No… they have adozenpictures. All from that same event. A close up. Talking to one person, then another. Each of them taken without her awareness.
Back from before we even met.
How could that be?Why?
But I know that answer. It’s because she was investigating Northbridge.
“You should go yourself,”I remember DeLuca telling me.
“Let the legal teams handle it.”
“It’s your case, Alexander. Be there.”
Was Vicky the reason why?
Ironvale needs another five minutes to complete. Rita’s still outside somewhere, keeping watch.
On a whim, I typeRita Lucerointo the search bar.
Only a half-dozen hits, but one is in a folder calledNov20.That’s when I joined.
I open it, and there are hundreds of files, but most of them are media. I ignore those, clicking on a word document, scanning quickly.
Nov20 completed the Origin Enterprise project ahead of schedule and with…
Fuck.
I’mNov20.
I click on a media file at random. A video plays; it’s Westchester. My house. There’s a goddamn camerain my house.
My hair stands on end.
My front door opens, and I walk in. The camera’s in my entrance hall.
I close it down, hit another file. Westchester again; different room. Vicky in the kitchen, wearing the silk bathrobe I got her for Christmas.
Another file. This one’s my Manhattan apartment. We’reboththere. It’s… the night of the dance.
Jesus fucking Christ.
I watch myself pin her to the wall and kiss her, then take her hand and lead her to the bedroom.
My goddamn bedroom.
I scan the list of files, seeing how they’re named by date and time, like automatically collected recordings. My fingers are trembling as I click another of that evening. It’s somewhere in the kitchen, and it begins as the front door opens as we arrive. Nothing before: motion detection.
It’s not the kitchen I care about.
The third one I open is my bedroom. It shows everything, the whole room, from a ceiling point of view. The camera’s somewhere in the light fixtures. I watch us come in. I watch myself rip Vicky’s dress off. I skip forward, my blood pumping cold through my veins. She’s on the bed. She’s fuckingnakedon the bed, and it’s on DeLuca’s computer.
My hand’s trembling as I kill the footage. There arehundredsof files in this folder.
The most recent is dated yesterday, the time stamp from early, but it’s massive; over forty gig in size. There’re four of them, all from yesterday. I wasn’t even home then.
I click it open, my heart pounding in my chest.
It’s not my apartment, and relief wars with confusion. It’s not Westchester, either.
