AFTER SITTING in a briefing meeting the next afternoon with Donata, Mick and the chief of their detective division, Sean was ready to have Donata all to himself.
As he drove her back to her apartment for the first time since the webcams had been discovered, he realized that he should be grateful the police department had acknowledged his expertise on this particular case and let him listen in on the briefing. But his mind wasn’t on work after spending the whole previous day worrying about Donata.
His fears weren’t logical. Physically, she’d be safe enough at a prison and she knew how to take care of herself. But what would it do to her heart and her head to sit in a visitor’s room across from the creep who’d put her through hell?
Sean hated the guy with a fierceness that surprised him since he knew all the rage was on Donata’s behalf.
“So you went over the technical details in the briefing,” he said aloud as he parked the car across the street from her place. “But what kind of vibe did you get from the guy? Is he still angry with you for turning on him?”
He wouldn’t have liked the idea of her going to any federal pen by herself, but visiting this one in particular had bugged him since he knew she was vulnerable to her ex even if she didn’t care about him anymore.
“He wasn’t as resentful as I feared, but then almost four years is a long time to get over it.” She stepped into the street before he could get her door and they walked into her building together.
“So it wasn’t too awkward?”
She slowed her pace as they approached the elevator. Her building was small, with no doorman and no security beyond a callbox for residents to buzz in their visitors.
“Of course it was awkward. Just picture going to see one of your exes in prison. You’ve got all the angst of a relationship gone sour plus the cold hard reality to face that your romantic judgment was so bad you not only picked a loser, you picked a criminal.”
Grateful the elevator arrived on that note, Sean held the door for Donata.
“None of my exes would have wanted to see me since I’m the king of short term.” He pressed the button for her floor and shoved his hands in his pockets. He was glad to have her back, but this wasn’t the way he pictured a reunion with the woman he’d thought about nonstop in her absence.
“Is that a hint?” She cocked her head sideways, as if the straight-on view of him didn’t make any sense so she needed to adjust her angle.
“A hint about what?” The elevator doors swished opened and he waited for her to exit.
“A hint to me not to expect too much from whatever it is that’s going on between us. A hint that you won’t be sticking around for long.” She reached for the button to hold the door open, her gaze never leaving his face.
“Hell no. I just meant to say that despite the disappointment of having someone you care about turn out to be a bad guy, at least you know you meant something to your ex. The man still wanted to see you in jail, even knowing you turned him in. Obviously this guy was crazy about you.”
“Or just plain crazy.” She emerged onto her floor finally, her eyes sweeping the hall in typical cop fashion.
He waited while she unlocked her door, glad to have escaped that conversational thread.
“So why would you crown yourself king of short term if you can admire a long relationship even when one of the parties has a rap sheet?” She let him in, tossing her keys on the coffee table and dropping her bag beside them.
And he thought he’d escaped this conversation?
Fat chance.
Donata sounded as though she was only warming up as she made her way around the apartment, throwing off her winter coat and booting up her computer.
They’d come here under the pretext of researching Richie Ford, but it wouldn’t be the first time one of their work nights had taken a turn for the personal.
“Honestly?” Sean shrugged. “I don’t think much about my personal life to have an opinion one way or the other. Ever since my sister was hurt, I’ve been a little obsessed with work. Not just because I wanted to clean up some of the danger spots online, but because I started my own business.”
She gestured toward the computer desk where her new laptop rested since her old one remained in the police evidence room. He accepted her unspoken gesture and took the seat, wondering when they’d developed wordless communication.
“Your business certainly looks successful enough where you could afford to lighten up the workload by now.” She disappeared into her bathroom and he knew she would be changing her clothes.
Another moment of intimate knowledge that he understood about her. She liked to shed her work clothes for something softer when she came home.
But then, visions of Donata stripping off her clothes in the other room weren’t going to solve their case any time soon so he forced his fingers to start clicking keys.
“Word of mouth has been great,” he admitted, proud of how quickly his business had developed. “Especially for a private investigations business. Normally, people think you’re barely scraping by if you’re a P.I., just working for peanuts to make your next rent check. Plus there’s a preconceived notion that you’ll take any kind of seedy job that comes your way.”
She reemerged wearing the low-slung jeans she favored and he found himself wondering if he’d get a glimpse of that hummingbird tattoo that hovered on her lower back. The jeans had red flowers embroidered down the length of one leg and a silk scarf with similar flowers—a kind of wild roses?—in the print woven through the belt loops. A white T-shirt tucked into the worn denim, the fabric void of decoration save for one red heart stamped in the middle.
“Really?” She ran a hand through her hair as if to loosen it, her fingers half scratching her scalp as she kicked up the curls. “Since when do you care what people think about you?”
“I don’t care what anyone thinks of me on a personal basis, but I’m definitely invested in the perception of my business.”
Grinning, she strutted past him to pull two sodas out of her refrigerator and he found himself holding his breath waiting for that flash of skin at her waist as her T-shirt rode up with each swaggering step. If he didn’t get to work soon, he’d have those long legs of hers wrapped around his waist in no time and she deserved more than a quickie in the middle of an investigation.
Besides, she might have her ex on her mind after her visit to the prison and Sean needed to be one hundred and twenty percent sure she was over the guy before he plunged himself heart-deep inside her again.
“So you left the department to be a rebel, but you founded a business that forces you to play conservative.”
He took a deep breath—not that it helped much—and opted to lose himself in work rather than in her luscious body.
“That’s about the size of it.” He forced himself to do a couple of basic searches on their new suspect, running multiple windows at once to see what he could find. “You live and learn. But for someone like me, it’s easier to take direction from myself than to have some desk-bound lieutenant telling me what to do.”
She nodded as she set down his drink on a butterfly coaster next to the computer.
“Sometimes success is just a matter of knowing your strengths and finding ways to work around your weaknesses. Obviously, you’re doing a great job on both counts.” She took a long drink as she went back to stare into her pantry while he continued to work. “But we got terribly off topic from why you’re the king of short term, didn’t we?”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” His fingers stalled on the keyboard. “I never mind talking about work.”
She peered over the low cupboard door at him as if he’d said something revealing. He went back to his search.
“Maybe relationships will turn out like your work,” she observed finally, as she seemed to be chopping something up on a cutting board.
Did he really want to know what that meant?
Damn it. He did.
“How so?” He pushed back from the computer to hear her better.
“In the world, you just needed to find the right job where you could be yourself and not feel like someone else was bossing you around.” She’d already chopped up some cheese. Now she was slicing a baguette to throw in a basket alongside the platter.
“Right.” He got up and peeked in her fridge and found some cold cuts to add to the platter that was strictly chick food to his eyes.
“So maybe you’ve been doing the short-term thing because you haven’t found the right woman who lets you be yourself and doesn’t try to manipulate you.”
Her words might not have resonated with him if he hadn’t been trying to sneak ham slices onto her platter. As it was, the moment seemed rich with “aha” meaning as she carried the silver tray—ham and all—over to the coffee table.
“Would you bring the bread basket?” she called over one shoulder.
“Got it.” He picked up the bread and told himself that people didn’t fall in love over cold cuts.
But for the first time, he could visualize a future for himself that involved more than work. He’d never been able to imagine being comfortable enough with a woman to want to face the inevitable challenges of a future together. But with someone like Donata, someone who threw herself into work the same way he did, who was as passionate as him, he could see himself kissing the short-term title goodbye.
* * *
AFTER HOURS of investigative work, Donata wanted to bang her head on the nearest wall. Sean swore the case was coming together, but there were too many pieces that didn’t fit neatly, too much crime on all sides of this illegal webcam racket.
They’d at least made some progress on Richie Ford. He was so clean that they’d already determined he must have an alias or two if he was a friend of Serg’s. Sure enough, they’d found another name he’d done business under was also a name once listed as a contact for fastgirlz. The name had been a dead end when Sean had first investigated the company, but now some of the leads from the past were beginning to make sense.
Richie Ford, aka Richie Feyette, was definitely up to illegal activities. But Donata wasn’t sure why he had a beef with her personally or how he was getting illegal videos made all over the city. Surely he couldn’t sneak into that many bedrooms by himself.
Even with all the ways the case was finally starting to fall into place, Donata found herself distracted by Sean’s shoulders as he worked at the keyboard, his back straight and muscular. Sometimes she dipped her head closer to his shoulder just so she could find his scent and breathe it in.
She told herself she wouldn’t have allowed herself to be distracted if her utmost attention would lead to a faster arrest. But she wouldn’t be able to question Richie until the morning at the earliest. Besides, she’d spent serious overtime on the case all week, including the trip to Ray Brook and one sleepless night at the precinct after her apartment had been compromised.
Didn’t she deserve to make a move on a man who might be out of her life as soon as they started making the arrests that would close the Sara Chapman case?
“This is our guy.” Sean turned toward her suddenly, his eyes bright with passion for the job more than passion for her. “He’s involved in a slew of Web sites advertising illegal movies and I just got word from the online superstore that his fstgrlz e-mail address is behind hundreds of webcam gifts through their wish list feature. That’s not how Sara Chapman received her webcam, but if we contact a few other gift recipients we should be able to strengthen our case against him.”
She blinked at the barrage of information when she’d been thinking along far more carnal lines.
“We still need to tie him to Sara Chapman if I’m going to close her case.” Her brain operated at the speed of sludge, but she forced herself to consider her options. “Our only real link so far is that both Terrance Russell and Richie Ford are friends of Serg’s. They could be working together.”
She didn’t like the idea of T.J. falling so far from grace that he’d date girls just to obtain illicit video footage to sell at a profit.
“Maybe you could talk to Terrance again. Bring up Richie’s name and see what happens.” He threaded his fingers in her hair, tilting her face up to his. “Are you okay?”
Better now. His touch sent a shot of sexual adrenaline through her tired body.
“Yeah. Just a little brain-dead after reevaluating our information so many times.”
His hand slid away from her as he glanced at the face of his watch, a massive silver timepiece with multiple readouts and buttons. She’d be lucky to locate a clock on there at all.
“It’s after midnight. No wonder you’re tired.” He reached for his coat before she could make it clear she wasn’t too tired to jump him, just too tired to think.
Her cell phone trilled obnoxiously, halting her from reaching for him.
The caller ID showed an unfamiliar number.
“Casale.” It wasn’t easy summoning up her work voice when she was exhausted and sex-starved, but she did her best.
“Donata?” A young woman’s voice was on the other end, her tone unsure and maybe nervous.
“Yes, this is Donata. Who’s calling?” She motioned to Sean to wait.
“It’s Katie Juarez. I’m sorry to call so late.”
Mick’s daughter? A knot twisted in her gut.
“Hi, Katie. Is your dad okay?” Her tiredness dissolved in a moment of panic. Nothing could happen to him…what would she do?
“He’s fine. But he’s going to be really angry with me if he finds out what I did.” Her voice broke on the other end of the call.
Donata’s fears for Mick doubled since the only thing worse than something happening to him would be something happening to his kid and she had the feeling Katie was in trouble.
Late-night phone calls from scared teenagers were never a good sign. She reached for Sean, grateful for his warm strength as she squeezed his arm.
“Where are you? Are you hurt?”
“I’m on Long Beach. At a friend’s house.” The girl sniffled. “I’m okay here. But I did something really stupid after Dad went off on me two days ago about being irresponsible.”
Donata couldn’t imagine how Katie got her cell number unless Mick had given it to her for an emergency. Something struck Donata as strange about the whole conversation since she hardly knew Katie.
“My dad told me about the case you’ve been working on and he started quizzing me about my computer use and tracking every stupid Web site I’ve ever visited. It was really invasive, you know?” The girl’s voice contained a hint of foreignness, but then she’d been raised abroad until last fall.
“I’m sure he just wanted to keep you safe. What did you do?” Donata found it a little challenging to empathize with a girl whose father cared so deeply about her and wanted to be involved in her life when Donata’s dad had been quick to push Donata out into the real world to find her happiness as an individual.
Translation—on her own. By herself. Alone.
“My boyfriend had been asking me to make him a present for his birthday, but I’d been telling him no because I didn’t feel comfortable.”
Oh damn. Damn. Damn.
“What did he want you to do, Katie?” Donata sat on the sofa since her legs had grown weak. Sean disappeared into the kitchen and reemerged with a glass of water for her.
Had she ever sounded as young as the girl on the other end of the phone? This naive? Donata knew she had, but the thought of being that vulnerable made her heart ache for Katie.
“He wanted a few…photos.” She spoke softly, as if she didn’t want someone to overhear her. “Not a whole video like in that case my dad said you guys are working on. It was just a picture or two that he wanted to snap with his camera phone.”
Donata’s heart plummeted.
“So you let your boyfriend take the pictures because you were mad at your father?” She didn’t mean to sound judgmental to a girl already on a guilt trip, but Donata needed to get the facts straight in case any of this tied into their investigation.
“Not exactly. I took the pictures myself because we haven’t even done anything yet. He hadn’t ever seen me naked before.”
Donata couldn’t help but think that nakedness was better shared in person for a girl’s first time, but at the same time, she felt relieved that at least Katie’s relationship hadn’t escalated.
At twenty-seven, Donata wasn’t even sure she felt emotionally equipped to deal with intimacy. How the hell could a teenager?
“And you’ve already sent him the pictures?”
Tears started in earnest then, or so it sounded from the broken sobs.
“I just hit the Send button about half an hour ago. But instead of feeling empowered the way I imagined I would, I just feel like crap.”
Donata didn’t know how she could fix this for Mick’s daughter who obviously had a good head on her shoulders despite this unwise move. But she did know she needed to talk to this young woman face to face to share a little hard-won wisdom before she got herself into any more trouble.
“Katie? I need to see you as soon as possible. Tonight.” She drank the water Sean had brought her, grateful for the look of concern in his eyes. When had a man ever been worried about her going out in the middle of the night alone? Serg might have been jealous, but never worried for her safety.
Jotting down the address, Donata knew she’d just found a way to finally make peace with her past. Maybe all the mistakes would be made more worthwhile if they helped prevent someone else from making them, too.