Free Necessary Force by D. D. Ayres Page A

who had settled himself under his handler’s feet. “Were you successful today with your hunt for yellow?”
    Georgie stopped chewing. “How did you know? Oh, you were listening to my conversations.”
    “Actually, I noticed you were photographing yellow things this morning. Zander. The smear of eggs. The vase by the door in the hotel room.” He chewed a bit of turkey bacon before continuing. “The shot of the Washington Monument was inspired. I never think of it as being yellow. But it looked that way in the sunset this evening.”
    “You noticed that?”
    He nodded. “You told me that when something attracts your eye, you take a picture of it. I noticed that things you took pictures of today were yellow.”
    Georgie stared at him. Growing up in Nashville, Tennessee, as the youngest of five children she had always had to compete for attention from two loving but very busy parents. Fairly early on, she’d decided to observe the world instead of trying to dominate it. Pictures allowed her to capture something so she could study it at her leisure. Her photographs had taken her from work on the high school yearbook to a fine arts degree in college. But fine arts photos couldn’t be counted on to pay the bills. Working as an AP freelancer allowed her to have a regular paycheck and still maintain her artistic freedom. People didn’t notice photographers. If she was lucky, they noticed the results.
    Yet, Brad was different. He paid attention to her, not just her work. But maybe that was his job.
    “It’s not about the job.”
    “You read minds, too?”
    He smiled. “Your face is an open book. My job is full of complicated people who almost never willingly reveal what they are thinking and feeling. With you, I don’t have to guess.”
    “That sounds deadly dull.”
    “The opposite. It’s endlessly fascinating, like watching a river flowing, no two moments the same.”
    He, too, had unexpected depths. She really,
really
hoped it wasn’t just part of his job description.
Insert yourself in the suspect’s world, become friends
. She’d fallen for it before. Damn him for his attractiveness.
    “What were you taking pictures of that day at the Senate Office Building?”
    Georgie frowned. “Ah, I don’t—. Blue. I was taking blue pictures.”
    “What upset you?” She didn’t have to ask him why he asked the question. Her face had, as he’d just explained, given her away. It was one of the liabilities of being a redhead. Her complexion gave away her thoughts.
    “It was a bad week. The guy I had broken up with months ago works for AP, too, as a journalist. Suddenly, he shows up at my door saying he thinks he left some old work he needs for his portfolio on my mainframe. We had done some collaborations for AP when we were together. He wrote the words and I provided the pictures. I made the mistake of letting him search for it while I worked on my laptop in the next room. I’m pretty certain he erased a catalog of my work I’d spent weeks putting together for AP.”
    “Weak shit bastard.”
    Georgie smiled. “It was backed up, but yeah.”
    “What else?”
    “I’d also just learned that a friend has inoperable brain cancer. They did an operation on him several months ago but the latest test results revealed that the operation didn’t get it all and they can’t go in again. That news really threw me.”
    “That would be Frank Keller.”
    She sighed and put down her fork. “I depend on him. He’s my photography editor at the AP office here in D.C. That means he’s responsible for archiving all of the images that are submitted by every photographer they buy from. More importantly, he has final say-so over which photos are chosen to be sent out for use by the news outlets.”
    “What blue things did you capture the day you covered the Senate Office Building ceremony?”
    His question surprised her. Most people would have offered their sympathy before forging ahead.
    “It’s hard to say since I never