5
A large Dunkin' Donuts coffee in one hand, the Post in the other, Richie Cordova elbowed his office door open and breezed through the reception area.
"What've we got today, Eddy?"
"New client at two."
He stopped in mid-breeze. "That's it?"
"Afraid so."
He shook his head. Christ, things were slow.
In his office he dumped his weight into the chair behind his desk, set down the coffee and paper, and pulled a bag containing a pair of glazed chocolate donuts from the side pocket of his jacket.
He hadn't been able to resist. Damn. He had everything else in his life pretty much locked down the way he wanted. His appetite was the only thing not under control.
Maybe tomorrow.
He hit the power button on his computer and gobbled one of the donuts while it warmed up.
He'd had a dream last night about that nun. A hot one. Must've been because he'd talked to her during the day. He knew what Sister Golden Hair looked like in her birthday suit and she was nothing great—sure as hell nothing like the faked-and-baked babes in the shots he downloaded from teen-lust.com—but she wasn't bad, and she was real. And he'd been there, watching in real time as he snapped shots. Last night he'd had that pale, hot little body sweating over him instead of Metcalf.
Richie entered his password and went directly to his photo files.
Photo-wise, he was moving away from film to digital. Eventually he'd be all digital, but old habits were hard to break. Photos of any kind had stopped being worth much in court these days. Too easily faked. Hell, even negatives could be faked. But things were different in the good old Court of Public Opinion. A compromising photo could still mess up a reputation.
Even if you came out and swore on a stack of Bibles that the pictures were fakes, those images stuck in people's minds long after the explanations had faded away.
He opened the SIS folder and double-clicked one of the jpeg files within. But instead of an image of Sister Maggie in a clinch with her fundraiser pal, he found only a string of flashing capital letters.