* * *
Ky watched her pace the length of the room from the video camera mounted on the wall in the corner. “What do we know about her?”
“Aside from the obvious?” Jon’s grin was quick. “She’s awfully easy on the eyes.”
“Aside from the obvious,” Ky said, his own gaze never leaving the monitor.
“Twenty-eight, single, lives alone. Her professional rep is pretty impressive.”
“How so?”
“Ever heard of chef Kandy Laine?”
His eyes widened. “My mom and YiaYia love her. They have all her books, used to watch her show every time it was on. Laine? Any relation?”
“Sister. One of seven. Owns her own photography business called GAL Photos. Pretty famous in her own right. Last month alone she shot three magazine covers. She’s what’s called in the entertainment biz ‘the go-to’ when you need a great headshot.”
“So why was she in midtown today when our witness bought it?”
“Seems she’s doing a coffee-table book of faces. Today she was walking around, looking for interesting ones, spotted Calafano and thought he’d make a good subject. She started snapping away and then the proverbial shit hit the fan.”
Ky nodded.
“Here.” Jon handed him a copy of her typed statement. “Read it for yourself.”
Ky took it and within a few minutes had it committed to memory.
“You don’t think there’s anything more to this, do you?” Jon asked. “I mean, she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, right?”
“Appears that way,” Ky answered. “I have a few more questions before we let her go, though.”
“She’s still asking about the SD card. Wants it back, undamaged and unaltered. Now.”
“She’ll get it back when we’re done with it,” Ky said, buttoning his jacket.
When he entered the conference room a moment later, he thought he was prepared for the jolt seeing her in the flesh would cause again. He was wrong. The second he opened the door and saw her eyes tracking him like those of a caged animals, he realized just how wrong. A subtle, unmistakable, pang of unease sliced right into his midsection, cutting off all circulation except to his groin. With a mental and physical shake, he approached her.
Anger percolated through her from across the room.
“Miss Laine—”
“Why am I still here? I gave my statement. I want my memory card and I want to go home. I have a ton of work to do.”
Ky reached down deep to curb his temper. “I need to clarify a few things first.”
“What things?” She leaned back against the wall, leveling him with a hard stare. “I told your partner everything I remember. In vivid detail.”
“Yes, I read your statement. Please.” He motioned to a chair. “Have a seat.”
“I’d rather stand.”
He couldn’t tell if she was being purposefully obnoxious when her chin tilted up defiantly at him or if it was a character trait. Regardless, he pulled the facing chair from the table and sat.
“You mentioned in your statement you were out walking when you noticed the shooting.”
“No, that’s not correct.” She must have forgotten her reason for standing because she moved back to the chair and settled into it. “I said I was out working and noticed the trio of men coming out of the restaurant.”
Ky knew that. He wanted to see if she’d change any of the details with time.
“The older man had an attention-grabbing face,” she continued, resting her arms on the table. “I’m on the lookout for interesting faces.”
“So you notice him, see his face and decide, what? To take his picture? Just like that?”
She nodded. “It’s what I do. I’m working on a book called Faces of New York.”
“What was so fascinating about his?”
“It wasn’t so much his face as the expression on it,” she said. “He’d just come out of Sam’s. I figured he’d eaten lunch because he was patting his stomach and had a contented, gratified smile on his lips. So I took his picture. A series of them, in fact, as he continued walking.”
“Why did you continue snapping away? You had your shot. Why take more?”
Gemma blew out a breath and leaned back in the chair, arms crossed over her chest again. “Do you know anything about photography?”
“No, not really.”
She sliced a finger through the side of her hair and tucked the strands behind her ears. It refused to settle and fell back across her cheeks the moment she removed her hand.
“There’s more to getting the shot you want than merely pressing a button. You have to consider the lighting, the motion, or absence of it. A million different things go into capturing the perfect image. A person’s face changes in a millisecond. You can go from an expression of rapture, to the simple turning up of the lips in the time it takes for a heart to beat just once. I wanted to make sure I got the look I wanted to convey. Taking several shots in a continuum ensures I will.”
Ky nodded. “So the only thing you knew about the older man was you liked the expression on his face?”
“Yes.”
“You had no idea who he was?”
“No. I still don’t. All I know is he and two other men were gunned down on a New York City street. And because of some quirk of nature, I was there when it happened.”
Ky waited a beat. “What made you continue taking pictures after the shooting started? Most people ran for cover, got out of harm’s way. You stayed where you were and continued to photograph what was happening. I have to ask myself why?”
Gemma’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“You’re not a news reporter or photojournalist. You don’t work for any national news publications. You own your own business, work for yourself. What were you hoping to gain from continuing to shoot?”
Gemma shot up, the chair falling to the floor behind her with a resounding thwack. “Your implication is insulting. You think I continued filming for some dark ulterior motive, don’t you? Like I wanted to sell the pictures, or in some way benefit from them. That’s not only insulting, it’s disgusting.”
“I don’t think I said anything along those lines.”
“Your veiled wording implies otherwise. For your bigoted information, my brother-in-law is in private security. I’ve assisted him a few times with surveillance photography, even helped his partner in various filming techniques when he’s gone undercover. I’m not a paparazzo looking for my next big photographic score. Agent—,” she flipped her hand in the air in lieu of addressing him by name, “I’m a professional photographer, and I reacted as one today. I kept filming because I could. I didn’t think I was in any danger. The van was speeding away from me, not toward me.”
Ky looked across the table at her, weighing her words. “For the record, again, it’s Pappandreos, and I never assumed you were anything other than what you’ve stated, Miss Laine. I simply need to make sure you had no prior knowledge of the men who were gunned down today.”
“I don’t know them from Adam.” Her voice dropped a notch as her gaze bore into his.
Ky wanted to believe her, but a cautious