Lance sat down at his huge oak desk and starting going through the papers. “A, B, C, here we go. Amber Lynn Cross, is that the one?”
Harper glanced at Amber. Her face had whitened, and her knuckles gripped the chair in front of her. He took the paper from Lance. It was a standard model release for pornographic material. Harper shook his head. Like he’d ever seen a standard model release for pornographic material. But it looked legitimate. “There’s a signature here. Is it yours?”
Amber grabbed the paper from him. Her complexion turned from white to ashen. “It looks a lot like my signature, but I swear to God, Harper, I never signed this.”
Sure you didn’t.
Harper growled. Who made him angrier, Amber or Lance? At the moment he wasn’t sure. “Let me see that file,” he said to Lance.
“I don’t know. These are confidential papers—”
Harper stepped forward and grabbed the file from Lance’s desk. He was sick to death of the sight of this creep.
“Do you know any of the other girls’ real names?” he asked Amber.
“Only Laura Lee, my roommate. Her name is Laura Ferguson.”
Harper leafed through the papers and handed one to Amber. “This her signature?”
Amber’s lips trembled. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I ever saw her signature. We each paid our own bills.”
“Never saw a rent check or anything?”
“I…I can’t remember. I’m sorry.”
“See, man?” Lance rubbed his slimy goatee. “I told you I run a clean operation here.”
“Were you present when any of the girls signed these?” Harper asked.
“Nope. I get the photos and the releases sent to me, and I put them up on the site.”
Was it possible the creep was actually innocent? Harper shook his head. His mother’d always said, “don’t judge a book by its cover.”
“Get up,” he said. “I need to use your computer.”
“Now just wait a minute—”
Harper stalked behind the desk, seized Lance by the collar, and yanked him out of the chair. “I said get the fuck up.”
Harper sat down and pulled up Microsoft Word. He typed in some standard language and hit print. When the paper came out of the printer, he glanced at it and then handed it to Amber. “Sign this. It’s a revocation of the model release. Once you sign it, he has to take your photos down.”
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“Gladly,” Amber said.
“I’ll need to see the lady’s identification,” Lance said. “I’m runnin’ a business here, after all.”
Harper’s ears grew warm. He was about to lose it. “For Christ’s sake.”
“It’s okay, Harper,” Amber said. “I’ll show him my ID. Anything to get those pictures down.” She fumbled in her purse, took out a wallet, and extracted a driver’s license. “Here.”
Lance looked at it and nodded.
“Satisfied?” Harper rose from the chair, took the release from Amber, and handed it to Lance. “Make two copies of this. One for me and one for the lady.”
“I’ll do it, bro.” Bernie took the release and ambled to the copy machine across the room.
“Now get those fucking photos off the site,” Harper said, “and delete every one of them from your hard drive. I also want any copies you have destroyed. Is that clear? As far as anyone’s concerned those photos never existed.”