sports and activities. I was a total klutz… Dad never rubbed it in my face, you know. ‘Oh, your sister’s perfect,’ none of that. But that’s what it smelled like. So I went the other way. I was the wild one. The big I-Irresponsible. Dropped out. I had a DUI, well, a couple, when I was seventeen or eighteen. Drugs, a little shoplifting.”

Thanks to the boyfriends, I recalled. But said nothing.

“I just didn’t fucking care. Squeaked by in a community college… Jo graduated second or third in her class. She majored in political science, nearly went into the army, like Dad, but he talked her out of that. I think she would’ve been good, actually. Drill instructor. You have brothers or sisters, Corte?”

“No.”

“And no kids. Lucky man.”

One picture of Jo revealed that she’d lost a lot of weight and looked gaunt. “Was she sick there?”

“Car crash.”

I remembered that from duBois’s bio.

She looked around. “Pretty bad. She lost control on some ice. Needed a lot of surgery. It’s why she can’t have kids but we don’t talk about that.”

So the child question was answered. I realized one of the other attractions of the hero cop-he not only saved her life; he offered her a built-in family.

The pictures slipped past again and I kept looking at them. Some of the scans were sepia pictures, going back a hundred years; some were black-and-white; some were oversaturated, from the sixties and seventies. Many were recent, direct digital.

Finally, I’d had enough.

“I really better get some things done,” I told her.

“Sure.”

“Those are good pictures.”

“Thank you,” she said formally, maybe mocking my tone.

Mr. Tour Guide …

As I was walking up the hallway to find Ryan and tell him what duBois had found about his cases, my phone buzzed with a text message. I figured it would be from Westerfield or Ellis-not risking a voice call that would end in a coward’s voice mail. But I glanced down and saw it was from duBois. I was pleased, thinking maybe she’d finished her investigation from my espionage at Graham’s house. Or perhaps she’d returned to her chatty self and forgiven me for the trial she’d had to endure there.