“I don’t want money. I want it stopped.”
“I understand. But there’s the issue of where the photograph came from, how the site acquired it. Until we know who took the picture, we can’t move against them. And if they have multiple images, we could have the same problem, but at a different site. I can contact the Portland PD, let them know about this. Oregon has a specific statute for this kind of crime, the ‘Video Voyeur’ statute—a lot of states have yet to address this issue specifically, so we’re ahead there. We can even contact the FBI, since this is obviously an interstate activity.”
There was a new tone in his voice, not a lack of confidence, but almost a hesitation, a lack of conviction.
“You don’t sound certain,” I said.
Chapel made a slight shrug. “We talk to law enforcement, and it really doesn’t matter if it’s local or federal, we’ll get publicity. As soon as that happens, this picture will be everywhere, we’re talking millions of people around the world seeing it. A TRO won’t stop people from e-mailing it to each other.”
I just sat there, trying to fathom a million people looking at the picture. It was too abstract to be humiliating. Sitting opposite Chapel when he looked at the photo was one thing; a million teen boys at their computers was something else. But then I thought of those three kids at the Fred Meyer, the way they’d looked at me then, and the way they would look at me now.
It hit me that I was totally helpless, and I opened my mouth to tell Chapel as much, but then there was a knock at his office door. I turned in my chair as another man leaned through the doorway. He was younger and dressed a little more formally than Chapel. He gave me a glance, then looked to Chapel.
“Fred? You should check your e-mail.”
“You find the site?”
The man glanced my way again, as if he couldn’t help it. “Two of them. You should check the e-mail. I’ll be in my office.”
He pulled the door gently shut after him. Chapel was already clicking his mouse, focused on his monitor. I felt the same slow-motion-can’t-stop-it-something’s-wrong feeling coming on me, the way it had when I’d entered the lobby in Sydney to see Van and Click and Graham all waiting to give me my walking papers. My hands were trembling, the way they never trembled before a gig.
“How bad?” I asked.
He frowned at the screen. I got out of the chair, started to come around his desk. Chapel put a hand up, as if ready to swivel the monitor away from me, but I was already at his shoulder, then, and he dropped the arm, conceding.
The pictures were open in a viewing window on the monitor, side by side, and it took only an instant to realize why his instinct had been to hide them from me, only an instant to realize just how bad it was.
What stung was the pose—hand on my hip, hips cocked to the side, pouting. It would have been a convincing mockery of a Van pose, if I’d been clothed and not holding a bottle of beer. As it was, it looked like I was giving the photographer an eager show.
The border—again the blue and red motif—once more named me as Miriam Bracca of Tailhook, but this time the caption read HERE SHE CUMS AGAIN.
It was Picture Three, though, that was like a punch in the stomach.
I was lying on my back, on a bed, the sheets mussed beneath me, and again I was totally naked. The shot was from above, as if the photographer had straddled my body, looking down. My eyes were half-closed, my mouth slightly open, my hair a mess, and some of it hung over my eyes, but not enough to disguise my features. My right hand extended up above the pillows and out of the frame, with the shot cropped just above my knees.
My left hand was resting between my thighs.
The caption read COME MAKE PUSSY PURR.
Chapel hadn’t moved in his chair, hadn’t even turned to look at me, but I put my back to him, anyway, trying to find something else to see. Mount Hood didn’t help; it didn’t matter where I looked.
Me with my hand between my thighs. Me with one hand between my thighs and the other over my head, and what’s next, a shot with me taking it from behind?
I put my head against the window, closed my eyes. The glass was cold and a relief against my skin.
So now I’m a whore, I thought. Now the world thinks I’m a drunk and a whore.
Graham and Click and Van would see these pictures, they’d see them, the people at the label would see them, the reporters and the photographers and Pete from Christchurch and the groupie from Montreal. Joan’s students would see these pictures, would trade them back and forth in e-mails, maybe print them out, maybe bring them to school. Would they tell her? Would they laugh? Would she see them, too?
“Miriam—”
I shook my head. I didn’t trust my voice, I didn’t trust that I could tell him to be quiet, to go to hell. I was thinking of Steven and how at least he couldn’t see his daughter like this, wouldn’t know that the world had seen it, too. God in heaven, even I thought it looked like I was doing myself, that damn pose, that left between my legs, my right above my head, I might as well have been arching into it—
“Miriam—”
I snapped back, launched myself at the desk, grabbing past Chapel for the mouse. I clicked in vain, frustrated, tried to find a way to do what I wanted, but I couldn’t make the computer go, and Chapel had to reach for my arm, saying my name again.
“Mim. Calm down.”
I shoved the mouse, stepped back, pointing at the screen, at the third picture.
“I’ll close them—”
“No!” I snarled. “No, no, my arm, dammit, my arm, in the picture.”
Chapel looked at me, utterly lost.
I jabbed my index finger at the picture, at my right arm, extending out of the frame. “There!”
He looked from it back to me, then again, bewildered. “I don’t—”
“Bigger! Make it bigger!”
Chapel hesitated, but only for a second, then took the mouse and began clicking. He surrounded my arm, clicked again, and it filled the screen. Glorious full color, my arm.
With blood just barely visible, seeping out from beneath it.
Chapel turned, confused and concerned and hoping for an explanation, and I just couldn’t talk. The only thing I could give him was my right hand, palm up, the bandage Joan had put on me still wrapped around it.
He looked from my palm to my face, still not getting it, and he said, “I don’t understand—”
“Home,” I managed.
CHAPTER 14
There were three of them, from a firm called Burchett Security: a woman in her early thirties who looked strong and intense and never spoke and frankly scared me; a man in his late twenties who reminded me of the sailors who’d attended the Tailhook shows we’d played in San Diego; and Richard Burchett himself, who was perhaps in his mid-fifties, light brown hair a little shaggy, beard and mustache trimmed, in Levi’s and cowboy boots and a St. Louis Cardinals fan shirt.
Chapel told me that they were professional, thorough, and discreet. He told me they knew what they were doing. He told me to trust them.
Burchett and his crew used gadgets that they held in their hands and gadgets that hung from their belts and gadgets that they slung over their shoulders. They wore headphones and waved magic metallic wands. They dismantled outlets and fixtures and searched moldings and pictures and unplugged appliances and utilities. They moved furniture and lifted rugs, and every time they found something, they used a little pin with a hot pink plastic flag on its end to mark the location.
They’d used twelve of those pink plastic flags before they were through.