Tainted Pictures: The Photographer Trilogy, #2

By Sarah Robinson

The second installment of the bestselling romantic suspense series, The Photographer Trilogy, returns and The Photographer is back with Kate in his crosshairs…will she find out who he is in time to save the one person who matters most?

 

The small, quiet life Kate Jackson had built for herself is over. The Photographer is back, haunting her at every turn with his menacing hints, reminding her that he owns her. Her romance with Derrick Kane is in shreds, their trust destroyed. Everything she'd ever worked for is crumbling through her fingers.

 

But Kate is a fighter and refuses to allow a sadistic killer to take everything from her yet again. She delves into the police investigation targeting The Photographer to finally reveal his true identity, but Kate quickly learns that finding the face behind the mask doesn't always make you safe.

 

Monsters are only uglier in the light of day. 

 

Trigger Warning: Due to violent and dark subject matter, this book is intended for 18+ years old. This book does contain triggers for violence and abuse. This is the second book in a trilogy and ends on a cliffhanger. The next book, Untainted, is available on all retailers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sarah Robinson
• Release date: Apr 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781497433847

Sarah Robinson

Top 10 Barnes & Noble and Amazon bestseller Sarah Robinson is a native of the Washington, DC, area and holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in criminal psychology. She works as a counselor by day and romance novelist by night. She owns a small zoo of furry pets and is actively involved in volunteering in her community.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Kate Jackson knew she had just entered a moral gray area as she hugged her purse against her and walked out of the police station onto the dingy streets of Washington, D.C.

The photograph was burning a hole in the bottom of her purse that seared against her with its hot flames of guilt. She knew that she had just knowingly and willingly withheld evidence from Detective Liz Snow regarding the police investigation into her attack.

Maybe it wasn’t a moral gray area at all.

Maybe it was a plain black and white case of wrong and right and Kate had picked wrong.

She stepped off the sidewalk and looked down the street both ways as she crossed the intersection, thinking about what had just transpired. It had been almost two weeks since Kate had been attacked in her apartment on a late Sunday evening.

She had just gotten home from a weekend getaway to the beach in Delaware with her boyfriend, Derrick, and was still floating on air from the enjoyment of her vacation. She and Derrick had finally defined their relationship and committed to exclusivity after six months of Derrick resisting any type of label.

Kate had been hinting and even downright begging him for months to be monogamous, but he had flounced around the conversation like someone who walks around broken glass to avoid cutting up their feet. He treated it like it was shackles and entrapment, wanting to keep their relationship to just being friends. Friends who slept together and friends who said they were in love with each other and friends who spent every moment together...but still just friends.

What? No, thank you.

All that had finally changed that weekend, when Kate put her foot down and stated that she needed to know they had a future and if they didn’t then she was going to move on.

Derrick had revealed that his reluctance to make things serious between the two of them was due to an ex-girlfriend who had broken his heart by cheating on him with a much older and married man.

Kate had been able to reassure him that she would never be so callous as to cheat on him or hurt him in any way.

Derrick had decided to trust her. He made the leap and took that plunge into a fully exclusive and real relationship with the woman that he loved.

Neither one of them would have guessed that hours later, an event would occur that would blow their entire relationship out of the water.

A masked invader forced his way into Kate’s apartment later that evening through violent means, leaving her barely breathing and desperately trying to crawl away from the mad man. She wasn’t that lucky though, since he quickly overpowered her and dragged her to her bedroom where he raped her and beat her until her bruised and swollen face was barely recognizable.

All of this had been told to the police already, they knew every detail as Kate had recounted it to Detective Liz Snow that morning. However, she had left out a pretty key piece of the puzzle, and in all honesty, she didn’t really know why.

All she had to do was open up her purse, pull out the photograph, and hand it to the detective. But she couldn’t do it and now she was walking away from the police station, holding her secret tight against her body, locked away in her purse, its existence only known to her.

The picture was embarrassing.

It was graphic, and it was Kate.

It was Kate in the worst moment of her life, bared for the viewer to see every vulnerable inch of her soul. After her attacker had finished assaulting her, he had pulled out an instant-photo camera from his pocket.

He had taken two photographs of her laying on her bed, completely beaten up and barely conscious. One photograph he had taken with him and the other photograph had been tossed at her and left for her, maybe as some sort of memento. She wasn’t sure.

He had even told her to say thank you, thinking that he was doing her a favor by assaulting her. Each bead of sweat that had dampened his ski mask reeked of narcissism.

Kate thought about Craig, the employee at the coffee shop that she frequented often. She had just pointed out his mug shot to Detective Snow after hours of combing through a giant binder of mug shots. She had been shocked to see a face she recognized and she wasn’t sure if it would even mean anything.

The detective had said to tell her if there was anyone in the book she recognized and she had immediately recognized Craig.

She considered what little she knew of Craig’s personality and it didn’t seem far fetched to think he would be a narcissist. He seemed to be the exact opposite of his cousin, Jimmy, who had gotten him a job at the coffee shop and who had had a crush on Kate for years. Kate had never paid much attention to it because he was much younger than her and had all the characteristics of a teenager, from his greasy hair to his pimply skin.

Kate had never actually had a conversation with Craig and had really only seen him one or two times, without really paying much attention. However, she had remembered the intensity of his gaze and how when he had stared at her the first time she saw him.

The seriousness of it made her skin crawl as if a thousand tiny insects had suddenly devoured her flesh, trying to force their way inside. Derrick had been with her and even his instincts were alerted as he had pulled Kate tighter against him in an automatic form of protection. However, neither one of them had ever given it more thought than that, the threat seemed minute and was quickly passed over.

Kate took the metro to work every day and because she was a beautiful woman, she was used to getting the creeps from men who ogled her. It didn’t occur to her that one of these random men might follow her home and attack her.

Who could predict something like that?

Kate continued walking down the sidewalk toward her apartment, contemplating her situation. Her stride was strong, as the mug shot discovery this morning had given her a surge of confidence that she had not felt since before the attack.

Confidence was rare on her.

At around five foot six inches, she wasn’t particularly tall, especially when she was standing next to Derrick who towered above her at around six feet three inches. She was a few pounds over what she should be, but luckily most of it was in places that just made her more curvy rather than plump.

She was used to attracting the wrong sort of men who only saw her for her heavy endowment up front or her curvaceous behind. Her dark brown, curly hair hung all the way down her back and jumped about in any way it pleased, regardless of what she wanted. Her skin was very pale in contrast to her dark brown eyes, brunette hair, and deep red lips that she inherited from her Grecian family lineage.

Unless Kate was going to work, she was usually dressed for comfort rather than style, so she was currently sporting some yoga pants under a long sweatshirt and some tennis shoes. Not particularly glamorous, but it was hard to feel glamorous when you still had residual bruises on your face and cuts scabbed over on your cheek.

She had put on some foundation and cover up before she left the house, but there was not enough powder in the world to hide the dark purple around her eye or the scabbed cut on her cheek. Luckily, she was healing quickly…at least on the outside.

Her heart was an entirely different matter.

The doctors told her that within another week the bruising should have dissipated to the point of not being visible to every stranger on the street, then a few weeks after that they should be gone entirely. Kate couldn’t wait for that because she hated the constant reminders from every passerby that she still looked like a victim.

Sometimes she would forget about everything for a moment which was pure bliss. She longed for those chapters of her day, but inevitably someone’s stare would always ground her back into reality. She was avoiding mirrors as much as possible, so that at least she wouldn’t be one of those eyes that sting her to her very core.

Kate was almost home at this point and started pulling her keys out of her pocket. She passed the alley next to her building and happened to look up towards her window, seeing the fire escape leading up there.

Her attacker had left her apartment via that exact fire escape and Kate had since locked and alarmed all of her windows, in hopes of comforting herself from the possibility of any reentry.

She shook her head as if to wipe those memories clean and headed past the alley up to her apartment building’s front door.

CHAPTER TWO

Craig McDermott, Detective Mike McCraig cited. Twenty-two years old, living in South East reportedly with his grandmother, his aunt, and his cousin who he also works with. A high school kid named Jimmy. Recently paroled and working at the Java Jolt per the terms of his release regarding steady employment. Looks like his cousin helped him to get the job. He is just under six feet tall, of Hispanic origins, brown hair, and brown eyes. Nothing much that would stand out if you were to pass him on the street.

The detective kept reading from a yellow folder as he leaned back in his chair with his feet up on the desk. Mike was partners with Detective Liz Snow and while she was the lead in Kate’s investigation, he was doing a lot of the background research based off the information that Liz was bringing in.

Liz had told him this morning about Kate identifying Craig’s mug shot, even though she couldn’t be sure it was her attacker. All she knew was that she had met him before and had gotten an uneasy feeling from him.

Liz had gotten leads from less in the past, so she was confident that this wasn’t one to ignore.

What’s his sheet say he did? Liz said, referring to Craig’s criminal history.

She was sitting on her desk about five feet away from her partner, tossing rolled up paper balls into a trashcan across the room. She wasn’t athletic, but something about the rhythmic motions helped her concentrate.

Just did three years out of ten because of good behavior up in New York. He was busted after a college girl fingered him for raping her while she was passed out drunk. Apparently he had been drinking, too. It was a big frat party and a witness was able to support her statement saying he saw them having sex, but hadn’t realized that she was passed out from the angle he was at. Craig denied it and I’m guessing still denies it because I don’t see anything about a confession anywhere in here, Mike told her.

Did he plead not guilty? Liz asked.

Yeah, swore he was drunk and doesn’t remember that night, but knows he wouldn’t do that and that he hadn’t had sex. His defense was he can’t get it up when he is drunk, so how could he have raped anyone? Mike snorted as he scoffed at the report he was reading.

Sometimes he couldn’t believe the things that criminals said to try to get themselves out of hot water.

Shitty lawyer. That’s a crap defense, Liz mused, wondering what the real story was behind that case.

You called it. Took the jury thirty minutes to return their verdict, Mike said, sitting up and closing the folder.

He took his feet off the desk and plopped the folder down on top.

I think it’s a hot lead we need to follow, he continued. It would be a pretty insane coincidence if she happened to pick out a rapist from the binder who wasn’t her attacker. He looks pretty good for it. Mike stood up and stretched, then searched through his top drawers for some quarters to get a soda from the vending machine.

You think? Liz asked, following him to get a soda.

Mike glanced at her, shooting her a puzzled look saying he didn’t understand her hesitation.

There are a crap ton of rapists in that binder. The district is big, but it isn’t entirely out of the realm of possibilities that she would recognize someone that had nothing to do with her attack, Liz argued the other side.

Don’t get stuck in tunnel vision, Mike considered what Liz was saying, nodding his head in agreement. I get it.

Exactly, Liz agreed and popped her coins into the machine, hitting the button for a highly-caffeinated soda.

The partners headed back to their desks.

Okay, let’s find out every bit we can find about Craig. See if there are any ties we can make to Kate aside from the coffee shop. I am going to look to see if they ever collected his fingerprints or DNA. Maybe if it’s in the system, we will have some luck, Liz said to Mike, although she was mostly just thinking out loud.

Mike didn’t need any instruction into how to investigate a case. He was a seasoned professional and she had learned a lot in her time working with him.

CHAPTER THREE

You look beautiful, Derrick said to Kate as she opened the front door for him and he walked into her apartment.

She blushed and rolled her eyes. She was wearing blue pajama bottoms with snowmen on them and a gray tank top. Her hair was in a loose French braid down the back of her head and she was not wearing any makeup. She knew exactly what she looked like and beautiful was not it. Especially when you take into consideration the stubborn bruises and lacerations on her face, arms, and chest that poked out around her tank top.

Don’t roll your eyes at me. You know I don’t lie. Derrick flashed his bad boy smile at her that made her