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 questions 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.

So she let him talk. She didn’t listen so much to what he was saying. She wondered, though, why he felt he needed to create such an elaborate fabrication to cover his true intent. After fifteen minutes of his bullshit, she yawned and stretched.

“Well, that is absolutely fascinating stuff, Mr. Gorman.”

“I’ve told you everything I know.”

“And it was all crap. If you’d like to get out of these handcuffs, get out of this room, I suggest you start telling me the truth about Selectnet.com.”

He sputtered, and she let him go through his denials. Taylor stared at her nails, and nodded. Then she tried again. She only hesitated a moment. Desperate times called for desperate measures. She sat back in the chair, casually draping her arm over the back.

“Tell me the truth now, Mr. Gorman. You’ll notice that you haven’t been booked. You’ve just been brought in for questioning in a very informal environment. No one knows you’re here. I haven’t turned on the cameras. I can do whatever I want to you, and no one will ever be the wiser.” As she spoke, she used her right hand to slip her Glock out of its holster and set it on the table between them. Gorman’s eyes popped open.

“Are you threatening me?”

“No. I’m giving you options. You can talk to me now. Or you and I can slip out the back door, without a single person knowing where you are.” She ran her fingers playfully along the slide of the weapon. “I’d sure hate to have any accidents with you, you know. We’d have to go on the news and explain your role in today’s little charade, explain how we picked you up for…hmmm…child pornography sounds good.” She raised an eyebrow at him, smiled.

“I bet we could make that stick, too. You look like the type that might just get curious every once in a while. Am I starting to make myself clear, Mr. Gorman? I hold the reins here. You start telling me the truth about this little club you belong to, or things can go very badly for you this afternoon. Got it?”

He got it. In typical bully fashion, the moment Gorman was presented with real strength from the opposition, he caved. The story he told Taylor made the fury rise in her stomach all over again.