Lincoln walked around the desk and put his hand on Taylor’s shoulder. “This is my personal laptop from home. Hit play. Don’t turn the sound up. When you’re done, we’ll be here.” He stepped out of the office, pulled the door closed behind him.
Taylor stared after him for a brief moment, then sank into her chair. She pulled the laptop onto her lap. The screen was frozen on a black background. A large white box was centered on the screen with a smaller black arrow indicating “play.” She clicked on the arrow.
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
T aylor 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.
