“I’m sad to report that they were tipped off by a detective on the case. He was apparently involved with one of the women.”
“Detective Franklin Rees.”
“That is correct.”
“And what happened to this detective?”
“He has since been relieved of his duties.”
And for good reason. Thanks to that leak, Spencer Harding was able to flee Culling Pointe before authorities arrived to arrest him. Until Harding’s body is recovered from New York Harbor, we have no way of knowing what brought down his helicopter. For now, all we know is that the man who brought suffering and heartache to so many will forever go unpunished.
Nessa was sobbing.
“I can’t watch any more of this,” Jo said.
“You must,” Harriett insisted. She was no longer laughing. In fact, she’d never sounded so serious. “You have to see what they’re willing to do.”
After Harding’s death, two bodies were recovered from the water off Danskammer Beach. One belonged to a local girl, Mandy Welsh. The second body has yet to be identified. Spencer Harding’s house was also searched, and thanks to information gathered from Danill Chertov, a hidden room was uncovered.
“It’s been called a sex dungeon.”
“I would say that’s an apt description.”
“What did you find?”
“A safe filled with pictures. Thousands of Polaroids of girls lying lifeless on the bed in the sex dungeon.”
“Pictures like the one Rosamund Harding had hidden in her locker.”
“Yes, sir.
“Why Polaroids?”
“No digital files means you can’t be hacked. As long as you can keep the physical photos under lock and key, you don’t have to worry about anyone seeing them.”
“But it sounds like Rosamund Harding found one.”
“Yes. It seems one of the photos never made it into Harding’s safe. His wife may have stumbled across it.”
“That must have been extremely disturbing for her.”
“I’m sure it was. Some of the photos we retrieved from that house will probably haunt me for the rest of my life.”
“Why did Rosamund Harding hide the photo in a gym locker? Why didn’t she go straight to the police?”
“We believe she lived in fear of her husband. This was a brilliant, powerful man with more money than he could possibly spend. We know from her browsing history that she was desperate to escape. But no one came to her rescue, and in the end, the man she married took her life.”
“How do you think Harding got away with it for so long?”
“No one would have ever guessed that a man like Spencer Harding would commit the kind of crimes he committed. He was a monster with a perfect mask.”
“And Danill Chertov? What happened to him?”
“Mr. Chertov disappeared the same night Spencer Harding died. He left on a flight to Belarus the next morning.”
“So the two men responsible for these horrible crimes both escaped justice.”
“In this world, maybe. I believe they’ll be paying for their crimes in the next.”
“Well,” Harriett said after Nessa turned off the television in disgust. “Now we have proof Rocca’s one of the bad guys.”
“We know he’s a liar, for sure,” Nessa said.
“No, it’s more than that. He was involved in the murders somehow.”