Close Up by Erin McCarthy Page B

not. “No. Of course not. Probably not. Actually, yes. She as good as said she was going to.”
    Sean looked distracted. He had moved from one defaced photo to the next, head swinging back and forth. “Look at this. They’re the same person.” He moved to a third person. “Holy shit. It’s the same person.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “It’s the same person who’s been spray painted with boy shorts.”
    That didn’t make any sense. The shoots were all in different cities, at different times. “That’s impossible.”
    “Her hair is different, and in one she’s wearing glasses, but the body is the same, the nose, the face, the...” He held his hands up to indicate breasts.
    Kristine frowned. He was right. Those were the same breasts and the same flat stomach and the same slim hips. Fabulous. Not only was a potentially crazy person popping up in all of Ian’s photo’s, she was hot. Those breasts were perky perfection.
    “You need to tell your boss,” he said. “And you should file a police report.”
    “Fine.” Let the breasted babe get busted. Even if Kristine lost her job, it might be worth it. No one should be allowed to deface art. Especially a beautiful woman whom Sean was scrutinizing way too closely. Though she supposed there was no reason to believe the woman and the vandal were one and the same. She sighed. “This is awful. This day is making my head hurt.”
    “I wonder what her endgame is?” Sean murmured, reaching out and touching the woman behind the glass. “Why is she taunting Ian?”
    Kristine didn’t give a damn. Appalled to realize she was jealous, she dialed the police on her phone and put it to her ear. After a few minutes of explaining the situation, she hung up. “They’re on their way. Fifteen minutes, since it’s not an emergency.”
    “I find this a very interesting crime.” Sean was doing something on his phone. “I want to do a little research and see what threats have been made against Bainbridge.”
    She understood he would be curious about the vandalism from a security standpoint, but at the moment, her panic lay purely with the fact that in its current state, the photography could not be seen by anyone.
    Fighting the urge to slide her hand casually into his pocket and snag the note, Kristine shook her head. “I need to deal with the damage before Friday. Do you think we can use something to get the paint off?” Before she called June.
    “Probably. Or you can have new glass cut for the frames. But you should wait for the cops to get here first.” He walked two photos down from where she stood. “By the way, maybe if your mother knows the cops are investigating vandalism, she will stay away from the party Friday.”
    Somehow she doubted that would stop Ebbe if she were on a mission. “One can only hope.” She picked at the spray paint with her fingernail. It didn’t rub off. She scratched harder. The entire photograph swayed on its hook and came perilously close to falling off the wall. “Damn.”
    “You probably shouldn’t touch that. The police will want to see it how we found it.” Sean reached up and, barely touching the corner of the frame, stopped the swaying.
    Seeing it hanging there, defaced, and hearing his logic, made Kristine’s blood pressure increase all over again. “That looks so awful. I’m going to have a heart attack. How do I get new glass cut in a day and a half?” Bile rose in her mouth and her palms still sweat. Waving her hand in front of her face, she bit her lip and assessed the damage. Scraping the paint off would scratch the glass, and she was a little reluctant to use a chemical solvent to remove it, though that was probably her better option. “I guess I need to head to the hardware store after the police leave.”
    “I think you should let the owner of the gallery deal with it, Kristine. I’m sure she’s the one who had them framed in the first place. I’m sure she’ll want to oversee redoing the