Fatal Exposure - By Gail Barrett Page 0,1

And Parker had worked for too many years to forfeit his chance at the killer now.

Silencing his protesting conscience, he exited the stairwell two floors later and veered to the nearest desk. “Is Sudhir in?” he asked the secretary, who was speaking into her headset. She nodded and waved him past, her silver rings glinting in the fluorescent light. Seconds later, Parker knocked on the police artist’s door.

“Come in,” Sudhir called out, and Parker strode inside. Balding, his paunch encased in a purple-and-black Baltimore Ravens T-shirt, Sudhir Singh had been a fixture in the precinct for years, long enough to warrant an actual office, albeit with a Dumpster view. He worked a variety of jobs, from sketch artist, interpreter and polygraph test administrator to unofficial coordinator of the underground football pool.

“Hey, Sudhir. You going to the game this weekend?” Parker asked by way of greeting.

“You bet.” Parker waited, muzzling his impatience until Sudhir wound down his tirade over the team’s most recent trade.

“So whatcha got?” he finally asked.

Parker handed him the old photo. “This girl. I need you to age her fifteen years. I think I’ve found a match.”

His attention instantly snagged, Sudhir swiveled toward his equipment, motioning absently in the direction of an empty chair. “Have a seat.”

Parker pulled up the chair and sat. Leaning forward, he locked his gaze on the monitor as Sudhir scanned the photo in. Several seconds later his brother and the runaway girl appeared on the computer screen.

Parker’s belly went taut, the sight of his drugged-out brother prompting the usual litany of self-reproach. He should have done more to save him. He should have found a way to keep him in rehab until he’d stopped destroying his life. He should have fired that useless counselor and searched for someone better, someone who could have found a way to reach him and convince him to stay off drugs.

And he definitely should have anticipated the effect their father’s arrest and suicide would have on Tommy, who’d idolized the man.

But Parker had failed. Only twenty-two himself when his father had died, he’d been too busy salvaging his budding career, trying to prove that he wasn’t corrupt. And his brother had paid the price, running away from home, embarking on a downward spiral of drugs and crime that had ended with his senseless death.

But the day he’d lowered Tommy into the ground, Parker had made a vow. He wouldn’t fail his little brother again. He would bring Tommy’s killer to justice, no matter how many years it took.

His jaw clenched, his gaze still trained on the monitor, Parker watched intently as Sudhir cropped his brother from the photo and zoomed in on the runaway girl. Several keystrokes later, her face filled the screen, those big, bleak eyes a sucker punch to his gut. She didn’t look like a killer; he’d give her that much. She looked too young, too fragile, too harmless. But the most innocent face could hide the blackest heart.

“She looks about twelve, maybe thirteen, in this photo,” Sudhir said, tapping on his keyboard. “So her current age would be what, late twenties?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Switching to his mouse, Sudhir began using his age progression software to manipulate her face. “What kind of lifestyle does she lead? Does she smoke? Drink? Do drugs?”

“Drugs, probably.” Tommy had only hung out with other addicts toward the end.

“Any other factors that might affect her appearance, like wind or sun damage to her skin?”

Parker frowned. As a runaway, she would have been exposed to the elements. But if this woman really was B. K. Elliot, her photos sold for thousands of dollars a pop—meaning her impoverished days were long gone.

“Let’s say she was homeless during her teen years,” he decided. “Then she straightened herself out and led a comfortable life after that.”

Sudhir added a trace of squint lines around her eyes. “Weight gain?”

Remembering the photo in the newspaper, Parker shook his head. “No, keep her thin.”

“How about her hair?”

He studied the image taking shape on the screen. “Longer, just past her shoulders. And not so curly, just kind of wavy and thick.”

Sudhir continued to work, slowly transforming the scrawny adolescent into a young woman. A hauntingly beautiful woman with a small, feminine nose, elegantly sculpted cheekbones and an intriguingly sensual mouth.

His heart picked up its beat.

But what held him captive were her eyes. Her eyes were wounded, poignant, raw, as vulnerable as those of the children in B. K. Elliot’s photos. They drew him in, sparking a sense of