Red Alert(NYPD Red #5)(63)

“That would be our blackmailers’ handiwork,” Kylie said. “Can you tell if they edited anything?”

“They didn’t,” Jason said. “They just watched. The last file modified was Sunday, May seventh—the day before the murder. It’s Aubrey’s on-camera introduction to the film. It’s only two minutes and twenty-four seconds long. The rest of the footage is Aubrey having sex with these men. None of it is pretty. It’s still unedited and will take you about fourteen hours to screen. Less time if you high-speed through it. More time if you get sick to your stomach and have to walk away from it.”

“Let’s start with the introduction,” Cheryl said.

Jason double-clicked a file, and the screen faded to a shot of Aubrey Davenport sitting on a tall director’s chair. She wore dark gray pants and a soft dove-gray cashmere sweater. Her hair, which had been matted with dirt when I saw her on Roosevelt Island, was a rich chestnut and fell to her shoulders in waves. Her eyes were bright and intelligent, and she had just enough makeup on to make her camera-ready without looking made-up. She was attractive, intense, and very much alive.

She didn’t introduce herself. She just started talking to the camera in a clear, confident voice.

“My sex addiction began at the age of twelve, when I found my father’s stash of porn tapes. At that age I had a pretty good idea what sex was all about, but this wasn’t that. This was much more interesting: bondage, discipline, dominance, submission. My fascination was instantaneous, and I wanted to be like the women in those videos.”

The camera began to drift in slowly.

“By fourteen, I’d had several flings, but they were with clumsy teenage boys who wanted nothing more than to stick their dicks in a hole. And then I found Brad Overton. He was thirty-eight, a film producer, and I was sixteen, an unpaid summer intern. Brad was handsome, powerful, and when he came on to me, I couldn’t say no. I didn’t want to say no. Not to the drugs, not to the physical pain, not to the degradation. This was the sex I’d been dreaming of.”

As I got drawn into her story, I realized the camera was pulling me in as well. It had moved to a medium shot and was continuing to drift closer still.

“When the summer was over, my job ended, and Brad replaced me with another girl. I spent the next twenty-three years trying to replace Brad. One man after another, raging sadists who hurt me physically and emotionally, and all I could do was beg for more. Until one day…”

She paused, and I held my breath.

“Until one day,” she repeated, “I didn’t just want them to hurt me. I wanted them to kill me.”

At this point, the camera stopped moving. Aubrey’s face filled the screen. Her eyes were moist.

“I am an addict,” she said, her voice cracking slightly. “A slave to my sexual addiction. This documentary is about men who prey on women like me. It’s all shot with hidden cameras. I don’t have to tell you their names. You’ll know them. Watch them hurt and humiliate me. They think they’re in control. But I’m the one with the power. I’m the one doing the humiliating.”

She took one more long pause.

“I’ve been hurt enough,” she said. “This film is how I will heal.”

The screen went to black, and white type slowly faded up onto it.

SEX SLAVE

A film by Aubrey Davenport





CHAPTER 60



Nobody said a word.

Finally, Cheryl broke the silence. “That poor woman. What a tortured life.”

“Jason, how many of the men in these videos have you positively identified?” Kylie asked.

“Nine,” Jason answered, “but we’ve only had the footage for a couple of hours. Give us a day, and we’ll ID them all.”

“Do you know what Janek Hoffmann looks like?”

“The guy you arrested? Yeah. We looked for him. He’s not in the mix.”

Kylie looked at me. “Do you still think Janek killed her?”

“There is plenty of circumstantial evidence,” I said. “Her car parked a block from his apartment is hard to ignore. Plus he doesn’t have an alibi.”

“He also doesn’t have a motive.”

“You don’t need a motive when you have a history of ’roid rage. Kylie, he beat her up bad in the past.”

“But this time she wasn’t beat up. And the murder wasn’t the result of a flash of rage. It was too well planned and executed. Aubrey caught thirty-two men on hidden camera, every one of whom had a better motive to kill her, steal her laptop, and make sure this documentary would never see the light of day.”

“If they knew it existed.”

“One of them did,” Kylie said. “Our job is to find out which one.”

“Or eliminate all thirty-two of them and keep trying to make a case that will convict Janek.”

“Guys, it’s going to be a long day,” Cheryl said. “Can you save the detective talk until after you actually know what you’re talking about?” She turned to Jason. “Play the tapes, please.”

“She shot the first one fourteen months ago, Doc,” Jason said. “The latest is dated two weeks before she died.”

“Start with the oldest one first,” Cheryl said. “There may be a narrative thread in there.”