Chapter 1

This story takes place in September of 2008

I picked up the card that was lying on my blotter, reading what was on it:

Wilson Sloan

Photographer

There was a phone number – whether it was a regular phone or a cell phone the card didn't say. The man who'd given me the card was sitting across my desk from me.

He was perhaps in his 40s, bald with an obvious comb-over and a fringe of hair that looked too black to be natural, a receding chin, a faint haze of gray stubble on his face, and wearing a leisure suit, of all things. I hadn't thought there was one of those still in existence. He had a slightly predatory, slightly oily look, as though a weasel had gone rooting in a jar of KY Jelly.

"My wife," I said, "told me something of what you want, but why don't you start from scratch and tell me about it?" The wife of whom I'd spoken was sitting to my left, in a straight backed chair she'd taken from in front of the desk. She had a white legal pad on her knee, with that leg crossed over the other – not the oh-so-correct way of most women and every executive I've ever seen, but with her ankle on the other knee, like I do it.

"She's your secretary?" Sloan asked.

"Yeah, and she's considering whether she wants to hang around and apply for her PI license in three years. Tell me what you need." I leaned back in my chair – a luxurious leather chair with brass ornamental tacks, or brads, or whatever you call 'em, quilting the leather. It was one of the first things Cecelia had ever given me, and after all these years it still doesn't squeak or groan when I use it.

"Well, I'm a photographer," Sloan said, never mind that his card told me that. "I, um..."

"What sort of photography do you do?" I asked.

"People..."

I glanced at Cecelia. She'd noticed as surely as I had that he kept avoiding a real answer, though her face didn't show anything. If she ever wanted to, she could play a mean game of poker.

I looked back at Sloan. "Is the sort of photography you do germane to your problem?"

"Germane?"

I hadn't thought it was such an unusual word, nothing like the 84-barreled words Cecelia likes to use. "Relevant," I said. "Does it have anything to do with your problem?"

"Yeah." He twitched his jaw a couple of times. "I shoot ... women."

I looked at Cecelia again, and this time I could tell that she was furious and disgusted. Sloan wouldn't be able to read her, but I've known her since the fall of 1994 and I could. "Let me guess," I said. "At best, these are women who aren't wearing any clothes, and at worst they're doing things that ought to be private."

"Yeah."

"Maybe I don't want this case," I said.

"Wait!" Sloan seemed suddenly desperate.

"You'd better get to it, then."

"Well, there was a shoot last week. You know some men like 'em young, or at least they like 'em to look young. You know some models can look five years younger than they are – you know, 18-year-olds looking like they're 12, that sort of thing."

I nodded. I was perfectly satisfied with Cecelia, but I'd had my wild days when I was young. I'd never been into looking at jail bait, but I'd known some guys who were. In some circles they call those guys "chicken hawks," or at least they used to – I'd never known why.

"Well, this shoot, I swear the girl really was 12. She wasn't just young-looking, she was a kid."

"But you did the shoot?"

"Hey, it's how I make a living, okay? But I couldn't forget her. Just a kid, you know, it was kiddie porn."

"If I called the cops right now, they could bust you for that."

"You call the cops, I won't say a thing. I don't know nothin', okay?"

The answer didn't surprise me, and I went on. "So what do you want me to do?"

"Find the girl, that's all. Find her and get her out of the business. No kid deserves to be in that kind of a shoot."

"I can't think of anyone who does," I said. When Sloan started to reply I waved him to silence. "Let me think about it," I said after a moment. "This ain't my usual kind of case. I'll talk it over with Mrs. Carpenter, and we'll get back to you."

"But—"

"But this is my business," I said. "I'm the guy who pays the salaries around here. You wanna go to another PI, fine. You wanna use me, you do it my way."

"Okay," he said. "When will I hear from you?"

I looked at the calendar on my blotter. It was conspicuously blank except for Sloan's appointment – I work so sporadically that I don't get many appointments. "Today's Friday," I said. "You'll hear from me no later than Monday afternoon. This number good any time?" I asked, thumping his card with my forefinger.

"Yeah."

"Then we're done for now. My wife will see you out."

"Wait – one more thing." He reached into the side pocket of his suit coat ... or blazer, or sport coat, or whatever it was. I never did know much about those things, and don't really care, and besides I suspect that things are different with a leisure suit. He came out with a handful of photographs, which he laid out on the desk like cards, right side up for me. They were photos of a girl – I could tell she was a girl, not a young woman – with various expressions of what I supposed she'd intended to reflect ecstasy but which gave me a feeling of pure fakery. And there was one, which seemed very different. All the others showed her head against a pillow, her hair spread out around her head, but in the last one she seemed to be upright, her hair hanging beside her face.

And on her face there was an expression of pure terror.