“Aiden was looking to hurt me. He went after Taylor, and the Pretender seems to have a sense of chivalry,” Baldwin said.
Price listened, then got up. “That’s it. There’s entirely too much bullshit flying around. I’m having a private security detail put on you, Taylor.”
“I’ve already done that,” Baldwin said. “I’ve had them on Taylor since yesterday. We’ll just keep up with the watchers, let them know what we know about the Pretender. They’re a good team, I trust them.”
So he wasn’t calling off the dogs while they were at the Parthenon, he was adding more.
“And how long are we planning to keep this up?” Taylor was shaking her head. “No. I don’t want them.”
“You’re going to have to live with it, sugar.” Baldwin’s stance told her arguing was fruitless.
“I agree. We can’t afford anything happening to you, LT. Lincoln and I will start looking for more clues with the Pretender case. We’ll find the bastard. In the meantime, we need to keep you off his radar,” Marcus said.
“I can take care of myself,” she grumbled, but when faced with four glowering men, all intent on keeping her out of harm’s way, she decided discretion was the better part of valor and acquiesced. For the time being.
“Can we at least get back to work?”
Price patted her on the head and she narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ve got a meeting. Fill her in. You should be proud of your boys. And be careful, wildcat.”
“Yes, Dad,” she said.
“I’m going to join the captain for a moment. Be right back.” Baldwin left the room with Price, their conversation quickly moving out of earshot.
Taylor rolled her eyes, then turned to Marcus and Lincoln. “Good grief. This has been a day. Let me have it. What’s the news on the Wolff case?”
Lincoln waved his hand to Marcus. “You go,” he said.
“Okay. To start with, we checked on the underage actresses. They’ve both split town, ostensibly for California. They had auditions today at Vivid Video, and we’ve got a call in to their ‘agent’ to get them to call us immediately when they get finished.”
“You mean when they come up for air?” Taylor said, making all of them laugh.
“Yeah. Then. So in the meantime, we’ve been looking at Todd Wolff’s files. We’ve confirmed he wasn’t in Savannah when he said he was. He used his gas card to fill up the day before the murder, Sunday, in Crossville. So Wolff was definitely in the state of Tennessee at least one day after the murder.”
“Doesn’t prove he did it.”
“No, but it does verify that he’s lied about several things. They’re arraigning him this afternoon, so we should get an opportunity to question him again late this evening. Julia Page and Miles Rose have already been informed that we want to have a chat.”
“If he was in Crossville Sunday, where was he Saturday?”
“That’s the question. We don’t know. He wasn’t in Savannah. His receptionist caved pretty quick when she realized we knew he was lying. She said he hadn’t been to the job site in over a week. The maestro here-” he gestured to Lincoln “-has been working his mojo on their computers. Corinne Wolff was a very bad girl.”
“Really?”
Lincoln handed her a sheaf of papers. “She was definitely getting some nookie on the side. Here’s her little love notes, courtesy of her private e-mail. They are all from a separate address, a different provider, and password protected. The whole nine yards. We assume she didn’t share it with Todd, they have another couple of addresses that are obviously for his work, her friends, and another that’s solely smut related. This one was tucked away in a hidden folder.”
She knew it. Taylor glanced through the first few sheets. The usual online lovey-dovey stuff, typical of any relationship. “I don’t see a name. You’re sure this wasn’t between her and Todd?”
“Positive. I traced the IP address. It’s registered to a completely different person. The same person, by the way, that owns the IP address for Selectnet. com.” His smile was nonchalant, but his eyes burned with the knowledge that he’d done something remarkable.
Taylor nearly fell out of her chair. “What? What do you mean? The California company that’s putting up the sex videos? My sex videos? Corinne’s involved in that?”
“They both are, though in completely different ways. Todd Wolff seems to be the purveyor of both fine art and the lowbrow stuff. He’s working for the Selectnet company, providing them with high-quality film. That’s his big sideline money-maker, the porno flicks he’s making in his basement. But we’ve gone through his finances with a fine-toothed comb, and we found some interesting purchases. Specifically, he bought forty of the cameras we found in the vents of your cabin.”
It took Taylor a moment to wrap her head around that little tidbit. “Todd Wolff was responsible for putting the cameras in my house? How in the world is that possible?”
“Not just your cabin. Here’s our theory. We’ve tracked down more of the uploaded videos to the Selectnet site. A huge number come from Nashville. Todd’s the head of Wolff Construction. It’s as easy as pie-when he builds a house, he places the cameras. The owners have no idea they’re there, and he gets to parlay all that unedited film into home movies on the Web site.”
Taylor gave a long, low whistle. “Do you realize how many houses he’s built? There could be cameras in all of them.”
“Well, forty of them that we suspect, at least.”
“But he didn’t build my cabin. How did that happen? How would Wolff have gotten into my house?”
“Here’s the genius part. Before he started Wolff Construction as a home builder, he was a renovator. He did contract jobs for insurance money. Say, for example, a person has a leak in their shower, has to file a claim on their home-owner’s insurance to get it fixed. The insurance company contracts with certain construction firms to do the work. We checked, and Wolff Construction was one of those companies. It’s how he made enough money, on the books at least, to graduate to the home building company. And the camera purchase is recent, only last year. He could have bought many, many more and we just haven’t found the records yet.”
Taylor let the thought gel. When had she had work done on the cabin? She didn’t remember…oh, yes, she did. She’d done a minor kitchen remodel a year after she moved in. But that wasn’t an insurance claim, and she didn’t remember working with Wolff Construction. She racked her brain trying to remember the name of the company she’d used, but it wouldn’t come. She told Lincoln that.
“I already thought of that,” he said. “Even before he started the work with the insurance companies, he worked for his dad. His dad owned several firms, one of which was-”
“Remedy. Remedy Remodelers. Son of a bitch.”
“Exactamundo.”
“Wow. Lincoln, this is fantastic work!”
“Aww, it wasn’t just me. Marcus did some of it.”
“Gracious of you,” Marcus said.
“Think nothing of it,” Lincoln jibed back.
Taylor tuned out their banter. The tendrils of Wolff’s multiple illegalities would have serious ramifications. They needed to talk to the press, to get the word out. Which also meant rolling up the Selectnet shop. Even though the site had been pulled from the Internet, they still needed to bring in the ringleaders. For that, she needed Baldwin’s help.
“We need to have a press conference, among other things. I’m going to call Baldwin. How much information do you have that we can use to indict Selectnet. com? Because we have to take them down.”
“That’s what Price is doing. He’s talking to Dan Franklin and they’re designing a media campaign. He’s left it to us to wrap the case. So, here’s the rest of the story.”
“There’s more?”
“Much more. Marcus, you go. I’m getting parched.”
“Okay. We backtraced the IP address for the Selectnet company. The California holdings are a front. The money trail leads right back here to Nashville. Does the name Henry Anderson ring a bell?”
Taylor felt the name go through her like a lightning bolt. The image of the man connected to the name came, vivid and sharp. A name from the past.
“Are you joking?”
They both shook their heads.
