Naughty Read Free Page A

began to say something. Hammett put a finger to his lips, than slipped her arm around his like they were old friends.
    “We’ll talk in the car, where it’s private.”
    He nodded, then put on a brave face and gave the parking attendant a ticket. Hammett had to smile.
    Beverly Hills. Of course Starbucks has a valet service.
    He drove a Mercedes S-Class, white, a new model. When it pulled up and Stuart fished out his wallet to tip the driver, Hammett slipped the revolver from his pocket. A .38 snub nose Colt Cobra. Older, reliable, but far from the luxury firearm a man like Lupowitz could afford.
    “What is it you want?” he asked once he took the driver’s seat. “Money?”
    “Drive,” Hammett said, studying the car’s instrument panel. “Head to West Hollywood. We’ll talk on the way. And buckle up for safety.”
    Lupowitz fumbled with his seatbelt. Hammett left hers off. If he tried anything stupid, like running into a tree, she figured the Benz’s airbags would be enough to save her.
    After driving in silence for half a minute, Lupowitz nervously and obviously patted his jacket pocket.
    “Looking for this?” Hammett pulled the .38 from under her cover-up. She opened the cylinder, saw it was full, and also noticed scratches on the crane where the serial number should have been.
    “Nasty little toy you’ve got here, Stu.”
    “I… I just wanted to scare you.”
    “Sure you did. And see how scared I am?” Hammett smiled wide, genuine.
    “Look, lady, I’m… I’m important in this town.”
    “And you wouldn’t want your buddies at the studio to find out your extracurricular habits.”
    He squeezed the steering wheel so hard his knuckles faded to white. “It’s not like that. I just have a couple of pictures on my computer. I never hurt anyone. I’m married, for chrissakes.”
    Hammett went cold inside. “Do you have kids?”
    “No.”
    Lucky for him. She would have shot him in the head right then.
    “But you like kids, don’t you, Stu?”
    “It’s… complicated. You don’t know how it is to be… I mean, imagine if you did something you thought was normal that society found reprehensible?”
    You have no idea.
    But Hammett wasn’t going to explain the differences between killing scumbags for the government and violating innocent kids for kicks.
    The silence that followed must have made Lupowitz uncomfortable, because he quickly followed up with, “What do you want from me? I have money. I can pay.”
    Oh, you’ll pay all right.
    “I want names, Stu. Where you got the pictures of the children.”
    He glanced sideways at her, eyes narrowing.
    “Are you a cop?”
    “No. Cops follow rules. I’m not arresting you. And I’m not blackmailing you, either.”
    “So what do you want?” She saw hope flit into his eyes. “To star in one of my movies? Are you an actress?”
    An interesting question. Hammett did consider herself an actor, but not the kind Lupowitz usually associated with.
    “I want names, Stu. Who sent you the pictures. Who you sent them to.”
    They came to a red light. Hammett kept the gun at hip level so passersby didn’t see it.
    Lupowitz’s eyebrows creased, as if he was in deep thought. “No one uses real names online,” he eventually said. “We don’t know each other.”
    “There’s no annual conferences? No meet-and-greets with a secret pedo handshake?”
    “Jesus, no! I mean, the secrecy, the security. Everyone is extremely careful. It would be easier to hack into the Pentagon.”
    That made sense. Unfortunately, it wasn’t what Hammett wanted to hear.
    “Somehow you got into one of these groups. How?”
    Lupowitz’s lips pressed together.
    “I bet a big wheel like you knows someone. If I were looking to score some kiddie porn in this town, who would I talk to?”
    The light turned green. Lupowitz didn’t move. Hammett slipped the scalpel out of her fanny pack and palmed it. She also kept her head down—lots of intersections in L.A. had cameras. If they