Free Exposed by Suzanne Ferrell Page B

some help. Off the books.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    Castello hauled in all of Sydney’s bags, locked the deadbolts on the kitchen door, and set the alarm. No one was going in or out of here tonight that he didn’t know about. Especially his guest.
    Leaving the bags in the kitchen, he went upstairs to check on Sydney. Curled on her side, sound asleep.
    Good. He didn’t want her coming downstairs until he was finished.
    Back in the kitchen, he set her travel bag and camera case on the table, poured himself a little of the bourbon, and sat down. Staring at the bags, he slowly sipped from the crystal tumbler.
    What he was about to do was a complete invasion of Sydney’s privacy. Jake was right, though. Despite Abigail and Luke’s history with her, they really didn’t know much about her. While Doyle did some new-age electronic investigation into her and her brother, he was about to go old school to see what he could learn.
    Quietly, he unzipped the camera bag first. The inside was fairly organized. Two cameras—one digital, the other an old-fashioned manual thirty-five millimeter camera. Four kinds of lenses, extra batteries and seven sim cards for the digital camera, a charger and some small tubs of old-fashioned film.
    Pulling out each item, he carefully set them on the table. A zippered plastic bag was in the inside side compartment. In it were tubs of film. He opened each tub of film to be sure that was all there was inside them then felt all along the inside of the case. Drug mules and smugglers were good at hiding items in the linings of bags, preventing the most cursory look by overtaxed customs officials from finding them. In the bottom of the bag he found loose tubs of film. Unlike the ones in the zip-lock bag, all but one of these were unused.
    Nothing in this bag.
    Carefully, he replaced each item exactly where he’d found them, resisting the urge to put the one used one from the loose tubs into the zip-lock bag. For some reason she’d left it separate. He didn’t know if she had a routine in packing her case, but he wasn’t taking any chances of her discovering he’d been inspecting it.
    Next came the carry-on travel bag.
    This one wasn’t quite as organized. There was the small, clear bag of three-ounce bottles of liquids required by the airport security. He opened and sniffed them. One smelled like lemons, the thicker one had some sort of tropical floral scent, and the third was thick and smelled like a hand lotion.
    He pulled out the clothes. A neatly folded, old sweatshirt with a faded Ohio State logo. No tag on it, but it was big enough to fit two of Sydney inside. A man’s size perhaps? Interesting. Unfolding it, he found two pairs of panties, a bra and two pairs of socks—all in white—and a pair of grey cotton shorts.
    Smart girl. If her luggage got lost, she’d still have clean underwear and her sleep clothes with her.
    Beneath the clothes he found her laptop. He pulled it out and set it aside to look at last.
    Next came an open bag of cheese-filled pretzels and a half-eaten, extra-large, candy-cookie combo. An empty water bottle. A brush. A comb. Two fashion magazines, probably research for her work. He flipped through them to see if she’d hidden anything in the pages, but the only thing that flew out were coupons to sign up for subscriptions. Tucked to the side, standing up on end, was a book. He pulled it out.
    A Highlander For Christmas by Sandy Blair.
    He smiled. Syd liked romance novels. By the cover on it, she liked hunky men in kilts, too.
    Again, he flipped the pages and nothing fell out. As with the camera case, he checked the sides to be sure she wasn’t hiding something under the lining. Nothing.
    He put everything back inside as he found it, layer by layer, until it was time for the laptop. Flipping the top open, he was surprised not to see a code prompt to unlock the screen. He shook his head. Syd, Syd, Syd, not very good security. At some point he was going to have to talk to