Now it was my turn to look at the far away mountains. “Are you? Contained, I mean?”
"I don't see much of a choice."
"I'll guess I go with that, then," I said. "Let them know all is quiet on the Suarez front."
“So we still have that little bit of ugliness. We can’t quite escape it, even out here in the midst of all this beauty.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Shadow against light. Light against shadow.”
Bridget took my chin in her hand to turn my face toward her. She kissed me. When our lips parted she said, “I guess we can go on enjoying the back-lighting a little longer.”
This time I pulled her to me. As we kissed, I wondered whether the light we spoke about counted as good or bad light or lighting at all. I concluded I'd dealt with enough deep questions for one day even if that meant I ended up doing nothing better than bask in the cool of the shadows.
Chapter 14
“How did I do?” I asked Lucia.
She came toward me and set her heavy purse on one of the gallery’s sitting stools. “Not bad for an introverted genius,” she replied.
“You mean not bad for the guy that disappeared on you only to reappear hours before the show.”
She responded with a faint, tolerating smile and said nothing, as if to let me dwell for a moment on the angst I'd caused her. She'd certainly asked plenty of questions when I called her one hour before the show. Was I OK? Where had I been? What had I been up to and why hadn't I returned her calls? Was I in some sort of trouble? Did my disappearance had to do with my LAX heroics? Of all those questions, I could only answer the first one, and she accepted that, especially when I told her that, yes, I was on my way after tending to some complex issues I'd rather not share.
"I appreciate your patience," I told her now.
"We all have our messes to clean up," she said. "Life's complicated, especially for boys that dive into airport terminals to kick some terrorist derriere."
I smiled at her rather Parisian pronunciation of that last word. "A linguist, too," I remarked with a grin in an attempt to push out of my mind the thought that she might know more about my Bridget escapade than she ought.
Lucia curled her arm around mine. “From now on, you can call me Luz.”
She was looking around the gallery floor, at all the red dots that flagged sold pieces. Her chest swelled a little, and I supposed it did so with pride for a job well done.
“I didn’t sell anything,” I said.
“But you tried, and you tried well.” She tugged at my arm. “You also got seen by some key people. Planting seeds in a fertile garden, that’s what we did tonight.”
Lucia seemed far more satisfied that a try and getting seeing would justify.
“Is that all?” I asked.
“Hmm.” She gave me a sideways grin. “We had an anonymous contingency buyer. Someone who said she’d pick up two of your pieces if they didn’t sell.”
“Bridget?”
“Anonymous, remember?”
“What’s the big secret?”
“No secret. Just my word, which you can always count on.”
“I take it there will be shipping.”
“All part of the deal, and no, you won’t be delivering in person.”
I smiled back at her. We stood in silence, taking in the empty, soon to be dark gallery before we headed home.
“So what do you think of her now?” I asked.
“Of Bridget? Why would I have any reason to change my mind?”
“Big Sis still thinks she’s not my brand?”
“I’ve already made my opinion on this matter known.”
Lucia released my arm and hung her purse from her left shoulder. Her frame tilted to the left under the bag’s weight until she pushed herself into realignment.
“More important question is,” she said. “How did you like this?”
“It was good. I enjoyed talking to people about my work.”
“Nicer than writing blog posts no one might read?”
“Maybe.”
“Something you’d like to do again? To continue doing?” Lucia asked.
“Sure. How about you?”
“I’m in if you are. Are we on?”
I grinned. “Yeah, we’re very on.”
“Fantastic. What are you doing tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?”
“It’s Easter, you know. People dress up and go to church. Or brunch, at least. I always hate going back on my own for my twice per year appearance.”
“I don’t know--”
“Aw, come on. You cleaned up nicely for our little party tonight. I’m sure I can find something in your closet for you to wear.”
“I think I know how to dress myself, thank you,” I said, feeling a bit trapped.
“Great, so I’ll be by at 8:30 for the 9 AM mass?”
“So much for sleeping in.”
“Hey, think what a mess we’d be in if Jesus decided to sleep in on Easter morning.”
I smiled, supposing I should be glad her heart was not set on attending a sunrise service. Not only did I really need to sleep in, but the prospect of seeing and feeling early sunlight on my face would have proved too full of regret, far too reminiscent of Joshua trees in silhouette against an orange-red sky.
“We need to start working on fresh material for you,” Lucia said as we walked out of the gallery. By this I knew she meant I needed to come up with new photographs.
Still thinking about the Joshua trees, I replied, “I think I have something you’re going to like.”
At her car, I hugged her good night. Lucia promised to get back to me with a tentative schedule of shows she’d like me to join in the coming months.
On my way to my Baja Bug, my cellphone buzzed. I accessed the incoming text. A small local paper wanted to know if I'd be interested in covering local surfing competitions on a freelance basis. I briefly considered declining. In the end, recalling with fondness a surfing contest I'd shot at Seal Beach months before, I sent a quick text back saying I'd do it. If nothing else the jobs would help me stay busy as an active shooter of a different kind.
About The Author
Thank you for letting me share my writing with you. As much as I enjoy the craft, I write to share of myself with others, and it means a lot to me that out of all the great writing out there, you decided to read mine. I have lots of stories to tell, and little time to tell them. I will keep laboring to bring you those stories as soon as I can get them out of my head and onto the page.
Active Shooter is the third techno-thriller story I publish after DEAD BEEF and Pink Ballerina. These three stories share a Cyber warfare world, explored through different protagonists whose paths cross and intertwine. I am currently working on a third novel inhabiting this world, a suspense thriller with Decisive Moment as its working title. It shares with Pink Ballerina a love for photography and an exploration for how this art form relates to and can help us view life in a different way than we normally use to understand the world around us.
I would appreciate if you could take the time to leave me a review at the outlet where you downloaded this e-Book. Be honest – and, OK, kind! I’m still growing in my writing and can learn a great deal from the way you experience my work.
If you want to contact me with questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me at [email protected] or find me on the Internet:
Website: http://eduardosuastegui.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/imagesbyeduardo
The “Our Cyber World” series
Together with Active Shooter, the following novels form the Our Cyber World series. Some await your download from an eBook distributor near you, while others will become available as soon as the author completes all his typing.
The company Cyberwarfare pioneer, Martin Spencer, founded wasn’t supposed to fire him. Spencer knows too much and can do far too much damage to U.S. national security. Years ago Spencer led a failed attack against Iranian computer sy
stems that stranded his Cyber weapon payload behind enemy lines. U.S. officials fear the Iranians reverse-engineered Spencer’s creation and suspect Iranian operatives will now seek his help to turn his creation into a terrorist weapon. For his part, Spencer will need to decide whether to cooperate with those who fired him or escape his former life once and for all.
Kindle
Who is that woman in the pink ballerina outfit? And why can’t Andre Esperanza’s once photographic memory recall her identity? Andre must answer these questions after he photographs her drawing pirouettes on wet sand. The burst of 51 photos he shoots reignite painful, missing memories of a life he thought he’d left behind. They also bring US and foreign operatives calling, and Andre must decide whether to cooperate or to protect a woman he should know but can’t remember. Reluctantly, Andre will have to face how this Pink Ballerina fits into his defunct career in electronic surveillance and how she ties in with his achievements and failures, which to him pretty much look the same.
Kindle
Fine-art photographer Roger Morris should not have taken a paparazzo job to fill in for his loser brother. He shouldn’t have used his military training to pick a perfect sniper’s perch from which to aim his telephoto lens at movie star Vivian Matisse and her Mexican cartel boyfriend, and he shouldn’t have photographed them murdering her movie producer. Now Roger must decide whether to turn the photos over to the police or sell them to the highest bidder so he can pay off his brother’s violent bookie. Through what follows Roger will struggle to hold on to his new life as an artist, suspecting that as he runs out of options, the only way out traces along the barrel of his sniper rifle.
Coming July 2014
Cuban baseball star, Camilo Ornedo was about to defect to the U.S. when his pitching arm gave out. That ended his career in Cuba and extinguished any chances he had to score a big major league contract. Bitter and disillusioned, Camilo meets Elena Catalón, a CIA agent who seduces and recruits him to work for her. As his romance with her grows, Camilo watches his younger brother become a star pitcher. When his brother tells him he wants to defect, Camilo sets out to work a deal with Elena that will entangle them in a plot to compromise and infiltrate Cuban computer networks.
Coming Fall 2014
Active Shooter Page 10