【75】Going Off Script

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Under Lex's attentive care and delicate treatment, I slowly regained my composure. First, he carried me all the way to the bathroom, where he'd taken a clean cloth, had wetted it in warm water, and had washed my face. Then, he'd prepared a toothbrush for me, and I mindlessly brushed my teeth, ridding myself of the acrid taste of vomit.

But none of that was enough, and I still felt dirty. It was as if the horrors I'd just witnessed had corrupted all of me, leaving me tainted and contaminated. When I told Lex, he busied himself with the shower, letting the water run and adjusting the temperature to my liking. He helped me out of my clothes, and when he asked if I wanted him with me, I nodded with a contrite look.

Everything seemed to happen behind a veil, as if a filter was altering reality. Things took a little longer to reach me, but Lex remained patient and allowed me the time I needed to answer and react. As if he knew just how soiled I felt, he scrubbed with delicate intensity every part of me, using a soapy sponge. By the end of it, I was left immaculate and jasmine-scented. Wrapped in warm towels, he led me to the walking closet, picked one of his T-shirts for me, and then helped me put it on. The same happened for my cotton underwear, and I stayed there, unmoving, as he clothed himself as well.

His hand tightly held mine as he pulled me back into the bedroom, and he brought me to the bed, inviting me to sit on it. "I'll be right back," he promised, kissing my wet hair.

Once I was alone again, more of the gore and vile images came back to my mind. Magdalena's suffering would forever be engraved in my brain. At the reminder of everything she'd endured, an icy shiver crept under my skin, claiming my entire body. In an attempt to shield myself from all of this and warm myself up, I moved further on the mattress, brought my legs up against my chest, and wrapped my arm around them to hold them close. It could have been me. It could have been anyone. No woman was safe. Not when a hundred and twenty-seven of them had already died.

I remained there, alone, for what felt like an eternity. Where was Lex? I needed him to hold me, to tell me things would be fine, to swear we'd get that fucker and his entourage for what they'd done. When he appeared in the door frame, he was carrying a tray, a fuming bowl of something liquid on it, as well as bread and a plate with various cheeses.

Silently, I watched as he came in, resting my temple on my knees. My beautiful, sweet, and thoughtful man... He could never know just how close to all of this I'd been. I'd already been reluctant to tell him about my encounter with the Senator. But this? This was even worse. If I told him that Becker had noticed me, just like he had Magdalena, he would go absolutely mad. Telling Lex the truth would serve no purpose other than torturing him, making him imagine the most gruesome and terrible scenarios.

He settled the tray on a nightstand before coming onto the bed with me. He kissed my shoulder, over his borrowed shirt, and then moved behind me to wrap himself around the ball of Andrea I was forming.

"Sorry, it took longer than I thought," he apologized. "The maid just left."

Ah, shit. He'd gotten someone to take care of the mess I'd left in the office. "I'm so sorry," I said with a grimace.

"It's alright, my love. We shouldn't have watched this together. You're too empathetic for this. I should have realized sooner." I didn't blame him for it. It was my own responsibility to judge what I could endure or not.

His familiar heat communicated through my back, and the coldness I'd felt slowly dissipated. None of us spoke, which made sense in a way. What could we say at this very moment? We'd witnessed something we never should have, and it was now our duty to handle it.

"We can't do what we planned anymore," I said.

"I know. This is way too big. It goes beyond you and me; beyond anything we expected."

I could tell he'd thought about it already. But yes, it was too massive for us. If we leaked it, exposed Beckers and his clique, they would have time to disappear before the authorities took care of them. They must have had some sort of contingency plan, as they knew just how much trouble they could be in. If they were quicker to react than the law, they'd vanish into thin air and would never pay for what they'd done.

"We need to do some sort of inventory, to know exactly who is involved – who are Becker's guests."

"I'm not watching more of those videos," I quickly replied, already sensing my stomach twist at the mere thought of it.

His hold on me tightened. "I know. I'll... do it on my own."

"Lex... I'm not letting you do this either. It will traumatize you. It's too fucked up, too graphic..."

"We don't really have a choice. We need to see just how deep this goes. It's the only way we'll know what will be the appropriate response."

As right as he might be, I loathed the idea of him going through hours of footage like the one we'd just watched. That ought to scar his soul for the rest of his life.

"How about we make an AI do it?" I suggested after a while had passed.

"What do you mean?"

"We could build a pretty basic AI that would look for faces, you know? And then we feed it all the videos and pictures, and it looks for everyone who's in there. We can even make it recognize individuals, so it's not too redundant. It could even organize them by dates, names, how many times they participated... Really, it could do the whole thing, and take screenshots of every single person in all the videos. Then, we'd work with those, to find out who's who, and establish what must be done with it."

"That could work, yes. It doesn't have to be overly complex, so we should be able to build it in under two days."

"Exactly. Let's start now," I declared, trying to pry myself out of his arms.

"No, we're done working for today. You need to eat, and then we need to rest."

"I'm not hungry. After seeing what happened to Magdalena, I don't think I'll ever be hungry again."

"Knowing you, I doubt it. Come on, a few spoonfuls of soup. And some bread. Please, do it for me." He was quite adamant to get some food in me, and knowing it only came from a place of concern and love, I eventually capitulated with a nod.

A lot more than a few spoonfuls went down, as he made me eat more than half of the bowl. The cheese was good, the bread crispy, but while the flavors felt good on my tongue, I couldn't enjoy any of it.

Once I was done, he got out of bed to get rid of the tray. I slipped out too, ready to follow him outside of the room, when he stopped me. "No, stay here."

"But... I want to start on the AI," I protested.

"We'll do that first thing tomorrow. For now, we rest. Too many things have happened to you today. You need it."

We stood in front of each other, both determined to have it our way. I wouldn't sleep even if I tried. It would elude me, and if I closed my eyes right now, all I'd see would be the torturing and execution of Magdalena.

"Lex... You saw the dates on those folders. One of them— One of them died last Saturday. I took too long to find the safe, and now a woman is dead because of it. I'm not letting this happen again."

He was completely aghast, staring at me with a frown and his dropped jaw. Swiftly, he put the tray back on the nightstand and framed my face with his strong hands. "Andrea, get out of this mentality right now. A woman is dead because Becker and his entourage are a bunch of sick fucks. She isn't dead because of you, but because of them. What you did, it was so fucking courageous, I'll forever be proud of you for it. Thanks to you, dozens, hundreds of women will be saved. There's no way to tell for how long this murderous human traffic would have kept going on. But because you're a fucking badass, my fearless and strong Andrea, we're going to stop it now."

"A month, Lex. I've been there a whole month. And the safe was right under my nose the entire time."

"Do you blame me for getting shot?" he abruptly asked, his knuckle brushing over my shirt, right where the scar was.

"What?! No, never!"

"But you should. I should have seen it coming. I should have anticipated that people would come after me. And most of all, I should have protected you."

"How the hell could you have known any of this? The snake guy came out of nowhere. It wasn't your fault!"

"Then why is it your fault in this situation?" Ah, fuck. How had I fallen into his trap so easily? "Treat yourself with kindness and forgiveness, as you treat others, Andrea. You're not responsible for the death of that woman. But you'll be responsible for the survival of all the others who would have known the same fate if you hadn't done what you did."

I didn't answer, beaten by his logic. But the sense of guilt still lingered in my heart, making it heavy and grievous. "Michelle would be proud of you," I mumbled, looking up at him. He kissed me softly and returned his attention to the tray.

"Can we... Could we just start on the AI?" I negotiated. "I'd feel so much better if I went to bed knowing we've done everything we could today."

"One hour," he agreed. "We work on it for one hour, and then I'll drag you back in here."

I nodded, already hoping he'd agree to extend it. It seemed I wouldn't know any rest until Becker and his people were taken down. All those women, whose families might have never gotten any sort of closure, needed to be avenged.

• • •

As suspected, sleep became hard to come by. Both me and Lex had short and agitated nights, so we struggled to get the rest we needed. But we still managed to be efficient during the days, which busied us and took our minds off of things a little.

When Monday came, I called Mrs. Reed, feigning illness. I played my part, sounding sick and weakened, offering to have a paper signed by a doctor to attest that I wasn't faking it. As much as I could, I wanted to avoid putting Ana-Lucía in a tough situation for recommending me in the first place. But as expected, this wasn't enough to gain the rigid woman's sympathy. She fired me then and there, gaslighting me into thinking I was a failure. While it all worked out in my favor, it made me feel terrible for all the other maids and employees who must have known the same fate in the past. People who actually needed the income.

It took us a total of twenty hours to build the AI. Our work wasn't flawless, but it did its thing. It would inspect the videos and photos, and would save a clear screenshot of each individual person it contained. We'd built it to be smart, to ensure it did its maximum, and it would catalog all of this into a spreadsheet, recognizing people from one video to another. That would allow us to quickly get an idea of who were the most active members of Becker's twisted club.

The one thing we were struggling with was having the AI recognize who handled the 'finale,' as Becker had said in the Magdalena's video. It was hard to feed the AI enough information and data to compare murder with. There were too many ways to take a life, and we weren't sure it would be accurate.

But we didn't actually need to know who had killed who, for the sole reason that we'd learned all the members were murderers. Lex had looked for a video that included a new member. That meant Becker would disclose the rules of his club, and it would help us have a better understanding of what it was all about and how it worked. And one of the main rules was that all new members had to kill on their first 'party,' as a way to ensure they were now part of the club, and wouldn't be able to change their mind or talk to the police.

What that video also revealed was why none of them had the common sense of wearing masks. Apparently, it was an insurance policy that worked both ways. All the guests paid an insane fee to take part in those evenings, some paid extra to go home with the snuff movie that came with it, and some paid a fortune to secure the 'finale,' the ultimate blow. So, having everyone with their faces uncovered ensured that no one in this inner circle of hell would ever rat the others out. They would be incriminating themselves as much as the others.

It was a relatively clever argumentation, but Lex and I both agreed that it was probably more about ego, and about accepting the way they were without any shame in it. Without feeling the need to wear a mask and hide.

As it turned out, they were all a bunch of privileged people, too bored with their life of luxury to feel anything anymore. According to Becker and a few members who'd agreed with him, killing was, and would forever be, the one thing that remained thrilling and exhilarating, regardless of how many times one did it. So, those rich, powerful, and well-educated assholes all came for one thing only. Kill an innocent woman to feel something.

I hoped to God they would all end in fucking prison for the rest of their lives.

All we had to do from there was feed it the files, and wait for it to have gone through all of them. That took a solid eight hours, given the amount of footage.

As the screenshots of the participants came, Lex and I worked on identifying who was who. We'd decided that he would handle uncovering the identities of the victims, while I'd take care of the scum who'd been their doom. It was a lot easier for me that way, knowing I was hunting those twisted fucks down, rather than looking into their victims and learning more about their lives and families.

The list was getting longer and longer, and the names on it were frightening. My facial recognition software usually found the persecutors fast, as they were more or less public. So far, among the ones who were just filthy rich, I'd found a national news anchorman, a federal judge, two pro athletes, and a social media celebrity.

This world was fucked, and getting the inherent proof of it was disturbing.

In the end, there were ninety-eight victims, thirty-three participants, and five people who facilitated those terrifying parties. It was our understanding that Zane, the snake guy, as well as another man we'd never met in person, were tasked to find, abduct, and bring women to those evenings.

Out of all the victims, almost half were impossible to identify. Their disappearance had been left unreported, and for some, it was likely their stay in the US hadn't been entirely legal. Just like Magdalena. But from the ones we did find, it was clear there was a pattern going on. These women came from all over the country, but most of them were from a fifteen hours or fewer drive from NYC. They often had estranged families, and were rather recluse. All of them were pretty, under thirty, and mostly had light skin. Although there were a few brown and black victims as well.

Because we needed concrete facts and hard evidence, Lex insisted on finding out who had killed a few of them. He'd assured me he would be fine with it, as his autism would come in the way of his perception of their suffering. If he didn't make a conscious effort to put himself in their shoes, the videos would have less effect on him. Still, I didn't like the idea of those images being stuck in his prodigious brain for the rest of his life, so I negotiated it down to three women.

Once he was done, once we knew who had killed Eden, Amara, and Blake, we sat down together to strategize.

With thirty-three murderers, all either rich, famous, or in a position of power, we couldn't mess it up. Each and any of them could disappear in a heartbeat at the first sign of trouble. And we didn't want that. We wanted all of them to be caught and to pay for their offenses.

We agreed that the authorities needed to be involved in this. But our main issue with this was that among the perpetrators, we'd found a high-ranking law enforcement official. If he heard of it in any way, he might warn the others or at least try to save his own skin.

"We need to hand it to the right person," I declared.

"Yes, but who?"

"It needs to be someone clever, someone who'd believe us and who would grasp the gravity of it all. Someone who'd keep it all on the down low until the warrants are obtained and the arrests are pending."

"Needs to be a federal agent. Nine states are involved." He was right. Especially since we'd found out that Becker had hosted a few of his parties in his Floridian mansion.

"I have an idea," I let out after a moment. "But I'm not sure you'll like it."

"Well, it's not like solutions and epiphanies are swarming us. So, tell me."

I did tell him. And he did listen, even though I didn't have much faith in it myself. It sounded dangerous, reckless, and frankly too ballsy. But unless one of us suddenly found a federal agent we knew we could trust, we'd have to go for it.

• • •

We didn't find anything better. My plan, however ludicrous it had felt, was the one we decided on.

To be fair, we'd discussed it in length, had weighed the pros and cons, and had established a clear way to proceed. We'd also conducted some thorough research, and it had only confirmed that my hunch had been on point.

Special Agent Kalisa Lewis was an upstanding person, with strong morals and an admirable integrity. As a woman of color working her way up in the FBI, she had to work thrice as hard as the others to prove her worth. She'd started as a police officer in Chicago, until she'd been recruited to become a federal agent. After her stay in Quantico, where she'd apparently excelled, she'd been transferred to LA with her boyfriend – now husband. Seven years in, after a near-death experience, she'd asked for a transfer to a quieter area. Now, she lived in the Portland suburbs with her husband, their two daughters, and a pitbull named Marley – after Bob Marley, in homage to her mother's home country, Jamaica.

It truly was worrying how much information one could find online.

Despite knowing all this, I couldn't help but be nervous as we pulled up in front of her house. Lex and I had discussed for hours on what would be the best way to get an audience with her.

We could have contacted her, and then convinced her to come visit us in New York, to explain everything we had uncovered. But if she was as thorough and good as we'd found out, she'd probably have time to prepare and work an angle we weren't ready for. Another solution would have been to visit her at the FBI headquarters unannounced, but being surrounded by agents wasn't a thing either of us was looking forward to.

So, instead, we'd decided to visit her at her own house. This way, she wouldn't have time to set anything up, and we weren't at risk of another agent hearing us and deciding to swoop in.

We were alone in the rental car we'd picked up at the airport. We'd flown here under our false identities again, so there was no way anyone would be looking for us here. That allowed us to be without a security detail, which would make us less threatening. As we looked at the two-story house, I did my best to ignore the feeling twisting my guts. But we'd done our work. This

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