“We’ve been making a lot of headway in that direction. Catherine has been here every night for the last week reviewing transcripts with Jason and discussing indexing parameters with Mitchell. That’s given me enough free time to narrow down locations of subscribers to the two or three Web credit card clearinghouses that the F…. that other sources provided.”

Michael slid her right thigh across Sloan’s hips and sat up, straddling the supine woman. Leaning forward slightly, she began to circle her palms over Sloan’s shoulders and chest. “Believe me, I’m glad it’s going well. I just want to make sure you’re still functional when it’s over.” She lowered herself until she could find Sloan’s mouth with hers, kissing her as she slowly rocked her pelvis back and forth over Sloan’s stomach.

“Don’t worry,” Sloan murmured when Michael finally released her. “I promise to be at least one hundred percent anytime it’s required.” As she spoke, she lifted her hands until she cradled the undersurface of Michael’s breasts, rubbing her thumbs deliberately back and forth across the peaks of her hardened nipples.

Michael drew a sharp breath, catching her lower lip between her teeth. She arched her back, pressing her breasts harder into her lover’s palms. “I think your services might be needed soon.”

“Really? How soon?”

“I’ll let you know.” Lids fluttering closed, Michael ran her hand slowly down her own torso until her fingers rested between her legs. Already hard and wet.

“Don’t hurry,” Sloan managed through a throat tight with desire. “You know how much I love to watch.”

“I know,” Michael whispered back, eyes still closed, listening to Sloan’s breathing quicken, feeling the muscles in Sloan’s abdomen ripple between her thighs, sensing Sloan’s hot gaze upon her. Very carefully, not wanting to lose control, she teased her lover as she teased herself.

Sloan continued to work her nipples, eyes fixed on the slow indolent motion of Michael’s hand, loving the exquisite torture of watching Michael’s passion rise. “God, you’re so beautiful.”

Michael’s eyes opened, their blue depths virtually eclipsed by the dark shadows of desire. She watched Sloan watch her, nearly slipping over the edge when she saw the hunger in her gaze. “Do you want me to stop?” she asked haltingly, her hips rocking into her hand of their own volition.

“Not yet,” Sloan ordered, thrusting upward, forcing Michael’s fingers to stroke them both. “Just don’t… come.”

Michael laughed shakily, her stomach muscles rippling with the first warning contractions. “I should stop then.” She thought she could, barely, if she stopped soon.

“No,” Sloan growled, her voice a savage groan. Knowing how close Michael was, knowing how much she must want to let go, was making her crazy. Michael was leaning hard into her hands now, her nipples rock hard against her palms, her entire body shuddering. “Hold on,” she urged, lifting her own hips so that the back of Michael’s fingers pressed into her clitoris. Watching Michael nearing orgasm, feeling her hand circling faster as she pleasured herself, was almost enough to get her there. The intermittent brush of Michael’s fingers over her clitoris was all she needed. Desperately close, she became the one struggling to wait.

“Sloan,” Michael gasped helplessly. “I’m coming.”

Sloan fought not to go off with her, watching the pleasure flow through Michael’s body, her own nerves melting as she began to burn from the inside out. Her arms trembled, supporting Michael’s weight as she convulsed, and her legs twisted as orgasm thundered through her. Her shouts were lost in Michael’s cries as they held to one another while pleasure raged.

Moments, eons, later, Sloan managed, “What do you think?”

“A hundred and ten percent,” Michael gasped, still trembling.

“Hmm,” Sloan grumbled. “Maybe I am slipping.”

Michael laughed. “You know, I can cancel this overnight to Boston. I don’t want to be away if something breaks on your case.”

“No—go ahead,” Sloan said, brushing her cheek against the fine hair at Michael’s temple. “We’re not that close. I’ll pick you up at the airport tomorrow night like we planned.”

“If something happens, will you call me? I’ll come right back.” Michael brushed her hand along Sloan’s side, feeling her stiffen. “I know you, Sloan. You’ll want to be in the middle of it. And I want to be here.”

“Just go sew up your deal,” Sloan insisted. “You’ll be back in plenty of time. Promise.”

“Mmm,” Michael said, curling into Sloan’s body and closing her eyes. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Eighteen hours later, Catherine looked up as the door to the conference room opened. As it never failed to do, her heart rate skyrocketed at the sight of the handsome blond in the pale blue button-down collar shirt and faded jeans. It was unusual to see Rebecca working in anything other than a well tailored suit, but it was, after all, eleven p.m. on a Friday night. She supposed that when Rebecca worked the streets well into the early morning hours, she did it in jeans and a leather jacket. The memory of just how good Rebecca looked when dressed that way was followed quickly by an image of Sandy’s small cozy apartment and the remains of the takeout meal. Impatiently, she set that thought aside. There was work to be done, and musing about Rebecca’s secret life was not going to help.

“You’re working late,” Rebecca remarked, surveying the pile of computer printouts on the table. Other than several phone calls and one hurried lunch together in the hospital cafeteria, they hadn’t really had much contact the entire week. It was the longest they had been separated since Rebecca moved back to her own apartment. With each passing day, Rebecca felt more at sea. She had a feeling that Catherine was waiting for her to say something, or do something, but she wasn’t certain what that was.

“I can’t believe how much traffic there is on these sites,” Catherine said, indicating the stacks of on-line chat transcripts. “And these are just the ones that Jason thought were interesting.”

“This is the fifth night into a row that you’ve been at it. You look tired. You do still have a day job, remember.”

Catherine studied her, aware of the reservation in her tone. The concern was genuine; she could see it in her eyes. But Rebecca hadn’t touched her when she’d walked into the room, and although she sat within arm’s length now, the emotional distance between them seemed unbridgeable. Not for the first time, she wondered where Rebecca had been spending her nights. “I’m okay. Reading through these is a lot easier than doing an hour or two of therapy.”

Rebecca smiled wryly. “I can only imagine. How’s it going?”

“Surprisingly,” Catherine said, pushing back in the chair with a sigh, “not too bad. It occurred to me this morning while I was making rounds that we aren’t the only people profiling.”

Rebecca edged a hip onto the corner of the table, her expression interested. “What do you mean?”

“Well, thus far, Sloan and Jason have been concentrating on finding individuals who fit a certain profile. I’m sure that the computer wizards in the other room will be able to manipulate this information and eventually come up with something concrete. Still, they’ve amassed a tremendous amount of information which could take a long time to analyze.”

“Right,” Rebecca grimaced. “If I think about it too hard, it gives me a headache.”

“Actually, me too. I think I might be able to add another piece to the puzzle and speed up the process.”

“How?” Rebecca asked, crossing the room and testing the heat of the coffeepot with her palm. It was warm and the coffee smelled fresh. She lifted the pot and gestured in Catherine’s direction. “Want some?”

“Thanks, no,” Catherine replied with a shake of her head. “Anyhow, it occurred to me that if someone is making money, presumably a lot of money, producing and selling pornographic movies—as well as broadcasting live videos of child prostitution—they have to have an audience.”

“Well, that’s the point, isn’t it?” Rebecca said, moving back to Catherine side with her coffee in hand. “All of these dirt balls that Jason’s been communicating with are the audience members.”

“I’m not arguing that they are all purveyors of child pornography in one form or another. But only a select few — probably very few — would actually be in the position to subscribe to this live broadcast that Sloan’s so anxious to get a lead on.”

“Wait a minute,” Rebecca said, an edge of excitement in her voice. “It’s just like any television program — a target audience always has a particular profile. A particular demographic make-up. Is that what you mean?”

“Precisely,” Catherine stated emphatically. “That’s exactly what I mean. Obviously, the viewers are going to be men, probably between the ages of twenty-five and fifty. Secondly, they need expensive equipment and high-speed Internet access—that requires a certain income level.”

“Probably single, or at least someone who has a large chunk of private time,” Rebecca interjected, a note of enthusiasm in her voice.

“So my theory,” Catherine continued, “is that there are probably a number of middlemen recruiting potential subscribers for this—broadcasting service—for want of a better word. And we should be able to identify them by the questions they’re asking.”

“So you’re looking for someone who is trying to find out if Jason—well, the Jason persona—is a single adult male with expendable income who might be interested in something more than still pics or cybersex.”

“You’ve got it. I’m looking for someone who appears to be profiling. What I’ve done is give Mitchell a list of hypothetical questions that these recruiters might ask so she can screen for them. Then we’ll pull the transcripts of anyone who hits fifty percent and, with luck, I can string all of that individual’s chats together and see if the whole picture fits.”

“I don’t know why Clark didn’t get you in on this from the beginning,” Rebecca said with a shake of her head.

A voice from the door responded, “Because we didn’t know what the hell we were doing. And if you repeat that, I’ll deny all knowledge.” Grinning, Sloan nodded to Rebecca as she made her way to the coffeepot. “How are you doing?”

“Fine.” Rebecca glanced at the woman who entered behind Sloan. “Officer Mitchell. Putting in a little overtime?”

“No, ma’am. I’m here on my own time.”

Rebecca raised an eyebrow. “Any particular reason?”

“Since Dr. Rawlings is here, I thought I could help out with logging identifiers and running probabilities. Seemed like the best use of resources.”

“It’s your dime, Mitchell.” But she made note of it. The kid was quality.

“Any luck with street Intel, Frye?” Sloan inquired.

“Maybe. I’ll know better in a couple of hours,” Rebecca responded as she glanced in Sloan’s direction, not noticing Mitchell’s body stiffen or her expression darken.

“Here’s something,” Catherine said almost to herself. Every eye in the room turned to her.

“What?” Sloan asked immediately.

Catherine pushed a sheet of paper into the center of the table. “Look at these. It’s segments of five chats with the same person over the course of the last ten days.”

All conversation stopped as they crowded around to read the annotated transcript.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

“SLOAN?” REBECCA QUERIED, glancing at the pages. “What’s the background here?”

“Let me see.” She read the notations from the log Mitchell had generated with her indexing program that were printed across the top of each sheet. “These are segments of conversations that took place in a private chat room reached by way of an open bulletin board. The main site is trafficked by kids and adults—no real way to tell anyone’s age because even when they say, it might not be true. Many pedophiles pretend to be teenagers until they have established a relationship with a kid, and even then, may never reveal their true age. At any rate, this site is known for lots of chat and a lot of invitations to go private for sex. The room where these transcripts are from is frequented exclusively by men who have a taste for young girls—eleven to fourteen mostly. Invite only. You have to be sponsored.”

“How did Jason get in then?”

Sloan grinned, a predatory grin without a hint of humor. “We hacked in. Easy. Jason’s persona is BigMac10.”

“Creative,” Rebecca said wryly.

“These guys aren’t subtle.”

Transcript One – Excerpt

BigMac10 : Hey, man. Saw you with KewlChic12 over on the main board. Did you score

LongJohnXXX : Oh, yeah. Sweet

BigMac10: Wish I coulda been there

LongJohnXXX : Where were you? Watching?

BigMac10 : LOL. Yeah – until you went private

LongJohnXXX : You get off on that?

BigMac10 : Watching?

LongJohnXXX : Yeah

BigMac10: Every chance I get

Transcript Two – Excerpt

LongJohnXXX : Back again, huh, buddy

BigMac10: Can’t stay away. Such fine company

LongJohnXXX : Still watching?

BigMac10: Whenever I can

LongJohnXXX : Got flash to trade?

BigMac10: Stills don’t do it for me

LongJohnXXX : Know what you mean. I like ‘em moving You?

BigMac10: Moving and screaming. Oh yeah

“Jesus,” Rebecca murmured. “He is good.”

“Yeah,” Sloan said quietly. “And it doesn’t come easy.”

Rebecca glanced at her, but said nothing. She understood standing up for your partner. She returned to reading.

Transcript three – Excerpt

LongJohnXXX : Hey, BM10 – any action on the boards?

BigMac10: Just talk out there

LongJohnXXX : Kids stuff

BigMac10: Yeah

LongJohnXXX : How long you been lurking?

BigMac10: Few weeks here Been around HotRods before that

LongJohnXXX : You sharing the line?

BigMac10: No – all mine. Home alone

Transcript Four – Excerpt

BigMac10: welcome

LongJohnXXX : Evening watchman

BigMac10: Not much to see here tonight

LongJohnXXX : Second hand pickings, huh

BigMac10: Insufficient for a man of quality

LongJohnXXX : Quality costs

BigMac10: Not an object – for the right merchandise

LongJohnXXX : You looking to buy

BigMac10: Maybe if the stuff is prime

“And then this from last night—early this morning, I should say,”” Catherine remarked, pointing to the last entry.

Transcript Five - Excerpt

LongJohnXXX : Yo-BM10. You lurking?

BigMac10: here

LongJohnXXX : How’d you do?

BigMac10: How so?

LongJohnXXX : Don’t be a cock tease. HotChic13

BigMac10: <g> Now who’s watching

LongJohnXXX : yeah – so give

BigMac10: she blew me off

LongJohnXXX : Whoa – for real?

BigMac10: No, man – she went private then backed out. Left me high and hard

LongJohnXXX : Bummer. No sure thing in cyberspace

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