Gemini Men: Caught Part 5

"The irony is not lost on me," she snapped.

"Relax, Toni, I only have the information available on a standard background check. I wanted to see who I was getting into bed with," he said with a wink.

"I didn't have you checked out," she said, though she saw his point.

"Maybe you should have," he shot back. "So, you want to tell me what you've found out so far?"

Ethan could see Toni trying to keep a rein on her temper. He'd caught her off guard, and she didn't like it. He'd given her a hard time about her casual-bordering-on-sloppy attire, but he found it almost as s.e.xy as if she'd opened the door wearing something from Victoria's Secret.

Her outfit revealed nothing and everything. Her T-shirt was gray, worn thin from hundreds of washings. It clung to the high, round curves of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in a way that made his palms itch.

He forced his eyes away from the perfectly cuppable curves emblazoned with the slogan "Property of the MIT Computer Science Department" and his eyes slid lower as she walked into the minuscule kitchen off the entryway and reached into a cabinet for two gla.s.ses. His mouth went dry as he recognized his mistake. He'd noticed her legs immediately, and they looked even better bare. Sleek with firm, muscled calves and nicely defined thighs. Thighs he could almost feel clamped around his hips as he rode her long and hard. Her skin was smooth, pale, tempting him to run his tongue along every inch.

Even her feet were nice, narrow and slender, toes painted a surprising hot pink with a little white flower design. Who would have pegged Toni as a fancy-pedicure type? Heat flooded his groin as he imagined propping her feet on his shoulders, sucking her toes into his mouth as he pumped her hard.

He shifted on his feet, willing his c.o.c.k down before she turned around and noticed the pup tent that was forming at the fly of his pants. As casually as possible, he crossed his hands in front of himself.

"You go first," she demanded, filling the gla.s.ses with ice and water.

"Not much," he admitted. "Most of Kara's friends are out of town, away at summer camps or on vacation. The ones I did manage to connect with claim they haven't hung out with Kara in quite some time."

"Did you look at Kara's FacePlace page?"

"A little. Didn't find much to go on. But who knew there were so many degrees of virginity?"

Toni didn't acknowledge the comment, but he could see the flush of color creeping up her neck.

"I always thought it was cut-and-dried," he goaded. "Insert tab A into slot B."

"I don't want to discuss your thoughts on s.e.x or virginity," she said. But he could tell from the deepening pink of her cheeks that she sure as s.h.i.t was thinking about it, and thinking about it with him. "Anyway, it's not funny. Girls talking like that attract all kinds of creeps and pervs."

Toni's mouth was tight with concern. For whatever reason, Ethan was compelled to ease her fears. "I noticed she posted again. That's good news."

"Maybe." But she didn't seem to share his optimism.

"What makes you think differently?"

"I don't know," she said, shrugging him off. "The posts were both made from her computer, but..." she trailed off.

"What?"

"I don't know. It doesn't sound like her."

"How can you tell? They're two sentences each."

She shook her head. "Maybe I'm just being paranoid. Anyway, I found something right before you got here. I don't know if it's anything yet."

He let her change the subject. For now. "Show me."

She motioned him over to the corner of her living room that apparently served as her office.

Piled in the small s.p.a.ce were a desk, printer/fax combo, and of course her computer. Papers littered the desk in semi-cohesive piles. More papers peeked out of the drawers of an overstuffed file cabinet and out of the tops of boxes.

Ethan thought of his own s.p.a.cious office with its giant desk and state-of-the-art computer system and couldn't help but wince. "This is how you work?"

Her shoulders tensed. "Not all of us can afford fancy office s.p.a.ce. Besides, I have everything I need right here."

He held his hands up in a supplicating gesture, snagged one of the two rickety wooden chairs from her kitchen table, pulled it over to the desk, and settled in next to her.

As he leaned over her shoulder to see the monitor, he caught her scent in the sultry air. A mix of shampoo, laundry soap, and pure female hit him like a ton of bricks. s.e.xier than any perfume, it had heat pooling low in his belly.

She popped open a window on her browser. "I went back a few months in the archives and came across this girl."

Ethan took in the naked torso, bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s barely covered by the girl's own hands, and shifted his gaze away. Sure, her profile said she was eighteen, but he still felt like a dirty old man looking at her.

"She was a member of the V-Club," Toni continued, "invited by Kara, but she got kicked out after a month."

"She doesn't look like their typical member. Guess I don't have to ask why they kicked her out."

"The girls were cool at first, but then"-Toni's blush, which had barely subsided when they sat down, returned in full force-"Kstar90 started giving the other girls tips."

"Tips?" He arched a brow, waiting for her to continue.

He didn't think it was possible for her face to go any redder, but her flush deepened from dark pink to full-out magenta. "Tips on how to keep their boyfriends happy while staying technically intact."

"Really, like what?" He felt a grin tugging at his cheeks even as heat gathered in his groin. d.a.m.n, he loved watching her squirm in her seat.

Her withering glare lost its impact under all that pink. "I'm sure you would know better than I," she said, presenting him with her profile as she turned back to her screen.

d.a.m.n straight. "I'd be happy to demonstrate any and all of them."

Her mouth gaped as she gave him a disbelieving look. "Are you seriously hitting on me while we're talking about the s.e.xual habits of teenage girls? Could you be any more inappropriate?"

He held up his hands. "The offer was made purely out of professional courtesy."

She shot him a glare. Licked her lips. Shifted in her seat. Yeah, for all her offense, she was thinking about it.

"All right, so Kstar90 got kicked out of the virgin club for being too s.k.a.n.ky," he said, letting Toni off the hook for the moment. "Besides the V-Club, what do you think her tie is to Kara?"

Toni clicked on a link to additional photos. Ethan sucked air through his teeth. He thought the picture of Kstar90 on her home page was bad, but these had crossed the line from racy to lewd. There were half a dozen, showcasing Kstar90 in various states of undress, every body part displayed for anyone with a Web browser to see.

All except her face, which had been painstakingly blurred out.

Toni's mouth got tighter and her jaw took on a hard set as she clicked on one of the photos and called up another program. A separate window popped up with a grid full of data and a smaller version of the picture. But this time the subject's face was clear.

Kstar90 wasn't connected to Kara. Kstar90 was Kara.

"f.u.c.k," Toni swore, echoing his own curse.

She quickly clicked through the remaining photos and ran them through the same program.

"That's an EXIF viewer?" Ethan asked.

Toni looked shocked that he had any clue what she was doing but nodded.

"My brother Derek is more up on digital forensics than I am, but I try to stay current. What program are you using?"

"It's my own program," she said, clicking back over to Kara's main page.

Ethan was grateful. He liked a naked woman as much as the next guy-h.e.l.l, probably more. But looking at nude pictures of his client's teenage daughter with Toni less than six inches away made him feel all kinds of dirty.

Toni sat back in her chair, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. "These files have been altered and compressed, so I can't get all of the information about the original pictures."

Ethan didn't have in-depth knowledge of digital photo forensics but he knew that depending on the file size and type, you could find out everything about a picture, including whose camera shot it when, and, if you had a camera that recorded GPS information, where on the globe it was taken. You could also, without much effort, extract unretouched thumbnails of pictures that had been altered.

Toni propped her elbows on the desk and put her head in her hands. "I told her to be careful about what she puts out there. And she goes and posts naked pictures of herself."

Ethan didn't say anything as Toni scrolled down the page through Kara's most recent messages.

"She hasn't posted to this page," she said, voice vibrating with concern.

"Why would she? Her parents wouldn't know to look here. She's probably fine. I know this looks bad, but it doesn't change the likelihood that she's just holing up with a friend."

"I want to believe that. But I never thought she'd do anything this stupid," she said, gesturing at the screen.

"Teens aren't famous for thinking things through. Even smart kids like Kara. Doesn't mean she's in trouble." Ethan knew all about kids making dumb moves, especially kids whose home life was falling apart. When he was sixteen, he'd disappeared for a week to see if his dad would emerge from his black hole of obsession to come looking for him. In the end, his older brother Danny had found him, crashing in a rundown youth hostel in San Francisco.

He focused his attention back on the screen, where he saw the last message from Kara, dated Friday evening.

Can't wait to see my honey tonite. He's still p.i.s.sed, but I'm hoping he'll give me another chance.

He felt the hackles rise on the back of his neck.

"Who's p.i.s.sed?" Toni muttered, echoing his thoughts.

Ethan frowned as he read a message a the bottom of the page, dated last Wednesday. I'll give you one last chance to make it up to me. Meet me this weekend and show me how sorry you are. This from someone with the charming moniker "T-Bone."

His cell phone buzzed, interrupting whatever Toni was about to say. He swore when he saw his brother Derek's number on the caller ID. "What's up?"

"Just wanted to let you know we're heading over to Dad's in the next twenty minutes. He said he had something important to talk to us about, so don't be late." Tension dug into Ethan's neck like bony fingers. He'd forgotten all about their weekly dinner with his dad. He'd managed to avoid the last two weeks, as he'd been working. But this week he had no excuse to blow it off.

"I wonder what new theory he's come up with this time." He sighed. And how much money he's going to waste chasing after it, he thought. "I'll see you there."

Toni spared him a glance over her shoulder as she clicked through to T-Bone's FacePlace page.

"That was my brother calling to remind me of another standing obligation." He was reluctant to leave, and not only because he wanted to follow the trail to T-Bone and what he might know about Kara Kramer's disappearance. He liked it here in Toni's dark, sweltering apartment, working beside her.

"It's cool," she said without looking up. "I'll let you know whatever I find out." Her fingertip stroked idly over her mouse, as if she were fondling a patch of skin.

Okay, clearly he needed to get laid if watching Toni navigate cybers.p.a.ce was enough to get him excited. He stood quickly. "I'll be back in a few hours."

Toni watched the retreat of his wide, muscled back with a combination of regret and relief. As much as she didn't want to admit it, she was starting to crush on him. Not only was he hot, he was smarter than she'd first given him credit for. Not many people knew what EXIF data was, much less how it could be used for an investigation, but Ethan must do his homework.

And he had an odd knack for sensing when she was about to head down the dark road of fear and let anxiety override all logic. Using humor or short, pointed questions and remarks, he gently guided her back on track, keeping her from fixating on the worst-case scenario.

But she was grateful to see him go. The l.u.s.tful undercurrents pulsing between them were far too distracting. Someone she cared about was missing, and she could barely concentrate because she couldn't stop thinking about stripping Ethan Taggart naked. Better he was gone so she could really focus.

From T-Bone's profile page she clicked on a link to T-Bone's Treasure Chest.

Speaking of naked.

"Kara, what the h.e.l.l have you gotten yourself into?"

Kara huddled on the thin pad and tried to figure out how long she'd been sitting here in the dark. A day? Two?

She had no idea. Her body shook with a combination of cold and fear. She sat with her knees curled up to her chin, her bound wrists looped over her legs in an attempt to hold in whatever body heat she had left.

Her eyes were wide open in spite of the dark, her ears tuned to every slight sound as she waited for the man to come back. Despite her grogginess from whatever drug was working through her, she hadn't slept since the man left hours ago. After his brief greeting, all the more terrifying for how casual he'd sounded, he'd left and hadn't come back.

Hazy details were starting to surface. She'd never made it to the party. She had a vague memory of a dark SUV, a rough hand on her arm.

And then the dark.

And then the man.

Who still hadn't come back. Neither had anyone else.

Not to give her water, or food, or to take her to the bathroom or even give her a bucket to pee in. She'd been forced to scoot to the end of her rope and awkwardly push her pants down, trying not to lose her balance as she squatted in the dark with tears running down her face. She winced as she inhaled, the smell of her urine sharp in the damp, cold air.

Adding to her humiliation, she hadn't been able to pull her pants back up with her hands tied, and they were stuck halfway down her b.u.t.t.

She had a horrible, awful feeling she would be naked in front of the man soon enough.

He said he wanted cooperation. And though her brain tried to reject the idea, she knew with bone-tingling dread what his idea of cooperation would entail.

As she waited in darkness, panicky thoughts ricocheted through her brain. Why? Why her?

But she was afraid she knew d.a.m.n well why.

This was all her fault, posing for the pictures. Talking herself into it, getting off on the idea of doing it behind her parents' backs, her own secret life, proving-to herself anyway-that she wasn't the perfect little girl everyone thought she was.

No one else was ever supposed to find out. Toby had promised.

But now someone-some scary-a.s.s creep who kept girls in his bas.e.m.e.nt-knew.

Her stomach cramped as a dozen scenarios, each one more horrifying than the last, raced through her mind.

The panic that had subsided as hours pa.s.sed with no further contact exploded once again to the surface. "Please, help me, somebody help me," she whispered, starting to cry. She closed her eyes, as though that could shut out the stifling dark, the stomach-churning fear. "Please, please, help me." The whisper grew louder, turning into a high-pitched wail.