More sex.
I went back further. Opened another.
I gasped, stared wide-eyed at the laptop screen. Erin Mills.
I’d never met the woman, but I’d seen enough images of her to recognize her instantly. Blonde. Early twenties. Really pretty. I could add now that she also had a really nice figure.
She was smiling as she rolled her hips, fucking Shane beneath her. Her breasts were small and pert, the nipples large. I realized her lips were moving. She was talking. I hadn’t even thought about the sound. Pressing the button on my keyboard, I upped the volume, cringing as I heard dirty talk. “You love it when I fuck you like this. Your dick is so big. Every time, it’s like the first. God, I remember when you popped my cherry.” Her voice was soft and breathy.
I licked my lips, tried to remain calm. Analyzed the words. She’d implied it wasn’t the first time they had sex and one of the times Shane had taken her virginity. From what we knew of Erin, she’d had sex before her death with Mark Bastion, the ski coach. Kit Lancaster had mentioned a guy named Kurt who’d spent the night with Erin. We’d questioned him, Kurt Vaughn, and he’d confirmed they had a casual relationship. Fuck buddies, he’d said. She’d also slept with Mark Knowles. Three men that we knew of. Plus Shane.
I closed the video, checked the date. Three days before her murder. Fuck.
I had to assume she’d been sexually active for a while, which meant Shane had not only been with her right before she died, but for… years. I took out the memory card, swapped it for one of the others. Opened it. About twenty files. The dates were all from last year. I took it out, switched it for another. This one had about the same amount of files, but the dates stretched over the previous three years. I checked the last card and found it had the oldest dates. Seven years ago.
I clicked a file. Same bedroom, but the walls in the background were a different color. The foot of the bed was blurry but visible, and the comforter and sheet colors were not the same as the most recent.
This woman was just like the others, on top. She was young. Really young.
Leaning forward, I looked closely at the screen. There on the bed behind her was some clothing. It was a cheerleader top from Cutthroat High School. I recognized it, the blue and gold, the letters CHS on the front.
Seven years ago Shane would have been twenty or twenty-one, and he was fucking a high school girl. With the flexibility only someone so young had, she lifted up—without Shane coming out of her—and turned around to face away from the camera into reverse cowgirl. Her dark hair hung long down her back as she picked up her rhythm once again. A man’s hand came into view, and it spanked her right ass cheek, then rested there so his thumb could… fuck. He slipped his thumb into her ass as she kept riding him.
With the sound on, I couldn’t miss her squeal of surprise at the spank, then a moan as he worked his thumb all the way into her.
I shut the lid on the laptop. Stared. Remembered how Shane had done the same thing to me the night before. I hadn’t been in reverse cowgirl, but straddling and fucking Finch as he finger fucked my ass.
I burst into tears. Let them fall for a few minutes, then pulled myself together.
This wasn’t about me right now. It was about the Erin Mills murder investigation. We had no leads—until now. Shane had been with Erin three days before her death. I had to keep digging. I lifted the lid, let the screen come back on. I went through the older files one by one until I found it.
There was Erin Mills again. Standing at the foot of the empty bed. Fully clothed, thank God. This time she was younger. Based on the file date, she was sixteen.
Sixteen.
“You really think I can be in an Eddie Nickel movie?” She looked to the left of the camera as she spoke.
“Definitely. There are sex scenes in movies. It might be acting, but this isn’t something you can fake.” The voice was low, and I had to rewind it to hear the words. “Gotta show me your talents.”
“I’ve… I’ve never done this before.”
There was a pause, and the shot dipped and moved as if the camera was picked up.
“You’re filming this?” She smiled. “It’s a screen test, so of course you are. Okay.”
She tugged her top up and over her head, and I turned it off. I couldn’t watch it, completely disgusted at what I guessed was going to happen next, especially since she’d been tricked. She’d consented, but she was sixteen, which meant it wasn’t consent at all. It was rape.
Shane had made it clear to me how much he hated his dad, so he’d had no intention of helping Erin get into a movie. He’d lied. He’d raped. Took her virginity all for fun. And the cheerleader in the other file? I had to wonder if she’d been eighteen.
I closed the file, switched memory cards to the first one and opened the file from right before Erin’s murder. I found the spot where I’d stopped and watched it. Listened.
“When I was sixteen, you said I’d be in an Eddie Nickel movie.”
Her smile slipped, and instantly she looked different. Gone was the aroused, well-fucked look. She stopped moving, looked down at Shane. “You still filming your fucks?”
She looked up at the camera. Dead-on. She knew she was being filmed. Didn’t care.
“I wonder if everyone will want to know you like underage girls.”