Deadly Pasts (Agent Nora Wexler Mysteries)

by CR Wiley

  “I deny that it’s representative of how I felt about what was going on,” Lauren said, getting testy. “I don’t know what I said because it’s like I wasn’t even there. I wish I hadn’t been.”

  The lawyer opened his mouth to continue, but the next voice heard in the room was Chip’s.

  “Since you advocated we talk about it, dissecting the video now seems appropriate. What Lauren is getting at is the issue of the context. From the brief cut of the recording to the cropping of the screen to remove any indecent imagery, we know that this video has been manufactured expressly for the purpose of proving consent. But the problem is that the act is already underway and it gives us no sense of what took place before or after,” Chip said.

  “Are you suggesting that the raw footage of this video would provide more context that would materially alter the meaning of what we’ve seen?” the lawyer asked. The bland tone in his voice seemed like a bluff to Nora, who guessed he might’ve seen the full footage and was sure nothing about it would give a different impression.

  “The context we have to look at is what was recorded in any of the videos that were taken. Preston has said that his phone was taken and used to record these images of himself and Lauren, but no one has actually taken a look at Preston’s phone to see if there are other recordings indicating his involvement in her repeated violation while intoxicated. It’s time for him to hand it over to the panel for review,” Chip said.

  “No way!” Preston said.

  “That is out of the question,” his lawyer said at the same time.

  “It’s not. The panel is well within their rights to request access to devices that may have been used in conjunction with a crime. Since criminal behavior is what we’re evaluating and his phone was used to document it, all they need to do is ask for it to be turned over. If the request is refused, that can be considered an obstruction of the investigation,” Chip said, turning his attention to Marcellis and the other professors.

  It took the panel a moment to arrive at the obvious course of action.

  “We would like to have a look at the phone,” Marcellis said.

  Preston and his lawyer exchanged a few muffled words, each of them displaying aggrieved scowls. But Preston eventually dug into his pocket and produced his iPhone. There was some overacting in the way in which he held it out to be passed down to the panel signaled they expected this to happen and had prepared for it. The panel wouldn’t find anything on that phone. There’d be nothing except Lauren’s words to support her argument. The doubt would be too much and Preston would get to walk away free and clear, as would anybody else involved.

  Unless Nora did something.

  “It looks like all of the other videos here relate to football practice or games,” Marcellis said. Two other professors were looking over her shoulder. Nora could hear when they played the single video of the incident that turned up on the Internet.

  “If the request has been satisfied, we’d like to have that back now,” Preston’s lawyer said. Nora glanced over at Chip who had a knuckle to his lip in consternation. He was stuck. Marcellis was about to pass back the phone.

  “Wait!” Nora said. “There are a lot more places to hide videos and pictures on an iPhone than just in the folders that appear on the home screen. You have to have someone with technology or computer science experience do a thorough scan of the drive to see if anything was recorded that had been moved or sent off the device. Anyone with a smart phone knows enough to delete things from a list of videos, but that doesn’t mean they’re gone.”

  The look of rage on Preston’s face signaled the first time he actually felt threatened during the hearing.

  “There’s nothing else on there!” he said, anger coming through in his voice. Marcellis held onto the phone. He may have been right, but it brought a beautiful idea into Nora’s mind that was exactly what they needed.

  “We’re going to have to examine this further as we deliberate,” Marcellis said.

  Preston’s lawyer also looked like he was about to blow a gasket. It wasn’t just for show this time. The man knew he was off his intended track and in danger of leaving Preston exposed.

  “This is highly irregular,” he said, taking a deep breath for more bluster.

  “They have the right,” Chip said.

  “If that phone is not back in my client’s possession by tomorrow I’ll be filing legal action against the college,” he said.

  Marcellis blinked and suddenly the entire panel looked like they had become the defendants. Preston wouldn’t have his phone back by the end of Tuesday, but was that enough time for Nora to accomplish what she needed to do?

  “Let’s move on to examining Mr. Lowery’s account,” Professor Marcellis said with a twitchy smile.

  CHAPTER 24

  SPROUL HALL

  BARROW LANE

  BERKELEY, CA

  Chip questioned Preston about the discrepancies between his story and his original police report, they looked over documents from campus security, and the meeting was brought to a close. When they exited into the hall’s polished granite lobby, they saw the anxious looks on the Devonshires’ faces.

  Lauren’s parents wrapped her in a hug. It’d been a little over an hour, but from the teary looks in their eyes one would think it had been years.

  “How did it go?” Caroline asked, nearly breathless.

  Behind them Preston, his lawyer, and a few others were briskly exiting the building. From where Nora stood, there still seemed to be a fair number of people outside.

  “They got nothing on me!” Preston shouted. He had both fists up in celebration as if he’d scored a touchdown.

  “Better than you would think from that,” Chip said. “And it’s mostly thanks to Nora. They’ve confiscated his phone and will get a chance to search through it for anything incriminating.”

  “I don’t deserve any credit,” Nora said. “Lauren was brilliant under pressure in there. She held her ground, never cracking even when his lawyer was trying to hammer her.”

  “I’m sure you all performed remarkably well,” Brent Devonshire said. “Let’s just hope they find something that helps them make the right decision.”

  Nora pursed her lips and took a look around to make sure no one else was listening.

  “They won’t, at least not yet. I’m sure Preston wiped that device clean long before he walked into the hearing. I actually don’t think his phone was even used to capture that initial video. Someone moved it there, and I think I know who.”

  “Who?” Lauren asked.

  “Marvin James. He has a liver problem that prevents him from drinking alcohol, so he makes up for it by being mischievous and self-righteous. Not only do I think he was taking videos with his phone, but I think he was involved in the attack himself. It’s a well-documented pattern. The perp puts a victim on a pedestal, commits the assault, and then lashes out to try to break her down as a way to justify his actions.”

  Chip crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Maybe, but we’ve taken statements from them all and there’s nothing concrete linking them. The only possibility would be if Lauren remembered something, which at this point seems unlikely.”

  “Maybe not. It’s the illusion of safety that’s made him so smug. Whatever’s on his phone is still there. It might even be something he’s proud of. All we need to do is get something sent from his phone to Preston’s, the disciplinary board will see it, and then they’ll have a solid pipeline to all of the evidence they’d need to take down everyone involved.”

  The Devonshires had a common look in their eyes that became particularly expressive when they felt motivated and excited. They never looked more like a family than they did now.

  “And how are you going to do that?” Chip asked.

  Sadly, Chip wasn’t as close to Nora as Travis had been when she decided to bend the rules and bring Danny in. It hadn’t worked out too well for Travis in the long run, and she’d hate to put Chip in the same po
sition. He didn’t need to know exactly what she was going to do, but she needed to tell him something.

  “It’ll be Monday night at a frat house. There must be a party I can drop in on,” she said, smiling. Stephanie had an even broader grin on her face.

  “I call dibs on doing your makeup and hair. It’ll be the perfect disguise. You’ll look so hot they’ll never guess how old you are!”

  It took some wrangling with Steph over Nora’s outfit, but the two met somewhere in the middle. Steph was known for being a loose cannon whose craziness knew no bounds, but the truth was Nora didn’t want to tell her old friend what she was really planning. A low cut top showing a lot of cleavage, high heels, and a short skirt weren’t going to help her on this undercover mission, but it was impossible to dissuade Steph.

  At least she had a pair of sneakers in the car she could change into.

  Driving slowly along frat row, Nora got a good look at the TKE house. Even though it was nearly 1 a.m., most of the rooms on the second floor had lights on. The house also featured a porch with pillars and a roof, as well as a balcony carved into the architecture. The ground floor of the house appeared dark and vacant.

  Nora pulled over to the side of the road about fifty feet past the house and put her forehead against the steering wheel. She tried not to think about what would happen if she got caught, but the thoughts came unbidden. An arrest for breaking and entering, invasion of privacy, any number of things could hit her depending on what happened.

  Gathering her courage, she popped open the door and made it over to the house on foot. The air was still but carried sounds of music from different nearby locations. She crossed the unmowed lawn and went around the side of the house by the trees where she’d be less likely to be seen. Glancing at the porch’s railing and roof, what she needed to do wasn’t too different than the man who scaled Caroline’s to break in on Stephanie.

  Putting on a pair of grippy black gloves she’d purchased after the hearing, Nora stepped on the edge of the porch and climbed onto the white railing. The edge of the roof was above her head, but there was a hook underneath it and a notch on the pillar she used to lift herself up. Rounding the corner of the roof was the real challenge. Breathing heavily, she grunted as she pulled and twisted, flinging one leg up and then dragging the rest of her behind.

  The roof had a shallow slant. Facedown against the cold surface, Nora glanced at the nearest lit window. She crawled forward and rolled to the right when she spotted someone other than Marvin in there.

  Marvin’s room had to be one of these, and the easiest way to find out which was to go to the balcony that connected several rooms. Only one of them had blinds drawn, putting her at risk of being seen from the others. But as she lifted one leg over a short balustrade she caught a glimpse of someone at a computer in the room to the far right. His back was to her and he wore headphones, but she was sure it was Marvin.

  Nora went to his window and crouched down. He had headphones on and was playing a computer game, probably one with loud music that required the kind of intense concentration that would prevent him from noticing someone climbing in and going through his things.

  A noise behind her startled Nora. She glanced back at the other windows but saw nothing. She turned her attention back to the room, scanning it for any signs of the boy’s phone. It wasn’t on the nightstand or the bed. There were clothes on the floor near tangled computer cords. The phone could be anywhere.

  All of a sudden Marvin got up from his seat. Nora ducked. When she looked up, she saw him slip through the open door into the hallway, leaving his phone right next to him on the desk. Gasping, she wondered if this was her opportunity. The window was unlocked and the sill had shoe prints on it. She put her hands on the glass and nudged the window open a crack. It moved with only a little creaking.

  But no sooner had the window inched up than she heard the sound of a toilet flushing. She hastily shut the window and ducked. Either she could wait until Marvin finally went to sleep, or she’d have to do something to get him out of his room.

  She smiled when the plan came to her.

  Leaving the balcony and skulking alone the porch roof, Nora hopped over the edge and dropped to the ground. She’d have to be able to get back up there in a hurry in just a few minutes, but for now she continued toward the back of the house, which had a fire pit and a plastic kiddie pool a few feet away from each other. Smart. The back door had a significant dent in it that prevented it from closing securely. Listening carefully for any sounds, she pulled it open and ducked inside.

  Using her phone as a flashlight, she tiptoed around the kitchen and the hall in search of something on the wall. She began to wonder if she’d have to find a way into the basement for it, but eventually she made it into a laundry room and found a fuse box fixed to the side. She swung it open and looked over the switches, calculated how long it would take her to go back out the back door, get around the house, and climb into Marvin’s room.

  Anything more than just flipping the breakers off was going to cause unwanted attention. Taking a deep breath, she used the length of her forearm to brush all of the switches and cast the house into darkness. Next she crossed the kitchen, pushed through the back door, and wheeled around for the side of the house. Her arms were tired from the first climb, and she nearly fell off the roof when she attempted to swing herself up. She took a deep breath, steadied herself on the notch, and pushed up onto the roof.

  All of the rooms were dark. She trod along the roof toward the balcony and carefully leaned along the side of the window to see if anyone was inside. Confident that he wasn’t, she quickly pulled the window open enough to climb through. The room smelled like dirty socks. Going to the desk, she groped the surface in search of the phone and wasn’t able to find it until she used the light from her own.

  Clutching Marvin’s phone with a mad grin, Nora unlocked it and went straight to the videos folder. Even just scanning the thumbnails, all of Nora’s suspicions proved correct. The phone was packed with videos depicting lurid acts that had taken place inside this house. Nora was loathe to watch any of them, but she needed to make sure there was something involving Lauren and someone other than Preston.

  As she scrolled through the videos—there were more that had been taken just two days ago—Nora found the right date and started a video. It burned a hole in her heart to see Lauren’s unconscious body being molested by a young man with such a malicious, gleeful look on his face. It was Marvin.

  As soon as she recognized him, the lights came back on and she heard voices coming from downstairs. Nearly choking on the risk of being caught, Nora closed the video and opened up iMessage. She breathed a sigh of relief when she found Preston in his contacts and moved her thumbs as fast as she could to start a new message and attach the video she’d just seen.

  She tapped the button and watched the sending bar slowly fill as sounds of creaky stairs filled her ears. Nora exited iMessage and put the device to sleep, knowing the text was already on its way and would be impossible to stop now. It was over, and everyone inside would be thrown out of college and into jail as soon as they spotted the new text on Preston’s phone.

  She put the phone back and retreated to the window, spilling out onto the balcony and turning to close the opening. Knowing Marvin would enter any second, she thought it better to leave the window open a crack rather than have it slam against the bottom.

  Even though the window didn’t make a sound, her beeping phone curdled her blood. Who would be sending her a text at one in the morning?

  Turning tail and hurdling the balustrade, she scuttled along the roof, nearly slipping off the edge. She jumped off and hit the ground, scrambling toward the street. She slammed into the driver’s door, yanked it open, and was cruising down the road in seconds.

  Relief flooded Nora’s brain. She took satisfaction that Lauren’s assailants would be brought to justice, but it was also a chilly reminder that Maria would not have the same peace.

&n
bsp; Pulling over a few blocks away, Nora took out her phone to see who’d nearly sabotaged her covert op by sending her a text. It was Stephanie.

  “Something’s wrong and I’m feeling terrible. It’s the baby. Please come get me!”

  Nora called Steph and found out she had taken a cab to a bar called Mungoes on the north side of the city and had apparently overdone it.

  Shaking her head at Steph’s incredible irresponsibility, Nora knew there was nothing to do now but get over there and cart her down to Alba Bates for medical attention. Nora stepped on the gas, not about to let her friend lose her baby.

  CHAPTER 25

  MUNGOES BAR & GRILL

  2085 VINE STREET

  BERKLEY, CA

  Nora arrived at Mungoes and saw Steph swaying on the sidewalk. She wore jeans and a brown jacket that barely managed to cover her stomach. Nora pushed opened the passenger door and urged her to get in.

  “What’s going on? You weren’t drinking, were you?” Nora asked.

  Stephanie threw her head back and sucked her teeth. She looked pale and her blonde hair was all tangles.

  “Not intentionally. I think the bartender might’ve been spiking my virgin drinks for a laugh and somebody else elbowed me hard when I was on the dance floor,” she said.

  If Nora hadn’t known Steph, she might’ve believed her. Making up stories to get out of a jam was just something Steph did, and Nora wouldn’t put it past her to drink something that would violently disagree with her.

  It didn’t matter. Nora pulled away from the bar and started to turn toward Shattuck when Steph groaned.

  “Can we take it slow down the smaller roads? I’m going to get car sick if you go too fast,” she said.

  “I’m trying to get you to the hospital!”

  “I need some air,” Steph said, rolling down the window and leaning against the door.

  Swallowing her frustration, Nora went down Milivia for a few blocks. The streetlights passed overhead. There wasn’t a soul out at this time of night.