Joanne Rock - Don't Look Back

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.