DISCLAIMER - Not mine.

A/N - Hmmm…things should start getting very interesting soon. Hope you enjoy this chapter. Please review! The more reviews I get, the more inspired I get (subtle, no?).

Mac arrived at the Chief's office feeling a deep sense of foreboding. The case had become a monster, enveloping everybody. To have it so callously derailed was infuriating. Flack's insistence that he meet the detective in the Chief's office, even more so. He knew, with a terrible certainty, that it was someone in the lab who had leaked the photos. They had the easiest access to the negatives and prints after all. He hesitated in the waiting area.

He glanced sideways, at Flack. The detective would not meet his eye. Mac stood behind the spare seat. He gripped the back of it tightly. It hadn't escaped his notice that the Chief was nervously flipping a pen between his thick fingers. For a man who was becoming ever more involved with politics, he failed miserably at hiding his anxiety.

"Sit down, Detective Taylor."

Mac smiled without humour. "I'll stand."

The Chief matched his expression. "As you wish." he said.

"What is this about?"

Flack shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "The pictures, Mac." he said softly. "They came from the lab."

"And?"

"We have reason to suspect they came from one of your CSIs."

Mac switched his sharp gazed back to the Chief, who didn't back down. A sinking feeling settled in the ex-Marine. He had believed in his people. Stella was an old friend. Danny - Lindsey - Sheldon - they were all people he had selected with care. All people he trusted, despite the occasional hiccup along the way.

"One of my team?"

Flack nodded. "Or someone close to them."

"One of the techs."

This was starting to look suspicious. With the political and financial situation growing worse, people were getting very nervous. Mac supposed, dully, that he should have expected something like this. An angry or desperate person might have seen the photos as a way of getting revenge, or making money fast. It made him feel nauseous.

"Any ideas?" the Chief asked. He leaned forward.

Mac's shoulders drooped. His grip on the chair tightened till his knuckles went white. "No."

"Get some. Fast."

With that, the Chief opened a thin file that lay on his desk. Mac risked a glance across at Flack. The detective still could not meet his eyes. With a growl, Mac turned on his heel, and stormed out of the office. Flack twisted in his chair just in time to see the door slam.

"That went better than I expected."

Flack faced the Chief. "It went better?"

The Chief shrugged. "Yeah. You ever seen Mac really mad?"

Graeme Willoughby shifted from side to side in his chair, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. He knew that the Williams family would find out about his relationship with Lara. Equally, he knew that when her older brother found out about it, all hell would break loose. Casting a glance upwards, Willoughby caught CSI Bonasera's eye. She stared right back at him. A beautiful woman like that, made of steel, he thought wryly, and she's here scraping under my goddamned fingernails.

"So," he said quietly, "you know about me and Lara?"

The CSI packed the sample away. "We had an idea."

"I know-"

"Mr Willoughby, maybe you should wait for your lawyer."

He shook his head. "No. Lara and I - well, it was a mistake, obviously. I won't try to excuse my actions."

Stella clasped her hands together. She looked him directly in the eye, waiting for Graeme Willoughby to start talking about his lover. In the background, Detective Bradwen stood listening in. Though it was his job to speak to the agent, it couldn't hurt to simply let him talk. And if he was more comfortable explaining things to Stella Bonasera, Bradwen wasn't concerned. He could have chosen worse amongst the PD itself.

The tale Willoughby spun was convincing. It seemed that he had taken Lara on as a client when she was just fifteen years old and he had just turned twenty one, on a visit to see his mother in Pierre, South Dakota. He had just been starting out at the agency - Lara was his first 'discovery'. They had been close from the start, though as Willoughby told it, the relationship was platonic.

"Lara wanted to be a big star. She was doing pretty good - not quite as good as she wanted though." the agent explained.

He continued, in a low voice, explaining how his young star had become increasingly isolated. Too young to go out drinking with some of the older models, and too far from her old friends, she had few people to rely on. It was then that the close working relationship Lara and her agent had fostered deepened into a friendship. Willoughby admitted having sex with Lara, but maintained that it had only happened after she turned eighteen.

"I know I should never have let anything happen with Lara - but she meant a lot to me. It - it wouldn't have gone on much longer, but we were friends above anything else." Willoughby finished. He bit his lip, fighting back tears.

Stella's disapproval of him wavered. "What about the night Lara died?"

"I told you already - I wasn't at her apartment. We agreed to have a couple of weeks apart."

"Was she seeing anybody else? Confiding in anybody?"

Willoughby shrugged. "Don't think she was seeing anybody else. I hope not - but she was very young, and maybe a little impressionable." He blushed, as if realising how that sounded. "Lara was smart. She was never overwhelmed or impressed by me. As far as she was concerned, I was like a local guy from Pierre. Some of the people she met at work though, they turned her head."

"Anybody in particular?" Bradwen asked.

"Not really. Maybe Ellis Freeley. He's a photographer - but he's been in South Africa for the last six weeks." Willoughby ran a hand across his growing stubble. "Lukas DiBeneditto."

Stella recognised the name, despite herself. DiBeneditto was probably the best known male model in the United States. He had worked for most of the major fashion houses at one time or another, and at twenty two, still had time left at the top. The young man also had a terrible reputation as a womaniser. Whatever Graeme Willoughby wanted to think, his young lover probably had gotten involved with the male model.

"Did Lara confide in anybody?" Stella asked again.

Willoughby sighed. "Apart from me? There was an old lady who lived in an apartment across the street. Lara bumped into her once, and the lady spilled all her shopping. The way Lara told it, they were pretty close." He chewed his lip anxiously. "If she was cheating on me - that lady would know about it."