Saving Rose Red - Maggie Dallen Page 0,3

to explain this to Eddie, his partner at the police department? He’d better find a better way to spin it or he’d never live it down.

I had Anthony right in front of me but, you see, he was talking to this girl...

Yeah, that would not fly. But Anthony was dangerous—more dangerous than the brutes who ran the Corada gang. He was the wolf in sheep’s clothing, the serpent in disguise. He was the kind of bad guy who gave bad guys a bad name. He hid behind his family’s money and power as he gave this neighborhood the finger and flooded it with new drugs.

He was bad news, and the fact that he seemed to have his sights set on Andie made him want to throw his fist through a wall. There was no way he’d let that happen.

Andie’s voice behind him brought him back to the present. “Thanks for letting me stick around. I promise I won’t take up too much of your time. I really just wanted to take a look at some designs but I can book an appointment for later this week.”

He tried for a smile and failed. Funny how some muscles refused to work when they hadn’t been used in a while. For all his weightlifting, the muscles in his cheeks refused to so much as twitch. “It’s no trouble. Stay as long as you’d like.”

That seemed to be her signal to make herself at home. Before he could put some distance between them, she came over to his side and pulled her camera over her head. “Hang on, I took pictures of some rose graphics I liked. Do you mind giving me your opinion?”

He didn’t have a chance to respond before she was talking again. “The camera is new—it’s nice, right? My new mother gave it to me. Well, she’s not my new mother, just new to me.”

As she spoke she turned on her camera and started scrolling back through her pictures. She’d clearly been on a roll before she came into the shop. He recognized shots of the neighborhood. Close-ups of interesting graffiti tags, a long shot of kids playing at the run-down playground behind the church. An alley filled with makeshift box homes. They were stunning, really. Somehow she made these mundane, dirty places look beautiful.

That’s what he thought. What he said was, “Not bad.” It came out as a mumble but she must have heard because she looked up at him with a beaming smile.

“Thanks. I’m working on my photography skills.”

She started talking a million miles per hour again, about her hobby, the subjects she chose. It was interesting, but his attention was caught by something else. She flipped through so quickly he could have been mistaken.

Maybe he was just being paranoid. That wasn’t rare among undercover cops. Paranoia had a tendency to keep him alive. But this…

“Can I see that?” Without waiting for an answer, he took the camera from her hands and started scrolling back to a picture she’d just passed.

There it was.

Oh man. The bottom of his stomach dropped out as he spotted a familiar face. Two familiar faces. Anthony Gallagher and Cisco Hedron, the leader of the Corada gang. The picture wasn’t of them—it was a side view of the playground, taken from the alley behind the church. They weren’t the focus of the shot but they were in it, in the background off to the side. Talking to one another. One other person was there too. A man in a suit but his back was to the camera. He started to zoom in when Andie’s voice stopped him.

“The rose graphics are on there somewhere, I swear.” She reached a hand out, silently asking for it back.

Unless he wanted to explain exactly why he was so fascinated with a shot that could potentially break his case wide open, he’d have to hand it over. But he needed that picture. If he could get it to his buddies at the department, they might be able to figure out who the third player was. A picture of Anthony talking to Cisco wasn’t enough to condemn him, but it was telling nonetheless. One of the reasons their relationship worked so well is that no one could connect them. Cole couldn’t and he’d been hunting for a connection for months.

But this… this was a step in the right direction. And that third player might just be the information he needed.

Andie kept scrolling through, talking all the while. She didn’t seem to