Free Multiple Exposure A Sophie Medina Mystery by Ellen Crosby Page A

take care of it.”
    Ali threw me a guilty look and said, “Guess I’d better get back to Luke.”
    “Try not to run into anyone else on the way,” I said.
    She grinned. “What I’m really hoping is I run into a rich Russian sugar daddy who’ll invite me to live on his ocean liner.”
    “Just don’t spill his drink on him.”
    Ali winked and flashed me a radiant smile. Then she sashayed into the crowd and was gone.
    *

    Ali wasn’t the one who found a rich Russian: I was. Rather, he found me. I walked into the Founders’ Room, where a half dozen of the more elderly, fragile guests had taken refuge from the crowds and were sitting on the sofa and club chairs surrounding the fireplace. I was in the midst of photographing a group who were standing under the portrait of Andrew Mellon when a man in a dark suit who’d been shadowing Vasiliev tapped me on the shoulder.
    “Mr. Vasiliev would like a word with you,” he said in careful English. “Now, if you please.”
    He’d phrased it like an invitation, though I knew it wasn’t.
    “Why me?”
    “That is for Mr. Vasiliev to say. Follow me.”
    I knew where we were going: to the caviar-and-serious-booze conference room. Vasiliev’s bodyguard led me to the cloakroom and knew the secret panel to push that opened the door to the back corridor. As soon as I stepped inside the conference room he closed the door, leaving me alone with Arkady Vasiliev, who sat at the far end of the table speaking staccato Russian into his mobile phone. Vasiliev held up a finger to signal he’d be only a minute and pointed to the caviar and well-stocked bar. I gave him a polite smile and shook my head. No drinking on the job.
    I stood, since he hadn’t indicated I should sit, and waited until he finished his conversation. I can’t read or write Russian, but I’d heard Nick speak the language often enough to pick up a few words. Unfortunately I had no idea what Vasiliev was talking about, though it sounded like he was trying to placate someone. He took off his glasses and rubbed his fingers across his forehead as he repeated, “ Nichevo, nichevo. ” An all-purpose word that meant whatever you wanted it to mean: “Don’t worry about it” or “It’s nothing.”
    Vasiliev finally ended the conversation and set his phone next to him, folding his hands together and steepling his fingers. “Please take a seat.”
    I put my cameras on the table, pulled out the chair across from him, and sat.
    “You are Sophie Medina?”
    “Yes.”
    The boyish cockiness on display when he’d been standing with Lara Gordon in the Rotunda was gone, replaced by a grim-faced businessman. Vasiliev picked up his glasses and put them on. “Also the wife of Nicholas Canning?”
    “Yes.”
    “What are you doing here?” Asked in a nonthreatening way.
    I decided to take him literally. “Taking photographs of your reception. I’m a professional photographer.”
    The veneer of courtesy disappeared. “That is not what I meant. You are a professional photographer who only became employed by Mr. Santangelo and Focus Photography last week.”
    I wondered how long he planned to keep asking questions when he appeared to know the answers, but I wasn’t going to tell him anything I didn’t have to. “That’s correct.”
    “You knew Mr. Santangelo had been hired to work here tonight.”
    This time I couldn’t figure out if he actually knew the answer or if he was fishing for information.
    “My former boss in London is an old friend of Luke’s. He recommended me for a job at Focus when I decided to move home to Washington,” I said.
    Vasiliev sat back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. His fingers were short and square, the nails manicured, but his hands looked like they had the brute strength to crush things and break them.
    “You did not answer the question.”
    “I’m a photojournalist, Mr. Vasiliev. I used to work for a news agency that sent me all over the world covering wars,