062

Tanner had taken the week off to help me move, so we had a lot of time to play in between trips to my old place and returning to mine. Since we hadn't lived together beforehand, I didn't really know what it would be like being with him all the time. What kind and how many adjustments and compromises would need to be made, but I enjoyed being around him. When he wasn't working anyway, he was perfectly willing to cook some of the time, help clean the house, and other household chores. He'd been living on his own for several years and was able to take care of himself if necessary. When he started back to work, since I wasn't going to be working, he would expect more of those things out of me, but it was one of the agreements we'd made before our marriage. I wouldn't work and I'd take care of the house until it was time to have children. I was okay with it. If I started working again or doing other things like volunteer work to take up my time, he was willing to readjust, but for now, this was our agreement.

As soon as I was home, my girlfriends started calling and wanting to get together. As I still didn't know who to trust, I was reluctant to meet with them. As long as Tanner was home, I had a ready made excuse, but once he started work, it would be tougher to put them off. On Thursday, Tiffany called, wanting to get together for the evening with some of the other girls. I told her I'd try to get together after Tanner went back to work, but for now, I wanted to spend time with him.

"Remember, men need a chance to get away just as much as women do," Tiffany said. "Play poker, shoot hoops, go drinking, do whatever. He'll resent you if you if you occupy all his time. You need to give him some space for guy things. Don't hog all of his time."

"I understand, but it's just this week, and I actually have a lot of things to do. I have to bring the marriage license and new address to Motor Vehicles to get a new driver's license, do some shopping to get things for the apartment. Tanner was kind of roughing it until I moved in so I could make whatever changes I wanted to make. I promise we can get together sometime next week."

"Don't forget who your friends are. We've known you a lot longer than Tanner has."

That was the trouble. I didn't know who my friends were and it made me nervous. Most of them were probably loyal, but I didn't know who. I actually saw Sydney a couple times with Tanner, once when we went to his parents and once when we had them over for supper.

The other thing I couldn't do while Tanner was home was hire a detective. I couldn't explain to him why I needed one, so I couldn't look for one while he was around. As soon as he went back to work on Monday, I would start looking. The fortunate part of my delay was I hadn't heard from my blackmailer since he gave me my last task on my honeymoon. Not a peep. I hoped it meant he was finished with me, but I had no expectation my travails were over. I assumed it was because he keeping tabs on me and knew Tanner was home.

The Monday Tanner went back to work, I was researching private investigators. There were a lot of choices in the Atlanta area, from huge mega firms to tiny one man operations. I worried the big places would cost too much and throw too many resources at it and Tanner would find out I'd hired them and the smaller ones wouldn't have resources enough. I looked for something in the smaller to mid range and made an appointment for 9:30 Tuesday.

At the appointed time I arrived and informed the secretary I was there to see Mr. Caponero. She spoke with him and said it would be a couple minutes and to have a seat. Five minutes later, she was leading me back to his office.

He stood up to shake hands with me. "Mrs. Mason, I'm Mauro Caponero. Please have a seat." The secretary left, closing the door behind her.

Mr. Caponero looked to be in his early to mid fifties, wiry and energetic. He looked to be my height, making him 5-9 or so. His black hair was peppered with gray. He waited until I sat down, then said, "You didn't really discuss why you needed a private detective when you made your appointment. Would you like to tell me why you need one?"

"I'm being blackmailed."

"For money?" Mauro asked.

"No, sir. For sex."

"Excuse me a moment. I need to get someone else in here."

He got up and before his hand was on the door, I said, "Please, sir. It's very sensitive. I'd like to keep it to as few people as possible."

"I understand, but any time there's a discussion about sex with a beautiful woman, I like to have another woman here with me. Let's just say it's for my protection in case there's any misunderstanding, but if it's going to involve surveillance, I'm going to need a female anyway for doing things like going into ladies bathrooms. The person I'm getting is one of my best operatives and I'd like her to sit in because she has a unique perspective on these types of cases."

I nodded and he left, coming back about eight minutes later with a woman, about an inch shorter than him, wearing dirty, nondescript clothes, some grime on her face and hands. She looked like a bag lady. Mauro introduced her.

"This is Jolene Baxter," he said, "one of my best. Sorry for her appearance, she's been doing surveillance this morning on another case. I yanked her in here before she had a chance to clean up."

I put out my hand but she raised both of hers. "Not yet, Mrs. Mason. My hands are filthy. Mauro, have you got some hand sanitizer and a rag?"

He handed her the requested items and she took a moment to clean up as best as she could. She still wouldn't shake until she had a chance to wash her hands with soap and water. "There's a limit to what you can do with sanitizer."

"Please proceed, Mrs. Mason."

I gave them the entire sordid story from Jeremy sticking his prick in my mouth at the party to my last task.

"You should never have agreed to his initial demands," Jolene said. "You should have stopped the wedding yourself, pulled Tanner and the women present at the party together, explained the whole thing and been done with it."

"I know that now," I said. "I thought I was ending it by getting his phone."

"It was clever of him to wait until right before the ceremony when you'd be the most panicked and had the least amount of time to think about the consequences," Mauro said. "Do you still have some of the things he sent you?"

"Not the first one of Jeremy. I destroyed that phone before I left the wedding and threw away all the pieces, but I still have the others. I'm so ashamed of these. Do you really need to see them?"

"We'd like to check the metadata on them, so it is important," Mauro said.

"Metadata?" I asked.

"All digital cameras store metadata about the picture in a separate file attached to the picture. This includes things like the date and time, camera make and model, f-stop, apertures setting, ISO, and even the location the photo was taken if the camera has GPS capabilities. If they haven't stripped the information from the photo before they sent it to you, the metadata may give us some clues about the blackmailer."

I opened my phone and the file with the disgusting stuff in them and reached out to Mauro to pass him the phone.

"Not me, Mrs. Mason. Give them to Jolene. It's one of the reasons she's here. I know it's difficult for you."

I handed the phone to Jolene and she opened the first one. You could hear the sounds of me sucking my blackmailers cock at the church. Tears started running down my face. Jolene turned the sound off. For the next several minutes, she watched silently without saying a word. Not even the expression on her face gave away what she was thinking.

"Mauro, take down this number and check it out on the internet," she said when she finished. She ran off a long number. "Here's another one." She gave him another number. "And this is the last one." She rattled off a third. It must have been from the metadata they mentioned. She handed me the phone back. Mauro copied them all down and pulled his computer screen over and started searching each of the numbers he'd written down.

Mauro announced, "The first two are nanny cam cameras. The last one is like a home security camera, probably the clubs security cameras."

"Nanny cams?" I asked.

"Small wireless cameras that can be hidden in teddy bears in nurseries so parents know nannies aren't abusing their children," Jolene said.

"I never saw any teddy bears," I said.

"They don't have to be in teddy bears. They can be in anything. Spy agencies and law enforcement use them all the time. They can go into clocks, knick knacks, toys; anyplace you want to hide a camera so it doesn't look like a camera. They can look like buttons, eyeglasses. If you didn't see one on the beach, it might have looked like a flower or a coconut or even a shell. You have to assume any time you follow your blackmailer's instructions, you're being recorded, and you may not know what or where it is," Jolene said.

"Just lovely."

"I know how bad these look," Jolene said. "Have you thought about telling your husband and being done with it? He's got no power if your husband knows."

"I explored the possibility of telling him as soon as I got the first one. I asked him if he could forgive me if I ever did something bad. He said he could forgive anything but my being with another man."

"Fucking men!" Jolene said. "They treat you like a fucking possession and if anyone touches their fucking toy, for any reason at all, you're thrown in the dumpster. Assholes!"

Wow. That was unexpected.

"Jolene. A little professionalism please," Mauro said.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Mason. I get a little worked up about cases like this one. Please accept my apologies."

"Okay," I said. "What brought that on?"

"I have my reasons, but I don't like to talk about it. I'm sorry."

"Obviously, I'd like to know who my blackmailer is and get him to stop. But I believe one of the people I've thought of as my closest friends is helping my blackmailer. I'd like to find out who so I can cut ties with them and go back to trusting the others. Heres a list of their names and addresses. Anything you can find out about them and their ties to my blackmailer would be appreciated."

"We're assuming you don't want your husband to know you hired us," Mauro said. "Are you going to be able to pay us without him knowing?"

"I had some money saved up from when I was working. It's several thousand dollars. Tanner makes a good salary and can support us both without my working. He told me I can spend it anyway I want. This is how I want to spend it. He won't know. He has no connection to the account. If I need more, I can probably tell my parents why I need the money without giving them details. How much are we talking about?"

"We'd need a retainer of a thousand dollars," Mauro said. "My services are three hundred an hour. Jolene's are two hundred. Anyone else is also two hundred. You only pay us for the time we're actually working your case. What we'd like to do is be at any future meetings and follow him home at the very least. You'll have to stall him until we get into place unless you can afford twenty-four hour surveillance, which might tip your husband off. Here's our two cell phone numbers. Call immediately if you hear from him. Try to give us at least an hour to get in place wherever we need to be. If we have to send anyone else because we're tied up, they won't have to know the reason they're tailing someone. We won't tell anyone else unless it's absolutely necessary."

"Thank you," I said, getting out my checkbook and writing out a check for a thousand dollars.

"Don't thank us until we've actually run the bastard to ground," Jolene said. "Until then, all we're doing is taking your money."

"You've given me hope and I haven't had any since my wedding. That's worth a thank you. I was ready to kill myself eleven days ago, after he sent me the last video."

"Please don't do that," Jolene said. "Don't even think about it. No one is worth your life. Don't forget that."

I stuck out my hand again and Mauro shook it; Jolene held up her hands again. "I'll shake it later," she said, "next time you see me cleaned up."

I laughed. "I'll take you up on that."