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  TAINTED PICTURES

  Part Two of The Photographer Trilogy

  By

  Sarah Robinson

  Tainted Pictures © Sarah Robinson

  ISBN-13: 978-1497433847

  ISBN-10: 1497433843

  Editing by Michael R. Burhans

  Formatting by Michael R. Burhans

  Balaat Professional Services

  Find Michael on Facebook, Twitter, or his Website.

  Email Michael at [email protected]

  Cover Design by S.K. Hartley

  Find the amazingly talented S.K. Hartley, Amazon Bestselling Author of The Bad Boy Series, on Facebook.

  Copyright © 2014 by Sarah Robinson

  All rights reserved. This document may not be reproduced in any way without the expressed written consent of the author. The ideas, characters, and situations presented in this story are strictly fictional and any unintentional likeness to real people or real situations is completely coincidental.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please delete and support the author by purchasing the book from one of its many distributors. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  DISCLAIMER:

  Due to violent and dark subject matters, this book is meant for 18+ years of age only.

  Dedication

  First and most importantly, thank you to my wonderful and sexy husband Justin who takes care of me in every single way. My life would be nothing without him!

  Second, this book is dedicated to every blogger, reader, street team member, and other fans who have dedicated their time in supporting me. I would not be an Amazon Bestselling author without each and every one of you and I will never forget that. Every one of you is the reason that I write.

  CONNECT ON SOCIAL MEDIA with Sarah

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  Read Book 1 in the photographer trilogy

  Find Tainted Bodies on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Createspace, and Kobo.

  Signed paperbacks are available on Author website.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Sarah Robinson is the two-time Amazon Bestselling Author of Sand & Clay, Tainted Bodies, and the soon to be released Tainted Pictures. Tainted Bodies and Tainted Pictures are the first two books in The Photographer Trilogy.

  She is a native of the Washington, DC area and has both her Bachelors and Masters Degrees in psychology. She spent several years working as a mental health therapist with poor and homeless populations with severe mental illnesses, working in a sex offender rehabilitation center, and teaching victim empathy classes in an adult detention center. All of these in depth work experiences in such intense environments have given her a plethora of experiences to draw from when writing crime dramas.

  Writing has been her hobby since high school and she has been published several times from poetry to articles to short stories, and now novels. Her most recent article was published on Indie Writer's Guide. Her most recent poetry was published in Blue Ink Literary Magazine.

  Sand & Clay was her first full length novel and will have a sequel coming out in 2015. Sand & Clay reached Amazon's Top 100 Hot Reads in October 2013. Her second book is called Tainted Bodies and is the first part of The Photographer Trilogy. Tainted Bodies came out on January 1st, 2014 with other parts of the trilogy to follow later in 2014. Tainted Bodies reached Amazon’s Bestseller Rank in Crime and Crime Thriller on April 4th, 2014 and stayed on those lists for over two weeks. She also has a large following on the popular social media site for book lovers, Goodreads.

  Sarah Robinson's Facebook fan site quickly exploded when she created it in September 2013 and has now reached over 10,000 likes. She updates it personally and loves interacting with her fans through all her social media platforms. Several blogs have also highlighted Sarah's work including a one week blog tour in October 2013 highlighting her first novel, Sand & Clay, in which over 40 blogs participated in reviews, promos, cover reveals, interviews, and giveaways. This was followed by a second blog tour in February 2014 for her second book, Tainted Bodies, in which 65 blogs participated. Tainted Pictures is her third book and the second installment of The Photographer Trilogy.

  Her writing often concentrates on the complexity of love and emotions and the struggles of finding your destined path through life as well as overcoming life's tragedies and misfortunes. She combines psychological complexities and human emotions to create very real characters experiencing life in a very real way. Her books focus on redemption and forgiveness and learning to build on what has been broken.

  Much of her inspirations come from the amazing love she shares with her new husband, Justin Robinson, and the emotions around falling head over heels in love with your soul mate. She and her new husband are also big animal rescue enthusiasts and have 16 pets as well as volunteering with multiple animal shelters and rescues. Together, they own a zoo of rescues including 2 dogs, 3 cats, 4 kittens, 1 box turtle, 1 snapping turtle, 3 smaller aquatic turtles. Her celebrity idol is Ellen DeGeneres, she even named her adorable little certified service dog after her (a Shih Tzu-Bichon mix named Elly) and she never misses a show, thanks to the powers of DVR!

  CHAPTER ONE

  Kate Jackson knew that 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, DC. The photograph was burning a hole in the bottom of her purse that seared against her like 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. In fact, 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 just 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 Delaware beaches with Derrick, her handsome boyfriend of six months. 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 danced around the conversation for as long as possible brushing it off as if it meant nothing to him. 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.

  But all that had finally changed that weekend, when Kate put her foot down. She stated that she needed to know that 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 and 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 newfound relationship out of the water.

 
~~~~

  When Derrick had dropped Kate off at her apartment after their trip, he had not realized that they were not alone. He had just helped her bring her luggage inside from their weekend trip and he was tired from the drive and the dread of work in the early morning. He hadn’t seen anyone in the hallway or had even the slightest feelings of unease. But they had not been alone, someone had watched them enter the building and had stayed out of Derrick’s sight, only to replace him the moment he left.

  Derrick’s replacement was an intruder who forced his way into the apartment the moment Derrick had returned to his car and was driving away, clueless of the scene he had just left behind. The masked invader forced his way into Kate’s apartment 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 almost unrecognizable.

  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 here she was walking away from the police station, holding her secret tight against her body locked away in her purse and 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 a camera from his pocket. It was bulky and big and the kind that printed out instant photographs that took a few moments to fade into a picture.

  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. 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 but the detective had said to tell her if there was anyone in the book that 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 intensity 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, towards her apartment, contemplating her situation. Her stride was strong since the mug shot discovery this morning had given her a surge of confidence that she had not felt since before the attack.

  ~~~~

  Kate was around five foot six inches so she wasn’t particularly tall, especially when she was standing next to Derrick who towered above her at around six and a half feet. 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. Kate also had dark brown, curly hair that 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.

  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 and 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.

  ~~~~

  “Craig McDermott. 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 parole 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.” Detective Mike McCraig spouted off, 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 had
n’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. 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 said, standing up and stretching then searching 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.

  “I mean 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 consolidated what Liz was saying, nodding his head in agreement.