The King Tides

Chapter 23 Five Days in Paris

He cursed.

Without the Cassandra videos, he could neither confront Nicki nor tell her parents what he’d found. Without proof, it would be his word against hers, and he felt sure that she’d deny the whole thing. After all, hadn’t she denied any involvement already?

He knew what was going on, only he couldn’t prove any of it.

When he was home, he often did things the old-fashioned way. Taking a legal pad and pen out of a drawer, he wrote down everything he could remember about the Cassandra videos. He started with their titles, then next to each title wrote down the specific things he’d seen on the video, such as the furniture in the room, the clothing Nicki was wearing when the video began, if there was music playing in the background or a TV show, and anything else that came to mind. Each of the videos had been dated and were one to six months old. The oldest videos were at the beginning, and he took a stab at their exact dates. The rum wasn’t helping his memory, and he forced himself to concentrate.

Finished, he threw the pen on the pad. There was no doubt in his mind what had happened. While checking out the apps on Zack Kenny’s phone, he’d done something suspicious while navigating one that had raised a red flag. The app’s manufacturer had sent Kenny an email alerting him to the skullduggery. Kenny had realized he’d been hacked, and used his laptop or iPad to go to his VideoVault account and erase every damaging file as fast as he could.

Lancaster had screwed up. He should have downloaded the Cassandra videos to his laptop instead of watching them first on the newly purchased Droid. But he’d let his curiosity get the better of him, and had paid the price.

He picked up the legal pad and went onto the balcony. He moved his chair up to the railing and sat down. The stiff breeze blowing off the Atlantic felt good against his face, and he stared at his notes. Something was bothering him, and after a long minute the discrepancy hit him. In the CASSANDRA SAYS HI! video he’d spied an episode of Family Guy playing on a TV set in the background. That would have been normal in any part of the world except the Middle East. As a SEAL he’d performed covert missions in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and Syria. Before entering these places, he’d been indoctrinated in radical Islamic culture. One of the things he’d learned was that books, magazines, and TV shows produced in the West were forbidden in those countries. A Muslim caught watching The Big Bang Theory on a cell phone might get his hand cut off.

The Pearls had lived in Dubai for five years. Dubai was more tolerant than most of its neighbors, but tolerant was a relative term in the Middle East. He didn’t know if Western television was available to ex-pats living there or not.

He took out his cell phone. It was three in the morning and not a good time to be sending text messages. But he needed to know, so he sent Pearl a message. Before he started asking questions, he wanted to be sure that he had his facts straight.

Pearl was a surgeon and often on call. He was hoping that Pearl kept his cell phone on a bedside table, and that it wasn’t muted.

Pearl replied moments later.

The story that Pearl had told him about his family’s move to the United States wasn’t jiving with the dates on the videos. Perhaps he hadn’t heard Pearl right the first time. He needed to nail this down.

The oldest Cassandra videos had been downloaded to Kenny’s VideoVault account six months ago. That meant they’d been made while Nicki was living in Dubai with her family. Or maybe Nicki and her mother had moved here first, before her father.

he texted.

Pearl replied.

He didn’t know what was going on. All he could do was keep going and hope the truth presented itself to him.

He had hit a wall. If shows like Family Guy weren’t available in Dubai, then how had an episode been playing on a TV set in a hotel there six months ago? He wrestled with it and came up with only one solution. The hotel room wasn’t in Dubai or any other Middle Eastern country. It was somewhere else.

His phone vibrated in his hand. Pearl was calling him. Lancaster didn’t know what to say without devastating his client, and he decided to stonewall him.

“Hello, Dr. Pearl,” he said.

“Hello, Jon. I’m lying in bed with Melanie. My cell phone is on speaker so she can hear you. You’ve found something, haven’t you?”

He wasn’t going to lie. “Yes.”

“You sound troubled.”

“I’m very tired, Dr. Pearl, that’s all.”

“Are you going to tell me what you’ve found?”

“Not over the phone,” he said.

He thought he heard Melanie gasp.

“You want to speak to us in person,” Pearl said.

“Yes.”

“Would you like to come over now? I can’t imagine we’re going to get much more sleep tonight.”

“I think tomorrow morning would be better.”

“Why wait?”

“I want Nicki to be in the room with us. I have questions to ask her.”

A pause. Then, “Nicki’s involved in this situation, isn’t she?”

“I didn’t say that,” he said.

“But that’s where this is heading. You’ve found evidence linking Nicki to these horrible men, and you’re afraid to tell us over the phone. Hold on a second.” Melanie was weeping, and her husband spoke soothingly to her before returning to the line. “It’s not a total surprise. My wife and I had a long conversation with Nicki after dinner. You were right — Nicki is holding a grudge because we refused to let her take horseback riding lessons when we lived in Dubai. We had no idea how angry she was with us. She’s been holding it in for a while.”

He’d found a possible motive. Nicki had wanted to get back at her parents, so she’d gone and made a slew of pornographic videos out of spite and posted them on the internet under a false name, never thinking the videos would come back to haunt her.

“That explains a lot,” he said.

“So you’ve figured it out,” Pearl said.

“Perhaps. I still need to talk to your daughter. What time can I come by?”

“Why won’t you tell me now?”

“Because I’m missing a piece of the puzzle. When you were living in Dubai, did Nicki take any trips out of the country for an extended period of time?”

“We took several family trips.”

“I mean by herself.”

“Let me think. There was a school-sponsored trip to Paris seven months ago that Nicki went on. She was gone five days with her class.”

“Do you know where she stayed in Paris?” he asked.

Melanie spoke up. “She stayed in the Intercontinental Hotel with the rest of her classmates.”

“Did she have a private room?”

Hesitation, then, “Yes, she had a private room.”

“Did this trip take place before or after you said no to the horses?”

“After. Is that the piece of the puzzle you’re looking for?”

Five days in a private room in a Paris hotel was more than enough time to make a bunch of sleazy videos and put them out for the world to see in cyberspace. It all made sense, and he felt ready to confront Nicki and get her to admit what she’d done. That would be the first step toward getting this situation resolved.

“Yes, it is,” he said. “What time can I come by?”

“We usually have breakfast around eight.”

“See you then.”