Molina lifted one eyebrow, making her look like a female Spock. “Continue, Mr. Bunker.”

“Oh, okay. She said that if I really wanted the true story of Mercy Callahan to talk to Stan Prescott, that he’d been her boyfriend in college. She even gave me the guy’s address.”

“And that didn’t strike you as odd?” Agent Hunter asked.

Jeff shrugged. “Not really. I know lots of girls like her. You keep your back to the wall, if you know what I mean.” He mimed a stabbing motion, then remembered where he was and dropped his hands into his lap. “I wouldn’t date one and I wouldn’t trust one with my secrets, but they tend to be good sources of information. So I took the address and went to visit the ex. He had a lot to say and none of it was good. He painted Miss Callahan as a party girl who liked to put out. He even had a video.” Jeff shifted in his chair, his cheeks heating with shame. “It was only a clip, like maybe ten seconds.” He closed his eyes. “She was naked and on a bed, but nothing else happened in the clip.”

Molina rapped her knuckles on the table. “Look at me please, Mr. Bunker. Thank you,” she said when he obeyed. “The video posted online was four minutes long. How did you get from a ten-second clip to a four-minute video?”

“He said that if I wanted it, I’d need to pay for it. I asked how much and he said five thousand. I laughed at him, told him no way my boss would allow that. He kind of shrugged and said he’d take three thousand. I asked my boss, expecting him to say hell no, but he agreed. I was shocked.”

“And did you pay him?” Molina asked.

“Yes. Well, half. It was half up front, then the other half on publication of my article. He was cool with that and gave me the video after I gave him fifteen hundred. He also told me to look up Peter Firmin, another of Miss Callahan’s exes, so I did. He told the opposite story, that she was frigid and cold and he’d kicked her to the curb. I told him that I had a video of her partying and he kind of laughed and said that if he’d known she’d needed a roofie to put out that he would have kept trying, but then quickly said he was joking. I put all that into the article, but I removed that comment and Stan Prescott’s story entirely before I sent it in to my editor. And I never sent him the video. I swear it.”

“Why did you delete Prescott’s story?” Molina asked.

Jeff frowned. “It didn’t feel right. I saw that catatonic look on her face in the hospital surveillance video from February and it didn’t match with Prescott’s description. I told my editor, Nolan Albanesi, that I was removing some content before I sent it in. I have all my files, ma’am. I can prove to you that I didn’t send what got printed under my name.”