Don't Look Back

4

“WAS THERE A LETTER with it?” Using the corner of his T-shirt to prevent any extra fingerprints, Sean picked up the box the envelope had arrived in without looking at photos that obviously embarrassed her. “The package couldn’t have gone through FedEx with no labels. Somebody must have dropped it in front of your neighbor’s place.”

“I didn’t see a note.” Donata shook her head, her pale skin even whiter than usual as she stared at the envelope full of photos. “I didn’t even look at all the pictures.”

And who could blame her? She had to have busted her tail to climb the ranks of the police force the way she did, even with key recommendations from two FBI agents she’d worked with to get the dirt on her old boyfriend. No wonder she wasn’t in any hurry to look through a package of photos that could destroy her career or—at very least—shred her credibility.

“I’ll look through them if you want me to, Donata. But if you’d rather keep them private, I’m going to ask you to scan through everything before we decide what to do next.” He knew he wasn’t the cop here, but she didn’t look ready to take on the lead investigator role right now.

This had to suck big-time for her.

What the hell kind of partner did she have to leave her hanging on a huge case like this? He knew of Mick Juarez’s reputation on the police force, but the guy sure didn’t seem to be living up to it today. But Sean prayed she didn’t want him to take a peek because he didn’t know how well he’d handle seeing naked pictures of this woman. And she definitely didn’t need a P.I. with a hard-on trying to straighten out this mess.

She nodded. Blinked.

“I’ll do it.” With shaking fingers, she reached into the envelope and withdrew the stack of photos, keeping the backs of the prints to him. About ten in all. “I don’t see any—Wait.”

Sean set the box by the front door as a reminder to her to bring it into the lab guys tomorrow so she could have it run for prints. The incident might not have anything to do with her investigation, but she’d want to follow up on it anyhow.

“You got something?”

“Yeah. It says, ‘I have a few photos that will make nice wall art for the 10th precinct. Leave the filmmaker case alone and I’ll keep the pictures our secret.’ There’s no signature.”

The note made him wonder how explicit the photos might be but he didn’t think he could handle that discussion right now with his thoughts running wild. His imagination was too damn vivid when it came to supplying possibilities.

“Your friends at the FBI would be interested in this. Even without being processed through FedEx, using their packaging might make a case that this was a federal crime.” The selfish half of him didn’t want the feds swarming around any more than he wanted city cops treading over his terrain.

But if Sergio had his people coming after Donata personally, Sean could see the benefit to creating a world of trouble for the prick.

“No.” She slid the stack of photos into the envelope and laid the pack on her coffee table. “This is my case and I’m not handing it over to you, or the FBI or anyone else.”

Resolve glittered in her blue eyes.

“I know this is a low blow—”

“It’s more than that.” She paced around the living room and pulled open the front of a wooden cabinet that turned into a minibar, her hand shaking ever so slightly. “This is his way of trying to tear down everything I’ve worked for. My self-respect. My standing in the workplace. My first real career.”

Sean had an inkling how hard it must have been for her to come up through the ranks to get where she was today. Beyond the obvious physical challenges for a woman who was all of five foot four, Donata had to pass the interviews, the character background check that would have grilled her on her relationship with a criminal, and then there would have been the high chance of prejudice within the department. No matter how good her intentions as an informant, her fellow cops couldn’t have appreciated her time spent living with a well-known gangster.

And naked pictures of her on the loose would cause more of an uproar given her history. Not to mention the problems it would cause for her in getting her job done. Her colleagues might have trouble taking her seriously and damn it but he didn’t want anyone else seeing her naked.

“Let me handle this and we can keep it out of the police department. If I need backup, or I think you could be in physical danger, I can call in the FBI instead of the NYPD.” He’d been working on this case for so long he’d accumulated thousands of names of subscribers to the illicit reality porn services. As soon as he had enough proof to arrest a few of the key figures, he’d take down supporters of the industry all over the country. Restricting NYPD’s access to anything that touched the investigation was a win for him and a win for Donata’s career.

She set a bottle of Amaretto on the bar with excessive force, inciting a clink of every glass hanging upside down over the minibar.

“Damn it, Sean, will you wake up and see that this isn’t about what you want anymore?” She hadn’t even poured her drink when she snapped the cabinet closed again and walked. “I understand that you’re pissed off on your sister’s behalf and I don’t blame you. But there are more girls than her getting hurt every day that you wait to break this case.”

“Jesus, Donata. It’s never been about me.” How could she think that when he’d thrown his whole life into turmoil by quitting the force so he could investigate this ring the way he wanted and not the slow way some giant bureaucratic agency wanted it handled? His choices had cost him plenty.

“Come on, Sean. You think I don’t know why you’ve been waiting to blow the whistle on this operation?” She shook her head as she picked up a book of matches and lit a fat candle with four separate wicks. “I know enough about being an outsider to recognize someone else’s need for vindication. But this can’t be the story of ex-cop vigilantism that you want it to be. Too many people are getting hurt along the way.”

“You couldn’t be more wrong.” At least, he wanted her to be wrong because he sure as hell didn’t like the picture of him she painted. “I’m just trying to make sure there’s enough evidence to put this crew away for a long time. You know as well as I do, they’ll be back on the streets abusing kids in no time otherwise.”

“Fine. We’ll make sure we’ve got evidence. I’ll go through the files tomorrow and I’d appreciate it if you’d share what you know so we can move forward. But I can guarantee you, I’m not walking away from this.”

For the first time since he’d become reacquainted with Donata Casale, Sean realized he couldn’t ask her to turn her back on the case.

A fact which left him working with a fiery dynamo of a woman to close an investigation that had become a huge powder keg.

There wasn’t a chance in hell they’d come through this unscathed.

“NO FINGERPRINTS on the box,” Mick reported after hanging up the phone with the lab two days later. “And since Sergio Alteri is in jail, he has an iron-tight alibi on this one. Any ideas where to go now?”

Donata spun in her desk chair, unable to think clearly about the case with Sean an ever-present fixture in her brain. Desks and detectives blurred as she twirled back and forth, searching for ideas and wondering if she’d ever make peace with her past.

She’d confided in Mick about the pictures since she trusted him to be discreet. He hadn’t asked to see the photos, nor had he tried to strong-arm her into entering the pictures for evidence, for which she’d be eternally grateful. Mick was a good friend and damned attractive too. But the chemistry just wasn’t there—not the way it had always been present for her whenever Sean walked in a room.

“The prison log shows a lot of letters going in and out of Ray Brook Correctional Facility, but no visitors for Alteri.” That made the investigation tougher, but the news had pleased Donata on a personal level since she liked to think that his so-called friends had all forsaken him. Even his mistress—the obnoxious Rosie Gillespie—hadn’t bothered to keep in touch.

“We’d better get a list of his correspondents. In the meantime, I’m meeting with Sean today to go over his evidence again since he’s been working on connected cases for a while.” She felt self-conscious bringing Sean up and couldn’t say why, except that she’d been thinking about him far too often. He’d surprised her with his thoughtful handling of the picture episode the other night. “We didn’t come up with any great ideas the first time, but I was still reeling from the appearance of the photos. I think today we’re going to visit some of the more prominent webcam streams and see what happens when we subscribe to the services advertised online.”

And wouldn’t that be interesting to spend time in close quarters with a man who occupied a few too many of her fantasies the past few days?

“You’re traveling risky terrain.” Mick didn’t approve of methods that involved her in anything illegal.

Three days ago she would have nixed the tactic, too. But that was before the stakes had been upped. Clearly, whoever had been planting webcams in teenagers’ bedrooms was starting to sweat the possibility of getting caught.

“I’ll be careful.” She wouldn’t jeopardize her career—or her shot at destroying an illegal business making a bundle off insecure girls.

“What if it’s not Sergio behind it all, Donata?” Mick stirred his coffee slowly, the inevitable clank of his spoon a rhythmic ringing that seemed to echo his subtle warning.

“We’ll get this guy either way.”

“Just don’t let your anger at him cloud your judgment.”

Good advice. Except that she wondered if he thought her judgment might be off when it came to the case—or when it came to men in her life.

SEAN RAN HIS P.I. business out of a squat building in SoHo. He owned a storefront on the street and lived in the loft a few stories above it. The loft was Donata’s destination now that it was after business hours even though they would be technically talking business.

She traced the neatly etched lettering on the glass door at street level that read Beringer Investigations. Sean’s neighborhood had a warmer feel than her more sterile residential street full of working couples and upwardly mobile singles who left the neighborhood vacant during the day. Here, a nearby coffee shop kept a busy flow of foot traffic and the funky old architecture of the building across the street had attracted a photo shoot with two stylists scampering in and out of a fashion scene featuring an elegant-looking man and woman wearing long spring jackets while they battled playfully with closed umbrellas as if they were swords.

What was the world coming to when the only people having fun had been paid for their elaborately staged efforts?

Turning the doorknob, Donata tried to remember the last time she’d felt as light-hearted as the people in the photo shoot pretended to be. Unfortunately, her most fun memories had all been tainted with the later realization that her partner in fun had been a liar and a cheat, and now possibly a perv to boot.

Inside the building, a second door labeled Beringer Investigations was closed while an old elevator sat side by side with a staircase. Donata started up the stairs as Sean’s directions had suggested, and after a single flight she heard a door open above her then a familiar voice shouted down.

“You won’t believe this.”

She looked up to see Sean hanging over the rail two floors above. The central staircase wound around a corridor open throughout all the floors. Apparently he owned this side of the building, while a landlord rented apartments to a handful of tenants on the other side of the building that opened onto the next street.

She’d half hoped she’d imagined the sizzle factor between them, but it was back again in full force judging by the pleasant buzz of attraction humming through her veins just looking at him. So frigging inappropriate. But she liked the way he treated her with a certain amount of respect. Sean’s attraction communicated itself through subtleties rather than a gaze fastened to her cleavage like some guys.

Too bad she’d screwed up so badly with him four years ago when he’d taken her in for questioning. No way would this guy ever act on the heat between them now. Not that she necessarily wanted him to. But she still regretted the misunderstandings of their past.

“What won’t I believe? Did the bad guys confess?” She picked up her pace, her aerobic conditioning one of the sweetest side benefits of her job. She could bang out flights of stairs as easily as most people strolled through a park.

“No.” He dangled some black cords over the stairwell. “After I set up that fake ID online I’ve got pervs from all over the country mailing me electronic equipment to help me set up a Web site with high-quality imagery.”

She closed the distance between them, winding her way around the highest landing to see the gadgets he’d been showing her—and swallowing back some major drool over the man. A webcam was the only item she recognized in a small pile of technological-looking loot.

“How can anyone send you equipment without knowing your real name?” Her years as a patrol officer had given her face-to-face experience with more overt crime—rape and domestic abuse. Drug sales gone bad and drive-by shootings. The Internet criminal was new to her, although she’d read case files on a few online money-making rackets. Normally, the NYPD handed over those investigations to specialized departments.

“Some guy who’s buying into the fact that I’m a teenaged girl showed me how to set up a wish list through an online superstore. Anyone who knows my wish list name can send a present through the site while my personal information remains anonymous.”

“And you wished for a webcam?” She didn’t want to break department protocol to make this bust, and she wondered how this tactic would go over in court.

“Of course not. I just went along with it to let the guy think I was a teenage girl. I put some bubblegum pop CDs on there and other stuff then forgot about it until a box showed up with all kinds of equipment that would allow me to set up a video feed so I can show myself to admiring fans.”

“I think the jig is up because you’ll never pass for a girl.” She had to laugh at the image because if she thought for too long about the young women who got sucked into that kind of life in a bid for friendship or acceptance—or even money—Donata wouldn’t be able to do her job.

“So we’ll play shy and see how much effort these guys go to in order to push their victims into the spotlight. I’m starting to think there are a hell of a lot more people at work on these kinds of schemes than just the filmmaker who packages the video snippets for sale.” He shoved the equipment into a shipping box and Donata saw that the pieces were labeled as a four-port hub that advertised it could be used for multiple cameras. Another box contained a memory upgrade.

Her insides felt hollow to glimpse this new world of potential violation for mixed-up teenagers. She knew how it felt to have compromising photos follow you through life. These kids wouldn’t just have a few pictures to worry about. They’d have hours of video footage readily available online. How badly would that suck?

She followed Sean into his apartment. The expansive space was circled with windows on two sides thanks to its corner position. The real estate had to cost a small fortune.

“The P.I. business is paying you well.” She wandered over to the closer wall of windows and looked down at the street. She’d waited until after her regular shift to work with Sean, so by now the commuter traffic was kicking into high gear. Cars had their lights on because, even though the sun hadn’t set yet, twilight would be stealing through the sky soon. By the time the bridge and tunnel crowd arrived home, it would be fully dark.

“Not really.”

“I’m sorry. That was a tacky observation by me, anyway.” She rolled her eyes, wondering if she’d ever shed the lower-class sensibilities that had come with her upbringing. Sergio had always been too easily impressed by money, a quality she definitely didn’t want to share.

She liked seeing this side of Sean. The private side. His home was tasteful but comfortable and it smelled vaguely of him. Was it possible to be turned on by an apartment? Her mood lightened a bit at the thought.

“Not at all. I’m sure the investigators who work for big-time divorce attorneys with wealthy clients probably make a bundle, but that’s not really my style.” Sean set the box on a massive cherry desk that sat in one corner of the loft that looked like a home office. “I inherited this half of the building from an aunt. My sister used to live on the next floor down before she moved out west.”

“It seems like a great neighborhood.” She wondered how he got along with his sister and if she’d moved away to escape some of his staunch protection. But Donata didn’t want to pry. Removing her coat, she stared at the computer screen where Sean seemed to be in the middle of a chat room discussion.

“It’s usually fairly quiet around here.” He took her coat and pulled out the sole desk chair for her. “Have a seat and you can see what I’ve been looking over this afternoon. Did Mick tell you he checked his daughter’s computer history recently and he found a bunch of visits to a teen Web portal that’s well known for attracting pedophiles in addition to the regular clientele?”

She took a seat beside him, heart jumping just a bit. She found herself enjoying the reality of being attracted to a man who wouldn’t manhandle her, a man who’d made it a personal crusade to save unsuspecting women from the heartaches that awaited them in the form of online predators. Women could dish about men’s butts or abs all day long, but at the end of the day, that dedication to a worthy cause seemed way more attractive than nice pecs.

Although, wouldn’t you know, Sean happened to have both.

“When did you talk to Mick?” Call her paranoid, but something struck her as strange about a P.I. and a cop who’d been marginally suspicious of one another suddenly developing enough rapport to discuss an ongoing case.

Without her. And yes, she’d be the first to admit she carried a chip on her shoulder when it came to precinct politics.

“I called the station a few minutes before you arrived to see if you’d left yet. When Mick picked up your extension, he mentioned the concerns for Katie, who’s been lying to both parents about her whereabouts lately.”

Donata clicked through some of the windows Sean pointed out while they spoke, including the Web community Mick’s daughter had been visiting. Some of the teens’ sites were innocuous enough and others had a decidedly sexual tone although none of them came close to the content on the subscription sites Sean had bought into for the sake of the investigation.

They worked side by side for the first hour or so, with Sean bringing Donata up to speed on the investigation he’d been picking away at for years. His sister’s molester had been locked up long ago, but that hadn’t been justice enough for him and frankly, Donata could understand why. The bastard who’d hurt his sister had found her through the massive network of sex criminals linked by seemingly endless online communities. And Sean wanted to bring down as many of those communities as possible. The ones who trafficked in webcam porn or more innocent webcam footage turned into porn by spurned lovers or boyfriends as an act of revenge were the highest on his list.

Donata’s eyes were starting to cross two hours later when she hit a site that advertised innocent girls showing off on their teen webcams. Most of the footage looked harmless enough—girls having pillow fights at sleepovers with an occasional hint of undies and other video clips that were probably posted by the unsuspecting girls themselves. She was about to leave the site when a name on the index caught her eye.

Donata.

Curious, she moved the mouse over the name. It wasn’t that common, but she’d certainly come across it a few other times. Still, when you had a more unusual name, you felt a little sense of kinship with anyone who shared it. Or maybe that was just her. Her life wasn’t exactly overflowing with friendships and supportive connections so maybe she tended to seek out whatever ties she could in a hostile world.

Sean’s computer was fast, but the graphic images still moved slower than other pages and it took a moment for the photo to load. As soon as the top band filled the width of the screen, however, Donata knew she wasn’t going to find any kinship here. She recognized the backdrop for the picture before the rest of the image came over the screen.

Sean had disappeared into the kitchen to grab them each a beer, but he returned now to settle their drinks on the folded sports section of the Times.

“I don’t know why the bastard thought he could blackmail me into staying off the case when he’d already turned my photos into public property.” She couldn’t look away from the ancient picture of herself, the one she’d let her ex-lover take in a moment of trust. It would have been like looking away from an oncoming train wreck.

What did it matter if Sean saw the photo now that people all across the country had the option to copy and save it to their hard drives? Clearly, she wasn’t going to be able to keep all her dirty little secrets as private as she would have liked. Her few moments of reckless stupidity had been captured in full color to haunt her for the rest of her days.

And the tug of her attraction to Sean—something normal and healthy, even if she never acted on it—would be tainted by the ugliness of her old life.