We usually put a footnote in the report corresponding to the first mention of the HPI. It includes a description. Youll have to go through those footnotes to see whos under suspicion. I can tell you that our mogul friend is in there quite a bit. I believe hes described as a bald, middle-aged international media professional. If you come across that phrase, you know youve got our boy.

Okay, thanks, Jessie said. How many files are we talking about?

Parker looked at her with something close to pity in her eyes.

Id rather not say. I dont want to depress you.

*

Depressing was an understatement. Hopeless was more accurate.

After nearly two hours in the tiny annex office of the file room where shed set up shop, Jessie needed a break. She stood and stretched, trying not to let the dozens of horror stories shed just read overwhelm her.

There were over two hundred HPI cases in the files from just the last decade. Of those, seventeen used the description that Parker told her matched Jasper Otis. In addition, there were six additional cases that specifically mentioned him by name.

But in every instance, something happened to undermine the case, making it impossible to proceed. Evidence disappeared. Victims retracted their statements around the time that their bank accounts became suddenly flush. Others were threatened with lawsuits that mentioned everything from slander to harassment. In each case, those girls retracted their statements as well. Two girls went missing soon after giving their statements. They were never found and no one followed up.

From everything that Jessie had read, Jasper Otis was a serial sexual predator. Assuming that half of what these girls claimed was true, he had committed multiple crimes. He forced bound girls to have sex with him. He ordered them to have sex with other men in front of him.

One girl alleged that he had taken a group of them on private planes to a foreign country. She and some girls returned stateside. But others were sold to men from the other country and left behind. There were other, more specific allegations that Jessie didnt feel up to replaying in her head again. Independent of whether he was responsible for Millicent Estradas death, the man was a monster who had to be stopped.

She got a text from Hannah telling her that Nurse Patty was leaving, to be replaced by the night nurse, a guy named John. Jessie texted back that shed be home within the hour. Then she carefully returned the files, all of which shed taken screenshots of, to their proper locations. She didnt want to leave any out that the mole could use to retrace her steps. Then she went upstairs to confront Captain Decker with the magnitude of the situation.