Intimate Relations, Rebecca Forster [best ereader for manga .txt] 📗

Cori's hands unlaced. She picked up a piece of cold pizza and put it down again.

"I don't see it," she said. "This is an obsessed guy thing. Emi would have to be deranged to put up with that."

"Why not just kill the wife and install the mistress? Better yet, divorce Emi. Easier still," Finn said.

"Unless the money was coming from Emi's invention. If he divorced her before the patent was approved she might argue he deserved no profit." Cori knew the brainstorming would lead somewhere, so she kept thinking. Suddenly she sat up, excited by her ephiphany. "Roxana was backing out. That's it. A chick who blackmails rich guys would be a major tease. Enver builds her this home away from home, promises the world, she comes to her senses, and she screws him. That would be enough to send any guy over the edge. She has a Russian passport. What does she care about contracts? Walking out on Enver would be fun."

"True. And he could have gotten her upstairs because everyone was busy in the big room. But how did he get her in? And why that night with all those potential witnesses?" Finn waved all this away. "Not that it matters. Until we can tie him to AIing Inc. we've got nothing."

"Now that we have a contact name over at AIing Inc., the connection may come sooner than we think. George Nye signed the contract as a proxy." Finn referred to his notes. "And we need to talk to Roxana's lawyer."

Cori considered the list of directives.  They would divide up the chores in the days to come. They would try to run down the pixels that made up the picture of Roxana's life. Cori had no doubt it would be interesting once it came into focus.

"Okay, let's move on" Cori said.

Finn clicked on the folder labeled Asylum. Inside were four subfolders. Photos were in the first. The other three were labeled with the names of the men she blackmailed. They opened photos.

Roxana was fond of selfies. She looked stunning and seductive in each one. She favored a mask of black lace with silver ribbons tied in bows at the side of her head. The ends of the ribbons trailed down her cheeks. She piled her long hair atop her head in a way that made her look as if she had come from bed. There were other photos that were reflections in her bathroom mirror. In one she was naked under a sheer gown that fell from her shoulders to her silver-sandaled feet. Another showed her in a thong and bra, this time with a mask shaped like golden wings.

Bev was in one photo.  The background did not suggest Roxana's home, for which Finn was grateful. To have caught his ex lying about a friendship with the girl would move her up the list of suspects. It was one thing to cavort with Roxana at the same Asylum party, quite another to be preening in the girl's house. Still, it didn't seem that Beverly was disliking their moment. They would ask her where this picture was taken. If, as she said, cameras were forbidden at Asylum events then Bev was no better than Roxana.

"She looks good," Cori said, knowing her partner needed a prompt to bring him back to the here and now.

"That she does, Cori."

He didn't say what was on his mind.  Beverly's beauty could not compete with Roxana's. There is nothing like a young girl's blush, the sparkle in her eyes, and the luster of her hair to make a man's heart race. By comparison—while lovely—Bev looked old.

"I don't see any men in these pictures," Cori said.

"As it should be, according to the rules," Finn answered.

They clicked through sixty or seventy pictures until they hit the mother lode. There were ten pictures of one of Roxana's marks: the preacher. Naked and in a position of subservience to a dominatrix, he proved to be even less than attractive than he already was. Given some of the things Finn and Cori had seen in Hollywood this was mild. However, in the context of a man of God it was damning.

"I'd rather cuddle," Cori said, and Finn chuckled.

"We've got Mr. Normand, the banker. Father of ten," Finn said.

This time it was a ménage a trois that had ruined the man. They knew he had paid Roxana a hundred and fifty thousand dollars to keep these pictures from his wife. Finn wasn't certain if the man loved his wife so much that he was willing to pay a fortune to protect her feelings, or feared she would take more than that in the divorce.

Finally, they came upon photos of Jeremiah Stotler in bed with a woman and a young girl. The woman's face was turned away as she straddled him, but there was no mistaking Bev O'Brien. The girl looked to be no more than fifteen. Cori reached over and clicked through.

"We get the idea," she said. "I'll find out who the girl is. If she was at an Asylum party, Ali Keyes is going to have to prove her age. We can shut them down if she's as young as she looks."

"I'm thinking Mr. Keyes is too smart for that and too ethical," Finn said. "This could be a private matter that Stotler set up on his own."

"Then how did Roxana get the photo?" Cori asked. "Bev said she didn't hang with her."

"And Bev has been known to stretch the truth," Finn reminded her. "But there are other ways. Roxana was resourceful. She could have paid someone else to take the picture."

Finn moved on, clicking through more images. Jeremiah Stotler appeared in more than one surreptitiously taken photograph. These weren't centered, the subjects seemed completely unaware, and many were unfocused.

"The man does seem to have a preference," Finn muttered. "Blonde, tall and—"

"Young," Cori said, needing no other word to state the obvious. Bev was the odd duck.

"True. But he is cohabitating with my ex-wife. That is