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“You didn’t do anything wrong, Walt. You followed the evidence, and no one can fault you for that. You didn’t plant evidence. And you certainly didn’t suppress it. The crime scene you found led to Victoria Ford. Not by hunch, not by speculation, but by forensically backed evidence. You didn’t make any mistakes. You didn’t manipulate the evidence.”
“No. But I’m wondering if I was manipulated. This case went up in smoke after 9/11, and when the dust settled, everyone had moved on. Soon after, I was recruited into the FBI and I never really put much thought into it after that. But now, twenty years later, with the things you and I have uncovered, I’m starting to wonder if a dead woman was branded a killer when, in fact, she was innocent.”
The narrative that twenty years earlier an aggressive district attorney had focused on the wrong woman in the death of Cameron Young was starting to play out in Avery’s mind. She had no way to prove who had killed Cameron Young, only that there was a very realistic possibility it was not Victoria Ford. Avery knew her viewing audience would salivate over every detail. And things were about to get even juicier.
Walt gathered the files and the photos and returned them to the box.
“There’s one more thing I came across in this box of lost evidence,” Walt said, holding up a plastic evidence bag. It held a thumb drive.
“What is it?”
“The sex video of Cameron Young and Victoria Ford.”
CHAPTER 47
Manhattan, NY Sunday, July 4, 2021
“IT’S BEEN TWENTY YEARS,” WALT SAID, HOLDING UP THE EVIDENCE bag. “But I still remember it vividly.”
“I’ve got to see it,” Avery said.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. I need to see if any of it can be aired in prime time.”
“From what I remember, you’ll need to blur most of it out.”
“I’ve got a really good technical crew and an even better producer.”
“Grab your laptop.”
Avery retrieved her laptop from the desk where she had positioned it earlier in the day for her meeting with Christine. She rested it on the coffee table in front of where they both sat on the sofa. Walt placed the drive into the port and clicked open the file. The video started.
“Oh, God,” Avery said as Cameron Young’s naked backside materialized on the screen.
“I told you you’d have to blur most of it out.”
Avery continued to watch until Victoria Ford appeared on the screen. Avery pinched her eyebrows together when she saw the dominatrix outfit, complete with a dangerous-looking spiked necklace and wristbands. Victoria’s naked breasts poked through the holes of the leather suit she wore.
“How many times have you seen this?”
“Just once,” Walt said. “And only part of it. Once we identified Victoria Ford, I left to interview her.”
Avery sat in stunned silence as she watched Victoria Ford pace back and forth next to her vulnerable prey. Avery had trouble reconciling the woman Emma Kind had described, and the one whom Avery had heard on the answering machine recordings, with the woman she saw in the video. Her breath caught when she saw Victoria bring up the tasseled object in her right hand.
“What is that?”
“I believe it’s called a flogger whip,” Walt said. “That whip, or a similar one, is what caused the violent welt marks on Cameron Young’s body that were noted in the autopsy. Should I turn it off?”
“No. So this is how you figured out they were having an affair?”
Walt nodded. “Yes. From the paraphernalia found at the crime scene we knew Cameron Young was at least having a single night of dangerous sex. His wife claimed during my initial questioning of her that she and Cameron had never participated in any type of S and M sex. Discovering the video allowed us to zero in on Victoria Ford as his lover.”
Avery cocked her head to the side as she watched the screen and voyeuristically spied on Victoria and her lover. “Where did this video take place?”
“In Cameron Young’s writing studio.”
“Why is it so off-centered?”
