The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The First Collection by Frost, J (great novels .txt) 📕

male porn stars. I commented on Rick’s thread and said he wasn’t any kind of feminist. That I’d met him, and he was an asshole who didn’t respect women at all.”

Beside me, Theo snorts. I restrain myself from elbowing him.

“And she contacted you as a result of those comments?” I ask.

“Yes.” She takes another long drink of wine, killing her second glass.

I refill it.

“Did she offer to buy the pictures right away?” I ask.

“No, we exchanged some messages first. She asked how I’d met Rick and I explained about the party.”

“You told her what you remembered?”

Dovie nods. That explains why EvonneBringsTheTruth posted the bullshit about Rick dragging Laurel into the bedroom with a belt around her neck. She got it from Dovie.

“Do you still have those messages?”

She swills more wine before she nods. There’s not much left in the bottle, which is probably fortunate. Theo’s not going to think much of my investigative technique if I get the witness soused during the interview.

I write down my email address on a clean page, rip it out of my notebook, and put it on the table between us. “Would you forward them to me, please?”

Dovie glances at the piece of paper like it’s venomous.

Theo reaches out, snags the piece of paper, takes a pen out of his pocket, and writes his official email address below mine. “I’d like them, too.”

He doesn’t say please. Dovie blanches.

“Yes, okay.”

“How did the buy work? Did she meet you?”

Dovie shakes her head. “PayPal. She paid the money into my account and I put the pictures in a Dropbox folder that I shared with her.”

“By email?” I’m out of my depth here, technically. But I’m not sure it matters. The mechanism by which EvonneBringsTheTruth got the pictures doesn’t matter as much as who she is.

“Yes.”

“You never met her?”

“Face-to-face? No, of course not.”

What ever happened to good old face-to-face meetings that produce a description of the suspect? Damn this digital age.

“What was her name, the woman who bought the pictures?”

Dovie takes the last drink out of her wine glass and works the liquid in her mouth before she swallows and says, “Her screen-name was Delta Hyhhyd. Obviously, that’s not her real name.”

It’s not at all obvious to me.

“Why’s it obviously not her real name?” Theo asks.

Glad it’s not obvious to him, either.

“Um, it’s an acronym of Julia de Burgos’s saying, ‘don’t let the hand you hold, hold you down’?”

Clever. I bet Emily would have known that.

“PayPal accounts are hard to set up in a pseudonym,” Theo says. “Bank details can’t be verified. What was the name on the account?”

Dovie chews her lower lip. “I’d need to look it up.”

Theo nods at her handbag, which she’s dropped next to her chair. “You got your phone in there? Take your time.”

Brilliant. That alone makes bringing Theo along worthwhile.

Scowling, Dovie retrieves the latest model iPhone from her bag and starts working at it. She scrolls for a while, then finally holds her phone out to us. “There. Evonne Wilson.”

Bingo.

“Screenshot that and email it to me,” Theo says. Again, there’s no “please.” There is, however, the full authority of the NYPD behind his command.

“Okay.” Dovie messes a bit more with her phone before she shoves it back in her handbag.

“Thanks,” Theo says. “Did you have any contact with Evonne Wilson after you sent her the pictures?”

Dovie shakes her head.

“How much did she pay you for them?” Theo asks.

Damn, he doesn’t shy away from the hard questions. I was going to save that one for last.

“Three thousand,” Dovie mutters.

Theo taps his index fingers against his chin. “Lotta money for some sexy snaps.”

Dovie picks up her empty wine glass, pours the dregs of the bottle into it and knocks it back. “She offered. I didn’t ask for any specific amount.”

“Then I won’t look to charge you for solicitation,” Theo says. His voice is pure cop and Dovie shudders. I can’t blame her.

“Are you going to arrest me?”

“Not right now, but I’m not ruling it out. I know you didn’t get Mr. Errol’s consent to sell the pictures. Did you get Laurel’s?”

Dovie’s shoulders round and she folds in on herself, holding the empty wine glass between her breasts. “No.”

Theo nods heavily and sits back in his chair. I take that as my signal to wrap up the interview.

“Were you aware of the pictures being used in an online attack against Rick Errol?” I ask.

Dovie nods. “I saw his Twitter.”

“Did you post anything? Participate in the Twitter?”

“The Twitter?” Dovie arches an eyebrow but at twin glowers from me and Theo, she shrugs. “Yes, I posted a few times. My user-name’s ThreeQueensMoreFun. I didn’t use any of the pictures. You can check.”

“I will,” Theo says. “I want you to email me all of your email and social media accounts. And I will check.”

Dovie looks appropriately cowed.

“Anything else you want to tell us?” I ask.

She shakes her head.

“Okay, thanks for your time—”

“He’s not the victim, you know,” Dovie says, her mouth twisting bitterly. “You’re investigating on his behalf.” She tips her chin at me. “You’re acting like I’m some kind of criminal.” Theo gets a derisive chin-tip. “But you weren’t in that room and you didn’t see what I saw. How he acted. He’s not a victim.”

“Rick deserves everything that’s happened to him,” I say, making it a statement rather than a question.

“Yes, he does.”

Sadly, if I hadn’t seen the Little Box of Horrors, I’d probably agree with her.

* * *

Theo’s a recapper. He goes over every detail of the interview as we drive back into the City. It’s interesting to hear his perspective, but he didn’t get anything out of its that I didn’t get.

“Evonne Wilson’s not all that common a name. The surname is, sure, but the combination? We should be able to find her.”

“Assuming that’s her real name,” I say.

“Yeah. But it really isn’t that easy to set up a fake PayPal account. PayPal links to either a credit card or a bank account and you can’t transfer money in or out unless you