Lenora Worth - Double Exposure

“No,” he said, reluctance still in his tone.

Jennie wasn’t surprised at Madeline’s stance. Jennie had encountered similar stubbornness while planning this show with Madeline. When the woman made up her mind about something, there was no point in arguing. She always got her way.

“Fine, then if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get back to work.” She made a sharp pivot on spiked heels and headed for the back of the gallery.

Jennie saw Ethan fist his hands. He clearly didn’t want to be with her. The sooner they got to the bottom of all of this, the sooner he would be on his way.

Sucking in a reedy breath, she squatted down to pick through tattered photos, searching for anything left intact.

“I don’t know how anyone could do this,” she said to Ethan as he hovered over her like a solicitous parent. “Without the money from the fundraiser, many of the children we help could die.”

“Then we need to make sure that doesn’t happen.” He sounded so confident and sure. “And we’ll start by figuring out who did this.”

“This?” She gestured at the devastation surrounding her. “This makes no sense. How do we even begin to figure it out?”

“We take things one step at a time.” His voice remained calm and even.

How could he be so levelheaded when chaos surrounded them? When they were back together after all these years?

“You mentioned seeing your attacker through your camera,” he went on. “Did you take any pictures of him?”

“Several.”

“Good. We can run them through facial-recognition software to see if he’s in the database. If he is, we’ll have his ID in less than an hour.”

“I hate that people like this guy are willing to destroy things intended to do so much good.” She stood, putting distance between her and the picture scraps.

“This isn’t about destruction, Jen. It’s about stopping the show.” He paused and watched her as if waiting for his comment to settle in.

“What I don’t get is why. I mean, why trash this place and why try to take my camera?”

“I doubt this guy followed you all that way simply to steal your camera.”

“So why’d he try it, then?”

“I think he’s after a memory card and he thought it would be in the bag.”

She looked at him, eyebrow raised, and waited for an explanation.

“Look,” he said. “A crime like this one is often financially motivated, but no one stands to make money if the show doesn’t open. So we have to look at other motives.”

“Such as?”

“My first thought was someone was out for revenge, and I’m still not ruling that out. Our team is already investigating gallery and charity staff, looking for anyone who might have a grudge against Photos of Hope or the gallery itself.”

He paused and moved closer. “But now that this guy tried to steal your camera bag, we have to consider what the break-in and attempted theft have in common. Maybe we need to expand our investigation to include the pictures themselves.”

“What could my pictures have to do with this?”

“If you accidentally caught someone doing something they don’t want displayed in public, that person would try to stop you from showing the pictures. And that would mean destroying not only the pictures, but preventing you from producing more copies.”

“That could be true of someone with a personal grudge, too.”

“Agreed, and that’s why we’ll continue to look at all avenues. But if we start by reviewing the pictures, we can quickly see if my theory holds any weight, and if not, we can rule it out.”

“There’s just one problem. I only use a digital format for the newspaper. I use film for all other work.” She gestured at the jumble of frames and torn photos at her feet. “You’re looking at the only copies of these pictures. All I have are the negatives.”

“So how long will it take to reprint them?”

“I’ll be lucky to finish before the show.”

“And there’s no way to speed that up?”

“No, but I could have the negatives drum scanned to create digital copies. Scanning would only take a few hours and you could view the pictures on a computer while I work on reprints for the show.”

“Good. Good.” A burst of enthusiasm lit his eyes. “But first we’ll email the photo of your attacker to Cole. He’ll have someone at the marshal’s office run it.” She remembered reading his brother Cole had once worked as a U.S. Marshal in fugitive investigations.

“We can upload the pictures on my computer. It’s in the break area.” Ethan put his hand on her back and gently urged her to move.

Heat radiated through his fingers and a small gasp of surprise slipped out of her. Reacting to him every time he touched her was not good. So until she learned to control her response, she couldn’t be with him any more than necessary. She moved away, and his hand fell to his side.

“The negatives are at my house,” she said, searching for any reason to put distance between them. “I could save time by picking them up while you email the digital pictures.” She held out her camera but he snagged her elbow instead.

“We’ll get your negatives, Jen. Together. After we email Cole. You won’t go anywhere alone until we neutralize this threat.” He sounded so professional. So detached.

Clearly, she’d hurt him by pulling away. She wanted to apologize…but maybe it would be better this way, if they both behaved as if this was just a job to him. A job like any other job. Protect the client, find the bad guy and go home.

After the way she’d bailed on him, only a fool would believe that things could ever go back to the way they had been between them.

Then she was a fool because even in the face of overwhelming odds, she wanted to believe it.

Seeing him again, his smile, his strength, the unwavering confidence, made her want him to care. And that, more than anything, said she couldn’t spend time with him. It wouldn’t end well, for either of them.

She opened her mouth to object to his plan, but he said, “Until this is resolved, someone will be with you 24/7.”

“Someone, or you?” Her tone came out terse.

“Don’t worry, Jen. I get it. You don’t want to be with me.” She thought she heard a hint of sadness in his voice, but his face remained impassive. “You heard Madeline. She insists I head up your detail and she’s an old family friend so I won’t disappoint her.”

Of course he wouldn’t. She’d once fallen for this Ethan. An honorable man even when it caused him pain. Not that she could presume to know how he felt about being around her. It had been years since she could read his every expression. But still, it couldn’t be easy for him to work with her, could it?

She’d try to give him an out. “I respect your desire to help Madeline. Really I do. But I’m sure you could convince her to let someone else from the agency work with me instead.”

“No.” His dark eyes dared her to challenge him and his adamant tone left her speechless.

The Ethan she’d known had been more laid-back, but that was before his stint with the FBI and before his parents were murdered.

She hated to see the way pain and harsh experiences had hardened him, but she couldn’t deny that his new fierce determination was attractive—too attractive.

Her work was her priority—she couldn’t let any chance of a relationship get in the way of that. Especially not a relationship with Ethan, which would be doomed to failure if he ever learned about her past. It would be far wiser to avoid him.

But what choice did she have?

None.

If she wanted to help the children and live to tell about it, then she’d have to let Ethan back into her life no matter how difficult it would be for them both.