The video buffered, loading. Fifteen percent, forty-five percent, seventy percent, one hundred percent. Taylor’s heart was hammering in her chest. What the fuck was this?
The screen stayed black for a moment, then she saw…people. The video wasn’t clear by any means; it was dark and grainy, in black and white. But she could easily make out two people. A woman and a man. Naked. Obviously having sex. The man was on his back, the woman on top. The shot was from a slightly downward angle, about twenty degrees right of center. A thick fringe of blond hair hid the faces of both participants. They rocked together, fitting well, neither one frantic, a seductive dance as old as mankind itself. There was subtle shifting, the pace quickened. The woman arched, then stopped moving. The man’s arms slid around her body. Taylor saw what looked like a tattoo on the man’s right wrist. Her hand went to her forehead, then to her mouth. She knew that tattoo.
The woman moved slightly, shifting to the left. The man’s profile came into view. Taylor realized she was looking at her old partner and lover, David Martin. What in the…
“Oh, my God,” she whispered.
The woman who’d climbed off David Martin was Taylor.
Eighteen
Taylor fought back a wave of nausea. Her thoughts collided rapidly, a centrifuge of denial. There was no way the woman on the tape was her. But of course it was. As she looked closer, she recognized her sheets, her lamp and the windowsill. This was her bedroom in the cabin. And David Martin was alive. The video had to be at least two years old.
Oh, Jesus. She forced herself to watch it again, then again. All three times, the video ended with a clear shot of Taylor’s face and naked breasts as she passed the camera. Taylor knew the path she was taking, she was on her way to the bathroom. The first thing she’d done every time she finished having sex with David Martin was take a shower. Something deep inside her was never happy with their encounters, and she always wanted to wash him out of her as quickly as possible after their interludes.
She took a huge, gasping lungful of air, realizing she’d been holding her breath so long she was starting to see spots. Lincoln and Marcus had seen this. Her team had seen this. Dear God. Where had this tape come from? And how in the world did it get posted to the Internet?
She stood abruptly, knocking the laptop off her lap. It clattered onto the floor. She whirled around and went to the door. She opened it and gestured to Lincoln and Marcus, who were sitting, waiting. They came in the room silently, Lincoln shutting the door on them.
Taylor was trying to keep her cool.
“Sit down, both of you.” They sat.
“Where did you find this?”
Marcus raised his head. He looked utterly miserable. “I was looking for the man you had the run-in with last night. I’d been trolling most of the afternoon, plugging in various names, cross-referencing his with Tawny. There was a site that had a match, deep down into the Google file directory. I clicked on the link, tried everything, but I couldn’t get to it. So I called Lincoln. He guided me through. We saw rather quickly that it was a partnership site, one that the members have to join to access the videos.”
“It’s sophisticated as hell, Taylor. I had a bitch of a time hacking it. But I got in. And we pulled up the link that matched.” Lincoln looked at her. “You should sit down.”
“What?” she asked.
Lincoln swallowed and Marcus looked like he was about to burst into tears.
Taylor gritted her teeth. “What, God damn it?”
Lincoln looked her in the eye. “There are eight more videos like this one. All with you and David Martin. People pay to download them, one hundred dollars a pop. The site is called Selectnet.com.”
Taylor felt the world shift the tiniest bit on its axis. Her chest closed and she couldn’t breathe. She shut her eyes and willed her body back into action. She would be damned if she was going to faint in front of them. It took a moment, but the vertigo stopped, and she opened her eyes. They were both watching her carefully, as if readying themselves for a defense in case she whipped out her weapon and started firing at them. It was a thought. Jesus. She carefully laid both hands on the desk, well within their sight. They both relaxed fractionally.
“Who else knows?” Flat, girl. Stay emotionless. You are in control.
Lincoln looked at Marcus, then back at her. “Just us. We thought about disabling the videos, but then they’d know we were in their system. They might shut the whole thing down and disappear. There are…other items that we may need to look at in addition to yours. We figured it would be better to wait, show you, and create a plan of attack. We assumed that you didn’t know that you were being taped.” He said it in such a matter-of-fact manner that Taylor fought the urge to come around the desk and hug him. No matter what, they’d believed in her.
“No, I didn’t. I…” Oh shit. She heard the crack in her voice. Do. Not. Cry. You are not allowed to cry. Fury and frustration clogged her mind. She wanted to scream. She wanted to hit someone. She wanted David Martin to come back to life so she could strangle him. She cleared her throat, tried again.
“David Martin is the last person in the world that I would want to keep for posterity.” She tried to smile, knew her lips were crooked. Holy shit. What were they going to do? Something like this could ruin her. Think, girl. Her mind felt like sludge, all she could see was the image of her getting off the bed and David Martin’s smug, dead features as he watched her walk away.
“We’ve been running backtraces all afternoon. I think I found the name of the company that manages the site, though they are buried, and I mean deep. It’s a firm out in California.”
Her head was clearing a bit. “Okay. What was the connection to Tony Gorman?”
Marcus took over. “He’s a member of this online club. From what we can tell, the members pay a fee, go through a background check, and are then voted into the membership. Once they are in, they can upload, download, watch anything. There are five levels of membership, each with its corresponding site archives. The more money you put in, the deeper you can go. These videos were in the third level of membership. We looked at some of the others. The first two tiers are all homemade, poor quality kind of stuff. The third was better quality, but still not fantastic. We assume that the higher up the chain you go, the better the footage.”
“My God.” Taylor sat back in the chair. “Are all these videos labeled Taylor Jackson?”
“Well, there’s the good news. They don’t have your real name. They call you Tawny from Nashville. So that’s where Gorman saw you, no question about that.”
“Have you found the son of a bitch?”
Marcus finally smiled. “Yep.”
Taylor’s cell phone rang, making her jump. She glanced at the caller ID, saw it was Corinne Wolff’s therapist. She held up a wait a minute finger to Marcus and answered. A crisp British accent greeted her.
“This is Ellen Ricard. I understand you’re looking for information on Corinne Wolff.”
The no-nonsense greeting wrestled Taylor’s emotions back into place. “Yes, I am. Would you be willing to talk with me?”
“Yes. I can’t until day after tomorrow. I can see you in my office at eight o’clock Friday morning.”
Taylor glanced at her watch. “Are you sure we can’t do it tonight?”
“Yes, Lieutenant, I’m sure. I have a speaking engagement this evening, then a late flight out of town. I’ll return too late tomorrow evening to meet. I will see you Friday morning. You know where to find me, I presume?”
“I do. Thank you. I’ll try not to take too much of your time.”
“Until then, Lieutenant,” and she was gone.
Taylor hung up the phone. “Leads on the Wolff case. I need to bring you both up to speed.” She ran her palm against her forehead, making decisions. “Okay. First things first. Where is Tony Gorman?”
“Antioch. He lives on Blue Hole Road. We can go pick him up, if you’d like.”
“I think the sooner we ge
t tapped into this underworld, the better we’re going to be. I appreciate you guys trying to insulate me. I don’t know if that’s going to work for long. We have to find out how these tapes were made, who uploaded them, everything. I don’t know if we can keep it quiet, it’s going to take man hours. I will cover you as long as I can without Price catching on.” The nausea returned with a vengeance. “Has Fitz seen this?”
“No,” they both answered in unison.
“Thank God for that. I don’t know if I could ever look him in the eye again. You two are bad enough.” She stood and turned her back on them. How in the world was she going to work this?
“We didn’t watch them, Taylor. As soon as we realized it was you, we stopped, and started digging. I promise.” Lincoln was reaching for her now, his arms around her in a massive bear hug. The urge to weep was overwhelming, but she bit the emotions back again. Crying wasn’t going to accomplish anything. She hugged him back.
“Well, it wasn’t much of a show, if I remember correctly. You guys are wonderful.” She broke away from Lincoln and squeezed Marcus on the shoulder. “Go get that fat fuck and let’s have a little discussion with him.”
Nineteen
Taylor kept on her feet after the boys had left. She was overwhelmed with the urge to pace, then had to stop herself from calling Baldwin. Despite wanting the reassurance of his voice, that was a conversation she would rather not have. Hello dear, how was your day? By the way, there are some videos of me having sex with my old partner on the Internet. No, she didn’t think Baldwin would be too thrilled. She’d never gone into any detail about the David Martin shooting, much less disclosed that they’d slept together. Great. This was going to be a huge mess. Damn him! And wasn’t it just typical of David, fucking her from the grave. The bastard.
Think, she commanded herself. She cued up the video again. How had David done this?
David Martin had been an uncharacteristic series of mistakes. They worked together, that was mistake number one. He was a dirty cop and Taylor hadn’t known until she was deep into the affair. He oozed Southern charm, called her names that annoyed her like sugar britches and sassafras. He wasn’t formally educated, was ex-military like so many others on the force. He didn’t call his mother on Sundays, drank too much, and as she found out later, dabbled in recreational drugs. She wondered for the thousandth time why she’d ever slept with him in the first place. Even Sam had raised an eyebrow when Taylor admitted to the relationship.
It was destined for failure from moment one, and that, she decided, was why she’d entered into the affair. She didn’t want a husband. At the time, she just wanted to have some fun. David was attractive, there was no doubt about that. There was a base chemistry between them from the beginning. The affair had begun after an intense night where they’d been shot at, narrowly escaping being hit. The two of them had been holed up in an improvised bunker, completely pinned down in a weak defensive position behind a series of metal trashcans, taking fire from some stupid gang-banger they’d been pursuing. They’d barely made it out alive.
That first encounter was a pure adrenaline rush. The result of coming close to death, the urge to reach out and feel something, anything. Common enough among law enforcement.
Then David had seduced her. Cheesy attempts at romanticism—flowers, candy, dates at nice restaurants—the whole she-bang. And she’d let it happen because she was bored. When she realized he was starting to have feelings for her, she broke it off immediately. Soon after, she was promoted to Sergeant, then just as quickly, Lieutenant. David remained a detective. The resentment began there and continued to grow.
When Taylor uncovered David’s role in an operation that was highly illegal, found out he was working with a couple of vice detectives who were running methamphetamines through the city, she’d been ready to take him down. David knew it, came to her house and confronted her. Taylor had been forced to shoot him to save her own life.
Now he was finding yet another way to screw with her, this time in the most literal of senses. He’d been dead for more than a year. How had he managed to upload videos of them having sex to this Web site?
She hit play. This time, she turned up the sound fractionally. Nothing came through the speakers. Clicking the stop button, she thought for a moment. She needed to hear the tapes as well as see them. Offsite was the only safe way to do it, but she couldn’t leave at the moment. But she did have her iPod. She opened her top drawer, disconnected the earplugs from her Nano, and plugged them into the jack on the side of Lincoln’s laptop. Then she stood and did something she’d never done before. She locked the door to her office.
Relatively comfortable that she was safe, she returned to her chair, put the earbuds into place, and hit play.
An hour later, she was exhausted, embarrassed and furious. She’d watched all nine tapes of herself shagging David Martin. She was disgusted at the mere thought of other people watching these intimate moments. It was horrifying to contemplate. Why anyone would purposely allow themselves to be taped having sex was lost on her.
She closed the laptop. One thing she’d learned from the tapes, there were two cameras in the cabin. One was solely focused on her bed. The other pointed from her bedroom into the loft where she used to house the pool table. That camera hadn’t been used much, only to show them playing pool, then transitioning into the bedroom. By the angles, she could only assume that the cameras were hidden in the air vents.
That son of a bitch. She scoured her mind for a time when he would have had the opportunity to install the cameras. She never left him alone in her house, rarely let him stay over. Having sex with him was one thing, actually sleeping with him was another matter entirely.
As she fumed and seethed, racked her mind, Taylor never entertained the thought that David wasn’t solely responsible for the tapes. That was a grave mistake.
“I haven’t done a damn thing. I don’t know where you get off having me arrested. Stupid bitch!” Tony Gorman was locked in an interrogation room, spitting mad. He was alone, but yelling at the camera mounted on the wall. Taylor, Marcus and Lincoln were in the printer room, watching him on the monitor while the boys brought her up to speed. Gorman continued to scream, but Taylor simply clicked off the mike. Silence crowded into the small space.
“How do you want to handle it, LT? Want us to talk to him first? He’s been pretty feisty since we brought him in.” Lincoln was spoiling for a fight. The weeks working on the Terrence Norton case hadn’t entirely worn off. His normally urbane exterior had shifted, allowing the strong emotions he usually kept in check to surface.
“I want to talk to him alone.”
“Is that such a good idea, Taylor?” Marcus tapped the television screen. “You don’t know what he might do.”
Taylor stared at the stranger. “I want to talk to him alone.” The tone in her voice stopped them both. She felt them shift away from her, trying to respect her space. She turned and looked at them.
“Don’t take it like that. While I’m talking, I want you to listen. See what he isn’t telling me. Because a jerk like this isn’t going to start spewing gospel just because I ask him nicely. Can you do that for me?”
“Of course,” Marcus said. Lincoln nodded his acquiescence as well.
“Good. Let’s do this.” Taylor left them, went to the interrogation room. Shit, she needed to get this resolved, and fast. The media would catch wind of Todd Wolff’s arrest any time. The last thing she needed was this bozo taking her away from a murder investigation. But she had to know the truth.
When she opened the door, Gorman practically roared at her. “What took you so God damn long?”
Ignoring him, she got settled in the chair across from Gorman, the small desk separating them.
“I said, what took you so fucking long? And take these handcuffs off of me. I haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t know why I’m even here. I want my lawyer now!”
“Give me a break. Listen, pal. You’re here to answer some q
uestions for me. If you quit your blustering and shut up, you’ll be out of here in no time. Assuming you haven’t done anything illegal, that is.”
Gorman’s round face was leaking sweat. His close-set eyes flashed with disdain, and something darker. He had the common look of a bully—little eyes, pug nose, reddish skin and thin lips. Put him in a wife-beater and he’d look like every other piece of trailer trash, a baseball cap and he’d look like a million other ex-fraternity boys gone to seed. She often wondered about the genes that produced this same look over and over. If a defective chromosome could produce mongoloid features in children with Down’s Syndrome, perhaps that same kind of genetic anomaly could produce the generic bully facial features. Taylor could see the cruelty in his face. She watched him have an internal debate, then nodded when he settled for giving her a belligerent glare.
“Good. We can be friends now.” She lowered her voice, playing up the huskiness, and leaned forward in the chair. “Tell me, Mr. Gorman. Do you like watching strangers have sex?”
He didn’t answer, but his eyes gleamed. He licked his skimpy lips and Taylor felt the gorge rise in the back of her throat. Ugh. This guy was even less appealing than she’d first thought. No wonder he needed to watch.
“I’ll take that as a yes. I’d appreciate you giving me some information about this Internet club you belong to. Selectnet.com, I believe it’s called?”
Tony Gorman was an excellent liar. He was a champion liar. He looked Taylor straight in the eye and told her all about Selectnet.com. He never looked away, never flinched. The skin around his eyes didn’t tighten, he didn’t move his hands or shift his eyes. His body language alone could have won him an Oscar. He talked and talked. What he didn’t realize was the entire time he spoke, his pupils dilated and contracted as he thought up his falsehoods. All in all, she had to give him props. He was a very creative fake.
Taylor was better. She’d known men like this her whole life. Men who felt the woman’s place was in the kitchen, cooking gourmet meals, shaking up a martini and making sure their man was serviced properly.
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