Free Multiple Exposure A Sophie Medina Mystery by Ellen Crosby

Great. He could talk you into posing standing on your head or even naked, if he wanted to. He’s real good with people.”
    “I noticed.”
    I’d watched him earlier, his knack for making his subjects relax, putting them at ease until they forgot he was holding a camera and began acting naturally. Changing angles as he laughed and joked, waiting patiently until he nailed the shots we were expected to get, and then diving in to try something different, more creative.
    Ali leaned against one of the columns. Tonight we’d all worn black: Luke in a smart-looking Armani suit and open-neck shirt that made him look James Bondish, me in silk palazzo pants, a lace-and-silk sleeveless top, and a beaded cashmere shrug I’d bought in Paris, and Ali in a low-cut concoction straight off the cover of a 1950s pulp novel where some red-lipped sultry-eyed dame vamped below the caption “She Always Gets Her Man.” We’d both pulled our hair back in ponytails—my reason was practical, to keep it off my face while I was working, but Ali had curled her hair and wore pretty tortoiseshell combs that only added to her sexy, flirty look.
    “Do you know if Senator Hathaway has arrived yet?” I asked her. “I saw his wife but not him.”
    “Moses told Luke that Hathaway’s going to be late because the Senate’s still in session.”
    “That could be good news. Maybe he’ll miss Ambassador Orlov. Whom I saw a few minutes ago, by the way. He looks like he ate something that gave him heartburn.”
    “I’ll tell you what’s giving him heartburn,” Ali said. “Arkady Vasiliev. Not feeling the love when those two are standing next to each other. You can tell Orlov’s in a real snit to be playing second fiddle to Vasiliev. The more he drinks the louder he gets.”
    “How much has he had to drink?”
    “Enough to float an ocean liner, that’s how much,” she said. “Speaking of ocean liners, I met Lara Gordon. Can you imagine what it’s like to be the girlfriend of a guy as rich as Vasiliev? He owns seven houses and three yachts. Not even yachts. They really are ocean liners. They flew over here in his Airbus. It’s like a flying palace.”
    She sounded wistful.
    “Hey, he owns the houses and boats and jet,” I said. “She’s just using them until he moves on to the next girlfriend. He left his wife, you know. And kids.”
    “How can you be so unromantic?”
    “Easy. There’s a difference between love and lust. And there’s no guarantee her fairy tale will have a happy ending.”
    “You think he doesn’t love her?”
    “I don’t know. He probably does today. But she’s young enough to be his daughter. And I think someone like Arkady Vasiliev believes everything and everyone is expendable.”
    “He does seem sort of like a mafioso kind of guy, doesn’t he?” She started humming the theme from The Godfather under her breath.
    I shushed her and we both started to giggle.
    “Well, I could see him committing murder if someone got on his bad side.” Ali grabbed onto the column and peeked at Vasiliev. As she swung around, she knocked into a waiter carrying a tray of hors d’oeuvres. He lost his footing and the tray and dishes sounded like crashing cymbals as everything hit the marble floor. The noise caused a momentary lull in the conversation as heads swiveled to see what had happened and then the buzz started up again.
    Ali’s hand flew to her mouth. “What a klutz I am . . . I’m so sorry.”
    The waiter gave Ali a perfunctory smile and mumbled “It’s okay” as a barrel-chested bartender who had been serving drinks at a bar in the Constitution Avenue lobby came over to help retrieve skewers of grilled scallops, dishes of wasabi, and sesame-encrusted crab cakes.
    Ali and I started to help, but the bartender, who brought a rag to wipe the floor, waved us away as the waiter picked up the destroyed tray and disappeared.
    “Don’t worry,” the bartender said. “At least it wasn’t a tray full of drinks. We’ll