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?”

On the monitor, the action took place in the far right-hand side of the shot, as if the camera were pointed slightly in the wrong direction.

“I don’t know,” Walt said. “Maybe they didn’t have good producers like you. It’s a homemade sex tape, not a cinematic production.”