Pretty Girls

Claire looked up at the police station, which resembled a 1950s office supply store. Fred Nolan was probably the person she should be giving this to, but yesterday, Nolan had been an asshole to Claire, and Mayhew had basically told him to shut the fuck up, so she was going to give it to Captain Mayhew.

Did she trust him to take this seriously? Unlike Fred Nolan, Claire had not gotten a clear vibe off of Captain Mayhew, other than to think that he looked like a cop out of central casting. His mustache had thrown her off because Sheriff Carl Huckabee, the original Huckleberry, had sported an impotent-­looking mustache that he kept trimmed in a straight line rather than grooming it to follow the natural curve of his upper lip. Claire had been thirteen the first time she’d met the man. She could still recall looking up at the strange push broom over his lip and wondering if it was fake.

Which mattered not one bit in her current situation, because facial hair was not a universal indicator of incompetency.

She looked down at the hard drive in the seat beside her.

Red pill/blue pill.

Mayhew wasn’t the concern here. It was Claire. It was Paul’s reputation. There was no such thing as anonymity anymore. This would get out. ­People would know what her husband was into. Maybe ­people already did.

And maybe the movies were real, which meant that the second girl might still be alive.

Claire forced herself to get out of the car. The hard drive felt heavier than before. Night was falling fast. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The overhead lights came on as Claire walked across the parking lot. Her funeral dress had dried, but it was stiff and chafing. Her jaw hurt from grinding her teeth. The last time she was at the Dunwoody police station, she was in a tennis dress and being escorted in through the back doors.

This time she found herself in an extremely narrow front lobby with a large piece of bulletproof glass separating visitors from the office area. The receptionist was a burly man in uniform who didn’t look up when Claire entered.

She put the hard drive down on an empty chair. She stood in front of the window.

The burly officer reluctantly looked up from his computer. “Who’re you here to see?”

“Captain Mayhew.”

The name elicited an immediate frown. “He’s busy, ma’am.”

Claire hadn’t expected this. “I need to leave this for him.” She pointed to the hard drive, wondering if it looked like a bomb. It sure as hell felt like one. “Maybe I can write a note explaining—­”

“Lee, I got this.” Captain Mayhew was standing behind the glass. He waved for Claire to go to a side door. There was a buzzing sound, then the door opened. Instead of seeing just Mayhew, she found Mayhew and Adam Quinn.

“Claire.” Adam seemed tense. “I didn’t get that email.”

“I’m sorry.” Claire had no idea what he was talking about. “What email?”

“The work-­in-­progress file from Paul’s laptop.”

Paul’s laptop. God only knew what he had on the MacBook. “I don’t—­”

“Just get it to me.” Adam walked past her and out the door.

She stared at his back long after he’d gone. She didn’t understand why he seemed so angry.

Mayhew told Claire, “Guy does not like being in a police station.”

Claire suppressed the first response that came to mind: Who the hell does?

Mayhew said, “We’re talking to everybody who has a key to your house.”

Claire had forgotten Adam was on the list. He and his wife, Sheila, lived five streets over. He checked on the house when Claire and Paul were out of the country.

Mayhew asked, “What can I do you for, Mrs. Scott?”

“I have something you need to see.” She started to lift the hard drive.

“I got that.” Obviously, he wasn’t expecting the box to be so heavy. He almost dropped it. “Whoa. What is this thing?”

“It’s a hard drive.” Claire felt herself getting flustered. “It was my husband’s. I mean, my husband—­”

“Let’s go back to my office.”

Claire tried to pull herself together as she followed him down a long corridor with closed doors on each side. She recognized the open area for processing prisoners. Then there was another long corridor, then they were in an open office space. There were no cubicles, just five desks with five men all hunched over their computers. Two rolling whiteboards were at the front of the room. All were filled with photographs and scribbled notes that were too far away to make out.

Mayhew stopped outside his office door. “After you.”

Claire sat down. Mayhew put the drive on his desk, then took a seat.

She stared at him. More to the point, she stared at his mustache so that she wouldn’t have to look him in the eye.

He asked, “Do you want something to drink? Water? Coke?”

“No, thank you.” Claire couldn’t drag this out any longer. “There are movies on that drive of women being tortured and murdered.”

Mayhew paused for a moment. Slowly, he sat back in his chair. He rested his elbows on the arms, folded his hands together in front of his stomach. “Okay.”

“I found them on my husband’s computer. Well, hooked up to my husband’s computer. An external hard drive that I found—­” She stopped to catch her breath. He didn’t need to know the lengths Paul had gone to in order to hide the movies. He just needed to know that they were there. Claire pointed to the hard drive. “That has movies that my husband watched of two different women being tortured and killed.”

The words hung between them. Claire could hear how awful they sounded.

She said, “I’m sorry. I just found them. I’m still . . .” She didn’t know what she still was. Shaken? Grieving? Furious? Terrified? Alone?

“Just a sec.” Mayhew picked up the phone and punched in an extension. “Harve, I need you in here.”

Before Claire could open her mouth again, another man came into the room. He was a shorter, wider version of Mayhew but with the same type of shaggy mustache.

Mayhew said, “Detective Harvey Falke, this is Mrs. Claire Scott.”

Harvey gave Claire a nod.

Mayhew said, “Hook this up for me, will ya?”

Harvey looked at the back of the drive, then he looked at the back of Mayhew’s computer. He opened one of the desk drawers. There was a tangle of cables inside. He fished out the one he needed.

Mayhew asked Claire, “Sure you don’t want some water? Coffee?”

Claire shook her head. She was scared that he wasn’t taking her seriously. She was also scared that he was. They were down the rabbit hole now. There was no turning back.

Harvey made quick work of the connections. He leaned past Mayhew and started typing on the keyboard.

Claire looked around the room. Mayhew posed in the requisite framed photos of him shaking hands with city officials. A golfing trophy for the police league. Numbers from various marathons. She looked at the plaque on his desk. His first name was Jacob. Captain Jacob Mayhew.

Harvey said, “There ya go.”

“Thanks.” Mayhew turned the keyboard back around as Harvey left the room. He straightened the mouse, then clicked on one of the files. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”

Claire knew what he had. She looked away while he clicked open a handful of movies and watched them. The sound on his computer was turned off. All she could hear was Mayhew’s steady breathing. She supposed you didn’t get to the rank of captain by being surprised by what humanity could throw at you.

Several minutes passed. Finally, Mayhew let go of the mouse. He settled back in his chair again. He pulled at his mustache. “Well, I wish I could tell you I haven’t seen stuff like this before. Much worse, being honest.”

“I can’t believe . . .” Claire could not articulate the things she could not belie

ve.

“Listen, ma’am, I know it’s shocking. Trust me. The first time I saw this kind of stuff, I couldn’t sleep for weeks, even though I knew it was fake.”

Claire felt her heart leap. “It’s fake?”

“Well, yeah.” He stopped midchuckle. “It’s called snuff porn. It’s not real.”

“Are you sure?”

He turned the monitor so she could see for herself. One of the movies was frozen on-­screen. He pointed out, “See this shadow here? That’s the connection for the squib. Do you know what a squib is?”

Claire shook her head.