Frank shrugged. “Could be. Could be something easier to conceal in his camera cases.”
“Like what?”
“Technology on flash drives. Even some pure heroin to be cut and sold in the area. One ounce of pure heroin can bring thousands of dollars on the streets.”
“Diamonds.” Doyle hit the keyboard again and a montage of images popped up. “On at least four occasions, right after your brother returned from a trip to Europe, a flood of blood diamonds hit the East Coast. New York, Baltimore, and Boston.”
“We’ve been through my camera bag,” she said. “We didn’t find any diamonds in it or the extra tub of film. You’re wrong about that. You’re making assumptions without any evidence.” She jumped up and stalked from the room.
Frank started after her.
Doyle rolled his chair out to block his path. “Stay put, Marshal.”
“She’s upset.” He glared down at the other man.
“You would be, too, if you were just told the only member of your family was involved in illegal smuggling and that might be why your life is now in danger. She needs a moment to process it all.” He pulled out the other rolling chair. “Take a seat. She’ll be back in a few minutes. In the meantime, I’ve got something else you might want to see.”
Still worried about Sydney, but curious what else Doyle found, he sat in the chair as Doyle turned on a news report.
“The body of police detective, Don Abrams, was found early this morning inside the trunk of his car,” the reporter said, giving the name of the street where the car was found. The same street that the townhouse where Frank and Sydney had met him sat. “The actual cause of death is yet to be determined, but the body had been shot, according to our sources.”
The cameraman zoomed out, taking in the crowd and the entire car. The front driver’s side fender hood and fender had a dent in it.
“Isn’t that the car that hit you?” Sydney said from behind them.
Frank turned to find her standing in the doorway, the tub of film in her hand. Her mouth was pressed into a thin line of determination, her body so stiff a touch would break her in half. The urge to scoop her up and carry her far away from all this mess hit him harder than the car had last night. But he knew she wouldn’t want that.
“That’s the one.”
“And they found Detective Abrams inside? Dead?” she asked, never taking her eyes from the monitor screen.
“That’s the report.”
“So, whatever my brother is mixed up in has cost me my home, nearly gotten you killed, and cost one good policeman his life.” It wasn’t a question. Although she’d left out the part where she’d been the intended target for the hit and run, she’d sized up the situation in a nutshell.
“None of this is your fault,” he said, rising from his chair to go to her.
She held her hand up in a stop sign and shook her head. “Don’t. I know you’re right. It’s Ian’s. But whatever happens from here on out will be my responsibility. How we stop whoever is doing this. How we stop my brother. So it’s time to find out what’s on this film he left me. I don’t need your comfort, Frank. What I need is a darkroom.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The total black of Doyle’s darkroom settled the anger that had been coursing through Sydney’s veins. Realization that Ian’s selfishness and self-centered actions had put her and others in danger had smacked her hard. She’d wanted to hit him, over and over. Or if not him, someone or something. She wanted to curse and rail, raise her fist to the sky and call down Armageddon on his head. None of that would solve anything. She knew it.
As always, now it was up to her to figure out what he’d done, clean up his mess, and stop anyone else from dying.
Slowly, she inhaled then exhaled, letting the comfort of the darkroom fill her. Since the day her father had brought her into his darkroom and taught her how to develop film she’d always found a peace, both in the process and the solitude.
Just like he’d taught her, she’d laid out everything she’d need to develop the film in the dark before turning out the lights. Searching for items in the pitch black could risk her destroying the images on the film or injuring herself in the process.
Taking the roll of film, she used the bottle opener to pry the top off. She set the opener back in the exact spot on the counter where she’d set it earlier. She pulled the film out by the leader section, reached for the scissors, and cut the tab away without nicking her fingers. As a teen, she’d learned that maneuver the hard way—had the scar on her index finger to remind her.
Setting the scissors down in its spot, she picked up the film spiral. Carefully, she slipped the film onto the pegs on the edges and slowly wound the exposed film out of the cassette and onto the spiral. Once she had it completely in place, she sealed the entire thing tightly, placed it in the developing canister, and switched on the room’s red light.
A knock sounded on the door.
“Is it safe to come in?” Castello asked from the other side.
She almost laughed. Was he asking about the film process or her mood?
“Yes,” she said, realizing it was probably safe on both counts. Her anger at her brother wasn’t Frank’s fault, and it wouldn’t be fair to take it out on him, either.
The door opened, and he slipped into the room. His presence made the space seem suddenly smaller, cozy even.
“I’ve seen red lights in darkrooms in movies. Didn’t know you really use one,” he said, a hint of awe in his deep voice. “So darkrooms really aren’t dark.”
“Oh, they’re completely dark for the first few minutes. You have to open the film in complete darkness or risk ruining them,” she said, focusing on pouring the developer solution into the canister.
“Bet it takes practice.”
“At first, Dad let me practice opening the rolls of old film in the light until I could do it with my eyes shut. Then he let me open film in the darkroom for him. I didn’t ruin even one frame of film.” She gave him a quick smile over her shoulder.
He returned it. Damn if her heart didn’t do a little flutter. A relaxed and smiling Castello was a very dangerous thing.
After tightening the lid, she set the timer and inverted the cylinder and tapped it on the counter four times over the first ten seconds. Then she set the canister on the counter to rest. At the one-minute mark, she repeated the inversions and taps.
“Why do you do that?” Frank asked. Even though he stood against the closed door, it felt like he was right beside her.
“It knocks off any air bubbles that might’ve formed on the film. We want the entire thing coated in the developer, so we’ll see everything that was in the camera’s lens when it was taken.”
She continued this process for nearly twelve minutes, pouring off the excess developer into the small sink Doyle had in the room just as the timer went off. Quickly, she poured in the stop bath solution, inverted the canister a few times, then poured that, too, down the sink. Finally, she added the fixing solution and set the timer once more.
“Do you mind me being in here? I don’t want to distract you.”
Really? The man had been a distraction since the moment she laid eyes on him next to the taxi at Abby and Luke’s wedding. Now he was worried about disturbing her? It was odd, but she got the feeling he truly was interested in what she was doing. Like it meant something for him to try to understand part of her work. Considering how much he supposedly hated photographers, the gesture touched something deep inside her.
She shook her head. “No, I don’t mind. I usually do my developing alone these days, but I used to help Dad a lot when I was first learning, so it’s not that unusual to have someone in here while I work. Besides, I could probably do the whole process in my sleep.”
Again, she inverted and tapped the canister every minute until the timer went off.
She dumped the fluid, and flooded the canister with water from the rubber hose Doyle had attached to the faucet for just this purpose.
“
When will we be able to see what’s on the negatives?”
“When they’re dry,” she said. Pulling the negatives from the canister, she clipped them to a hook to hang on the wire Doyle had strung on one side of the room.
“How long will that take?” Frank said, suddenly standing right behind her, his warm breath tickling her ear and the sensitive skin of her neck.
“About twenty minutes, depending on the humidity in the room.”
As she reached for the squeegee, his big hands settled on her hips. She swallowed hard and tried to concentrate on running the squeegee tongs down the strip of film.
“I love how focused you are when you work,” he said, before his lips captured her earlobe and gave it a tug, sending shivers of awareness over her body. “It’s very sexy.”
As his lips traveled down her exposed neck, a moan escaped her. She laid the squeegee down and gripped the counter to keep herself vertical, not sure her wobbly legs would do the job. He pressed in closer, his erection settling between the globes of her ass. Slowly, he slid his hands up beneath her shirt to cup her aching breasts.
Dear God, he might be a man of few words, but his actions left no doubt what was on his mind.
Even as she knew how inappropriate it was to be making love in Doyle’s darkroom, she was quickly calculating just how much space they’d really need, especially if she sat on the other counter.
She moved her head, opening her mouth to tell him it wouldn’t work. He swooped down and captured her lips with his, stilling her protest. How could she fight the need coursing through her with no more than his kisses? Especially when he considered her work sexy?
His hands moved her hips until she was facing him. Lifting onto her tiptoes, she slid her hands up his arms and over his wide shoulders to sink her fingers into the thick wavy hair that just barely touched his shirt collar.
A deep moan rumbled in his chest, thrilling her as much as his kiss and touch.
She’d made him do that.
Suddenly, he gripped her by the hips and lifted her, setting her down on the empty side of the counter. Pushing her legs open, he stepped in to cradle himself against her, groin to groin.
The man read her mind.
He slid his hands beneath her sweater, her skin heating by his calluses.
Calluses? Probably from working on restoring his house. The man liked to work with his hands.
The notion was gone as quick as it came when he scooped her sweater up, breaking the kiss to pull it over her head. Cool air sent more shivers over her.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he murmured, dropping his head and kissing a trail down her chest and into her cleavage.
Her nipples tightened immediately.
A buzzer sounded like a cannon blast in the room.
She let out a yelp.
“What the hell?” Frank moved back, one hand steadying her on the counter, the other automatically settling on the butt of his gun in the holster.
“If you’re finished developing things down there. I’ve got something to show you,” Doyle’s gravelly voice sounded from the far wall where an intercom was mounted.
“Jeez, old man. You nearly gave us heart attacks.”
Deep chuckling was the only reply.
“He did that on purpose.”
Sydney giggled at Frank’s grumpy grumbling, as she pulled her top back on. Then she froze, embarrassing heat flushing her body. She glanced from side to side. “You don’t suppose he has a hidden camera in here, do you?”
Frank lifted that one brow again. “Wouldn’t put it past him.”
Groaning, she leaned forward until her forehead lay against his shoulder. “Maybe I can just stay down here in the dark.”
He wrapped both arms around her. “Nope. I made you a promise. No more secrets. If he’s found something for me to see, then you’re seeing it, too.” He slipped one finger under her chin, forcing her to lift her head and meet his gaze. “Besides, unless he’s using infrared cameras, I doubt he saw much.”
With another slow kiss, he eased her from the counter to stand in front of him.
“Might as well see what he has. Can’t make pictures off these negatives until they’re dry anyways,” she said as they exited the darkroom.
“I’ll be curious to see what’s on them,” he said, waiting for her to start up the steps in front of him.
A shiver of dread went through her. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Whatever Ian was up to, it had to be bad.
* * * * *
“What have you got, Doyle?” Frank asked, as they entered the retired policeman’s command center again.
“Got a copy of the final arson report,” Doyle said, pointing to a record already up on the screen. “Looks mighty interesting.”
“I’m not going to ask how you got this,” he said.
“I know a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a guy over at the Division of Fire.”
Doyle acted as if it was an everyday occurrence for a civilian to get his hands on government documents. Frank was going to have to ask Jake if the older man worked for the CIA at one time, because he had secret spy stuff down to a nonchalant science.
Sydney pulled up one of the rolling chairs. Frank grabbed a straight back chair from the corner and straddled it between her and Doyle.
“It says they identified two points of origin for the fire,” Sydney said, reading from the report. “Why would there be two?”
“My best guess, they started the first fire in the front of the house. Wasn’t that where you said your computer was?”
“Yes. The monitor was on my desk and faced out onto the street. I liked watching people and cars go by as I worked.” She tilted her head slightly to the side, her delicate brows drawn down in consternation. “If my computer was the real target, why start the fire in the back of the house, then?”
“Whoever started them believed a fire in the darkroom would look like an accident because of the chemicals you kept available.”
“But the chemicals aren’t flammable. I told the firemen that.”
“A professional photographer like you would know that. Not the average person.”
“Or apparently the average arsonist,” she muttered.
His lip twitched at her sarcasm. Despite everything that was happening to her, Syd was still a fighter. He liked that about her.
“So why the bomb?” she asked.
“Whatever they thought was on that computer was important enough for them to want it completely destroyed.” Doyle highlighted part of the report. “It says here that C4 residue covered the fragments of the computer, which suggests it was the main target.”
“Which begs the question, what did Ian put on my computer? Who did he tell? Or if he sent it to someone, how did they figure out it was my computer?” Sydney asked, irritation edging her voice.
Doyle leaned sideways in his chair, extending his left leg and rubbing his hip, the one that made him limp. “My best guess is they followed the IP address on whatever was sent.”
“Can we retrace the path to see who might’ve done that?” Her gaze shifted from Doyle to him and back again.
“That’s a hacking skill way above mine.” His eyes met Frank’s. “There is someone who has the skills.”
Slowly, Frank shook his head. “He’s occupied. She’d kill us for even asking.”
“To help a friend? I think you’re selling her short. She’s an Edgars, after all.”
“Who?” Sydney asked. “If there’s someone you know who can help us find whoever is out to kill me and my brother, not to mention you just for helping me, we have to ask them.”
“It’s their honeymoon.”
Realization showed in Syd’s eyes. “Luke and Abby? No, you’re right. We can’t interrupt them. Not even for this. What if we find the actual email that was sent?” Sydney asked, turning to Doyle. “Could you use it to find whoever is behind this without bothering Luke and Abby on their honeymoon?”
“How are you going to do that?
Your computer was blown into pieces,” he said. “The report says there’s nothing left of the hard drive to even attempt a reconstruction, much less retrieve information from it.”
She smiled. “I don’t need the hard drive.”
Frank caught on. “Yes! Because your computer automatically uploaded files to a cloud—”
“Including any emails I sent or received.” She grinned at the perplexed Doyle. “I travel so much for work all over the world, that I joined a company that provided a backup system for my work so I could access it anywhere. Even here in your command center.”
“So, if your brother did email someone and that put this whole mess in motion,” Doyle said, clicking away on his computer keyboard, “you should be able to see who and what he sent.”
“What are you doing? I can just type in the URL and codes to access my account.”
He paused, fingers still on the keyboard and fixed her with a serious eye. “Right now, you’re safe here because whoever has been trying to hurt you doesn’t know you’re here. I’m going to hack into a few satellites, a couple of foreign internet sites and then send the signal into a spot I have with another computer. Nothing connected to here.”
“You can do that?” Sydney’s eyes were so huge with amazement in them, Castello laughed.
Frank nodded. “He can do that.”
“Been studying with the kid,” Doyle said, again typing away.
“The kid?” Sydney asked Frank.
“Luke. It’s the nickname his older brothers gave him and it stuck.”
“Luke knows how to do all of that because he’s a government agent?”
Frank laughed. “He’s a government agent because he could do those things before he graduated high school. Now he uses it for tracking down terrorists for Homeland.”
“And teaching old men how to use the internet to find local scum, too,” Doyle said, focused once more on the keyboard. “Give me a few minutes for all the sites to connect, then I’ll be ready to get your account information.” He reached for the coffee mug beside him. “Damn. Didn’t realize I’d emptied it.”
“I’ll get you a refill,” Frank said, holding out his hand. “I could use some, too.”
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