by Joanne Rock
“An adult filmmaking outfit that packages their illegal webcam footage as reality porn. I heard an arrest was made out on Long Island last week after a girl was molested by a guy who contacted her on the Internet.”
Instantly alert, Donata was more than willing to put aside a good grudge against Beringer—temporarily at least—for the sake of her case. On a trip into Manhattan, Sara Chapman had indeed been molested by an older man she thought was a high school guy after a few online chats. Patrol officers had captured the perp without much trouble, but apparently further questioning revealed her molester had found her through her picture on a Web site advertising a reality porn DVD.
Her parents were devastated. Sara wasn’t talking.
“Are you working for the family of the girl?” She knew rich people sometimes hired outside P.I. help if they were concerned the police couldn’t get the job done.
“I’ve got a more personal interest. I’ve been following this case since you and I crossed paths four years ago.”
She waited for him to continue, but he just turned and snatched another doughnut instead, wolfing half of it down and showering the break room floor with powdered sugar.
“Obviously there’s more to this story if you’re still pursuing leads on a case this old. Why don’t I grab my partner and we can—”
“No.” Sean imprisoned her arm before she could turn away to find Mick. “Don’t you think we ought to work out the issues that are ours alone first before we go involving anyone else?”
His touch communicated to her more quickly than his words, the heat of his hand penetrating her jacket and warming her skin beneath. How long had it been since a man had touched her?
“Actually, no.” She pulled out of his grip and set her coffee aside to devote her full attention to the conversation. “Private discussions were how we ended up in trouble last time, remember?”
Her heart pounded strangely, making her hyperaware of her body and the heat simmering inside it.
“No problems with remembering here.” He held up his hands like a suspect trying to remind her he didn’t have a weapon.
Except that he did. Sean Beringer possessed a boatload of sexual attraction that Donata didn’t want any part of.
“Then why don’t you let me get Mick and we’ll make sure there are no more…incidents.”
It was tough to think with him standing so close to her and suddenly she wanted to flee as far and fast as she could. A stupid reaction since she was on a four-year quest to prove to herself she was a woman of strength and integrity. But nothing made her feel weak as quickly as attraction to a man.
“Did you really think I was sexually harassing you back then?” Sean’s forehead furrowed enough to let her know the idea bothered him.
“I—” She hesitated, not sure how to explain. “I thought you were hitting on me.”
Her pulse fluttered in her throat at the memory of being in an interrogation room with him. She’d been working as an informant for the FBI, a position that left her in uncomfortable limbo selling out the ex-boyfriend she’d grown to despise but still needed to stay with. She’d looked like a guilty mobster’s girlfriend to the outside world but inside she knew she was just a blind, stupid idiot who fell for a much older man with a worldly edge that appealed to dopey girls with no judgment.
“For the record, I would never hit on anyone in my custody when I was a cop, and I wouldn’t think of it now that I’m a P.I.” He backed away from her slowly, his dark eyes steady on her face. “I know I messed up your investigation with the arrest and I take full blame for not doing my homework where you were concerned. But I guarantee I’d never make a move on someone I arrested.”
Gulping down more coffee to clear her head of wayward thoughts, Donata wondered if Sean ever hit on lady cops he worked with. A wholly inappropriate notion. She seriously needed to think about finding a lover to take the sexual edge off for her before she combusted from four years’ worth of pent-up frustrations.
“Donata.” A male voice called to her from the door and she looked up to see Mick holding his car keys.
“You’re leaving?” She swallowed the urge to drag him into the break room by his collar. She needed the barrier of his presence to make sure her thoughts didn’t linger on Sean as that potential lover.
“The school called. Katie’s not in class today even though I dropped her off at school at seven-thirty.” His square jaw tightened. “She’s probably just playing hooky at a friend’s house, but she’s not answering her phone.”
“Do you need help?” Concern for Mick’s daughter had her halfway across the room.
“No. Just cover for me here.” He nodded tersely at Sean. A nod of recognition. “I’ll head out to Massapequa after I locate Katie and see what I can learn from the parents of the Chapman girl. I have the feeling the Long Island police will try to move jurisdiction there, but we’re fighting to keep this case since she was molested in our jurisdiction.”
Which meant she’d get stuck here with Sean. Alone.
“Call me when you find out anything.” She could manage without Mick, couldn’t she? She certainly owed him the time to take care of his family when he’d always been so good to her.
His support on the force had bought her far more credibility than her arrest record as a beat cop.
“Will do.” He was gone two seconds later, leaving her in a precinct crowded with officers who resented her presence on the force and a P.I. who had every reason in the world to want to see her fail.
Donata against the world.
Wouldn’t be the first time.
She spun on her heel to face Sean and caught him staring at her from his new perch on the break room table. Right beside the doughnuts. He’d obviously served his time on the police force given his love of the profession’s notorious indulgence.
“Alone at last.” He smiled crookedly at her as he tossed a balled-up napkin in the trash can and slid off the table to stand. “You think we can head somewhere more private now to clear up a few things? Seems like we both have reasons to want to keep this quiet.”
“We can leave the precinct, but I don’t have much time.” Life experience had taught her not to linger with men who made her uncomfortable and she had no intention of ignoring that hard-won wisdom now when Sean’s proximity made her skin heat and her throat go dry.
* * *
SEAN SENSED THE runaround when Donata tried to claim she suddenly needed to interview a witness on the NYU campus that afternoon. He tagged along for the ride, figuring she needed to settle down after the sudden way he’d reappeared.
But he drew the line at stepping into the role of her partner while she ran around New York pretending she didn’t feel the sizzle that had damn well always been there between them.
Harassment my ass.
Maybe ice queen Donata had no clue what attraction felt like so she’d rather label it unwanted attention and shove it away from her with both hands than own up to her feelings. Whatever her reasons, he wasn’t letting her stall tactics trip him up.
“I’m not going with you to interview any suspect that isn’t directly related to the filmmaker case.” He nodded toward a park bench in Washington Square, where students congregated between classes despite the recent bout of unseasonably cold October weather. “Have a seat and we can exchange information so I can let you go about your day in peace, okay?”
She hesitated when her cell phone rang and she took the call with brusque efficiency before hitting the off button.
“Sorry about that, but I’ve got a lot on my plate today.” She cinched the belt on her dark wool coat tighter. “Maybe we should reschedule this so we have more time?”
“So we have to wade through the awkwardness of seeing each other all over again?” He resisted the urge to pull her to the damn bench and sit her down because he remembered how much any extraneous touching set her off.
But damn. She was a tough case.
“You’re right,” she relented fi
nally, walking toward the vacant bench under her own steam, her soft breath making a visible puff in the cold air. “I’d appreciate any information you can give me on the illegal filmmaker. I look forward to sending that particular creep to prison for a very long time.”
“I don’t think the actual producer is illegal.” Sean didn’t have any intention of sharing everything with her since he had worked his tail off to hunt down the bastard for himself.
“Of course he’s illegal if he’s filming underage girls.” She filched two napkins from a coffee kiosk nearby and swiped them across the bench before taking a seat.
“What I mean to say is that he probably dabbles on both sides of the business—legitimate and illegal—so that he’s covering his butt with one for the other.” He couldn’t disguise the bitterness in his voice.
“You think he’s distributing porn through traditional film venues?” She kept her voice low in deference to the hundreds of people who passed through the square even though no one paid them any attention. They were more alone here among hundreds than they had been in a precinct break room.
“No. I think he distributes the illegal stuff mainly online, but he cloaks his operations behind the front of a legitimate filmmaker.” He knew all of it to be fact, actually, but he didn’t want to reveal how deeply he’d immersed himself in this investigation just yet. And for all his efforts, he still didn’t have a name to go with the profile.
“So how did you get involved with this shining example of humanity?” She tucked her hands into her coat pockets and stared out over the crowd gathering around two guys in red superhero capes who were playing guitars in exchange for donations.
“I left the force because my kid sister was molested by some guy she met on the Internet and the cops wouldn’t do jack shit to nail the bastard.” He dug a couple of bucks out of his wallet for the street musicians, appreciating the way the folk songs provided some mental distance from what he was saying.
Donata remained silent. Listening. Waiting.
“The guy who met her online found out who she was after a video of my sister had been distributed without her knowledge. When she was eighteen, she had a webcam set up to send video of herself to her boyfriend but apparently the dude forwarded pictures to some trash sites with her personal information attached. That’s how this other guy found her.”
“Is she okay now?” Donata’s hand landed gently on his arm, the unexpected touch more comfort than he would have expected from someone as seemingly reserved as her.
“She’s put it behind her pretty successfully. In fact she lives ten states away and it pisses her off that I’m still on a quest to bring down the whole operation since it brings back bad memories. But I can’t stand the idea of kids unknowingly exposing themselves to scumbags who will turn around and sell video snippets for a profit.”
“And you’ve been after this group for how long?”
“I’d just started the investigation when I arrested you, so I guess it’s been four years. But I’m on the verge of cracking the power behind the ring now…as long as the cops don’t elbow their way in and mess up the sting I’ve got in the works.”
Okay, that was a stretch. But he had names and addresses for hundreds of people who subscribed to the sites specializing in youthful exhibitionists, and that in itself made for powerful information.
“Basically, it’s fourth quarter and you’re asking me to take a knee while the clock runs out.” Her hand slid away from his arm and back into her pocket. The crowd around the guitar players burst into applause at the end of the song.
“Is that a problem when you’re already ahead in the game and victory is imminent?” He suspected from her suddenly rigid spine that she wasn’t liking the idea.
“You forget we’re playing for different teams. I don’t have the luxury of working for myself and making my own calls on handling cases. I’m responsible to my department. To taxpayers.”
Frustration pounded in his head as he began to see the many ways his operation could blow up in his face if the cops started crawling all over things.
“You don’t understand how close I am to smoking out these bastards.” No reasonable person would deny him this opportunity after all the years he’d put into cultivating inside contacts. “I’ve got a girl ready to sell out the filmmakers and put the last nail in the coffin for me.”
If she didn’t change her mind. Sometimes it was tough to tell with connections you’d made online.
“Sean, I appreciate that this case is personal for you, but you can’t ask me to just pretend it doesn’t exist when it comes under my jurisdiction. Half my precinct thinks I’m crooked anyway for reasons I’m sure you can appreciate.”
He knew it had to be tough to cross over into the police world after she’d seen prison bars—if only briefly—from the inside. Still, it said a lot for Donata’s character that she’d managed to wrangle her way into the NYPD at all.
Rising to his feet, Sean tossed the money in the open guitar box at the players’ feet and turned back to her.
“All the more reason to steer clear of this investigation, Donata. The brains and the wallet behind the operation might belong to someone you know well.” He dealt his best card to send her off the case for good. “My sources show your old pal Sergio Alteri is running his business as usual from a prison cell.”
CHAPTER 3
LATER THAT NIGHT, Donata didn’t remember the details of how she’d got through the rest of the day.
Hearing her former lover’s name cast into conversation like a gauntlet had scrambled her thoughts, feelings and kick-ass veneer until she’d had no choice but to make lame excuses to get away from Sean long enough to regroup. Reassess. And find out for herself how the hell her old boyfriend—the man who’d been the center of her world when she was a teenager, the man who saved her from an emotional breakdown when her father died—could have possibly orchestrated crimes from behind bars.
At home in her apartment on the Upper East Side, Donata stroked her tabby cat’s head and clicked through her personal files on Sergio. Her first instinct had been to ignore Sean’s suggestion that her ex could continue to exert power from a federal prison. But how naive would that be, especially when she’d seen organized crime up close and personal during her years with Alteri?
The buzzing of her apartment’s intercom system had her cat jumping off her lap a moment later and Donata rose to see who would be downstairs at 8:00 p.m. Neighbors knew better than to buzz her when they locked themselves out since she was super cautious about security.
“Yes?” Her building was an old brownstone between York and East End Avenue. Normally she appreciated the privacy of her homey little building with no doorman, but on nights like this when she was already jumpy she wondered if she’d be better off somewhere else.
Somewhere that Sergio would never find her if he decided to take revenge for all she’d done.
“Donata, it’s me. Sean.”
Relief washed over her for a moment before her heart stuttered and she found herself smoothing her fingers over her clothes, flattening wrinkles and assessing her appeal at this hour when her work clothes were in the hamper. Not that her appearance should matter, damn it.
But the idea of having him here, at her apartment, unsettled her. She liked to face professional acquaintances when properly armed in her I-mean-business suits, whereas at home she liked to remind herself of the femininity she stomped down all day.
“Can we talk about your investigation tomorrow?” Not having the man-woman skills needed to dance around this kind of sexual tension, Donata figured avoidance would be a good policy until she had Mick around as a buffer.
She’d used up all her steely reserve at work today. At home she took comfort in falling into more relaxed—less contentious—surroundings. She found herself wishing she had her cat to snuggle, but Duchess was hiding under a chair.
“No. You told me earlier today that we could talk later, remember?” Impatience laced his
voice. “Would you just open the door so I can at least come inside? It’s freezing out here.”
Seeing no graceful way around it, she hit the button to admit him downstairs and prayed hard for a clear mind to at least muddle her way through a conversation. Mick had called her earlier, sounding as weary as she felt, to let her know his daughter had been at a friend’s house but that he had some issues he needed to square away with Katie and was taking a personal day tomorrow. Not a problem for Donata, but it left her to contend with Sean—and the pressure to drop the case—on her own.
Something she damn well refused to be afraid of.
Still, it rattled her to realize she was raking her fingers through her hair while she waited for him to arrive at her third-floor apartment. In defiance of her stupid female primping, she purposely scrubbed her locks into disarray again. What did she care what she looked like to talk to a pit bull P.I.?
By the time the knock arrived on her door and she peered through the peephole, Donata’s nerves were already stretched taut. Yanking open the door, she couldn’t help but resent that he’d blasted right through the boundaries she worked hard to keep in place at the police station.
“I’m off duty, Beringer.” She heard the bitchy tone in her voice but was powerless to call back the words.
“Didn’t anyone warn you there’s no such thing as off duty when you’re a New York cop?” He seemed oblivious to her bad mood or else he was very good at ignoring people’s boundaries. “And call me Sean. I think we’ve been through enough together to warrant a first-name basis, don’t you?”
Ignoring the reminder of a most unpleasant evening spent in jail, she took a deep breath while she closed the door and bolted the lock, hoping to steady herself and instead inhaling the vaguest hint of aftershave.
She’d forgotten what it was like to be inside a man’s personal space. She’d hardened her heart to Sergio long before she’d sold him out. Her need to punish him for breaking the law and his promise of faithfulness to her had helped her ignore the old tug of attraction she’d once felt. But she hadn’t learned how to defuse the heat between her and the man now in her apartment. It would singe her if she wasn’t careful.
