We stumbled on a big fish, a bunch of them, and we don’t know what to do with them. We need a bigger fish on our side. A shark. But we don’t have one. It’s just the two of us. No one can help us. Unless we’re willing to trust an outsider.
When Lex comes out of the office about an hour later, he looks livid, his face pale and aghast. I swiftly rise from the couch and walk up to him. “Are you okay?!” I ask, concerned. “What did you see?”
“The things they did to those women… I don’t understand how anyone could get off from that. Most of the victims seem to retract their consent at some point, but it’s never respected. Becker reminds them they signed up for this. Some of those women, Andrea… They were girls.Children. Barely over sixteen, if not even younger, I—”
“My God… I’m so sorry you had to watch all that, baby.”
“That… girl. Amalia?” he continues, still aghast.
“Yeah?”
“I think he killed her.”
“What?!”
“I saw Becker strangle her, and I don’t think she made it.”
“Jesus fucking Christ… Murder, too?!”
“That’s not all.”
“What is it, baby?”
“I went back and checked some of the other entries that had stars in them. I think the star means the victim dies.”
“Oh my God… There were like fifteen of them in the notebook.”
“Sixteen. They all died, from what I could see.”
“Holy fucking shit… Lex, this is too big for us to handle. If we publish it online, all those people will be in the wind before the feds can arrest them.”
“I thought the same, yes.”
“We need to find a solution.”
“I know.”
I think about it, wondering how we could make sure the odds stay with us. Among those names in the notebook, we found two judges and a high-ranking official of the DOJ. We don’t know who we can trust with this, and if this case falls into the wrong hands, we’re screwed.
We need someone highly competent and morally sound. Someone we can trust, someone who would do what’s right and use the proper channels to bring justice to all those women.
There might be one person who fits the profile. I’ve only met her twice, but she always struck me as someone who knew her shit and worked hard to do her job well. We’ll need to triple-check and make sure she’s the right person for this, but at least we have a starting point.
“I think I have an idea,” I tell Lex.
Time to get ourselves a shark.
It’s been a week since Andrea and I accessed Becker’s sickening tapes, and we’ve been busy classifying everything. We found a few of the women in the videos. A lot of them died within a few years of what happened to them. Despite Becker’s belief, no, their brutality didn’t fix those women’s drug addictions. On the contrary, it seems to have gotten worse for most of them. We found a handful who went to detox and got their lives together. Of the two we contacted, both refused to talk, arguing they wanted to move on from that part of their lives.
We didn’t press, but we hope that if the case moves along, they will come forward and share their stories. It will help put Becker and his clique behind bars.
But for that to happen, we need to get this information into competent hands. Which is why we’re standing in front of this white and blue house in the Portland suburbs, about to ring the doorbell.
Andrea’s hunch was, by all accounts, correct. We spent a few days looking into Agent Lewis, the very woman who worked on the Nammota case while I was in jail, and she’s an exemplary agent. Not a single stain on her twelve-year career with the FBI, and I’ll venture that the only reason she isn’t higher up is that she’s a woman of color.
Ever courageous and determined, Andrea rings the bell. My grip on the thick file we came with tightens. It contains an account of our findings. I’m not sharing the content of the hard drive with Special Agent Lewis yet, but if she’s on board with our demands, I will email her a link where she can download it all.
The broad door opens to a six or seven-year-old girl with light brown skin and a head full of curly hair. “Yes?” she asks, looking up at us with suspicion.
