Page 77 of Zen's Crash

When I open his quick-access folder and scan through his recently viewed files, I almost throw up the fine dinner I just ate. Terrance Harris is much more dangerous than I ever imagined. He has loads of snuff porn, and all kinds of weird fetish stuff I never knew existed.

I’ve never been one to kink shame, but most of what he has is straight-up illegal. It hits me that his kink likely isn’t any one thing—if I’m honest, it seems to be anything illegal. The more taboo and illegal it is, the more he has of it. What he’s collected here is downright sickening. I make a mental note to alert Siege so he can get this new information to the cops.

Then I come across a whole new level of depravity. He’s one of those ruthless fuckers who lures people into doing things they later regret, then blackmails them over it. Filthy fucker. One person even tried to kill himself over being blackmailed. He probably tried to lure Lexi into one of his traps as well, but she was too smart to fall for it. My fiancée is nothing if not internet-savvy.

Needing to know everything about the fucker who killed Lexi’s father, I catalog all I’m seeing. After glimpsing the contents of a couple of the files, I don’t open any more, because I’ve seen enough and I’m not a pervert like Terrance. So instead of the photos and video clips I start going through his documents. I guess I’m digging for his financials. I’m dying to know what would motivate him to kill a man in cold blood just to remove him from the line of succession for an inheritance. He would have killed Lexi if he’d found her, I remind myself—that’s why he came that night.

When I zero in on his financials, I find crypto. Lots of it, because he’s been hacking crypto accounts, doing online jobs that pay in crypto, and even selling fetish porn to earn cryptocurrency. Once I start going through it, I realize he’s been hanging out in the KryptoKlan forum. MadHitter was one of the names on my list to investigate. However, because he was based in Australia I had him down as a lower priority. I know these days people can and do lie about their location—but given Lexi had known him for years, I went on her word. He played both of us.

My heart beats a little faster as I start going through his records. Knowing he not only frequented that forum but also that it appears to be his prime hunting ground for stealing crypto, hope blooms in my chest that he’s the one who took my sister’s crypto. At first glance, it seems wildly improbable that I’d just happen to stumble on the thief, but once I think about it, I realize it all fits.

The more I dig, the deeper the rabbit hole goes. He’s stolen from fifty-three crypto accounts—including my sister’s—and has it all hoarded in a cold wallet. I’m not about to take my sister’s money back without running it by Siege first. I pull outmy phone and look at the tracker that shows me where all the club officers are. Three of them are in-house. Siege is in his office, Rigs is in Evan’s room, and Dutch is at the bar. I text them all to meet me in Siege’s office about Lexi’s case.

Then I unplug Terrance’s laptop and head out of my office towards Siege’s room, arriving just in time to see Rigs and Dutch disappearing inside. When I enter, all three of them turn to look at me.

Siege comments, “You look pissed, brother. What did you find on that asshole’s laptop?”

I thump the laptop down on Siege’s desk and reply, “Money. Crypto, to be exact. Tons of untraceable cryptocurrency.”

Rigs’ eyebrows fly up, even as he drops into a nearby chair. “Free money is a good thing in our world. Since you’re looking so upset, I’m going to assume there’s more to it than just a hoard of crypto.”

I turn to him and say, “You’re all probably gonna want to sit down for this.”

Rigs asks, “You found more depraved shit than we already know about?”

“Yeah, that little fucker is into everything truly awful in the world. You name it, and he’s probably got it on his laptop. Some he had stored in a cloud, but I got it all.”

Dutch prompts me, “You’d best slow down and tell us everything.”

“He’s into all kinds of porn, even the really depraved shit with kids.” I continue before they can get worked up about it.“He’s got enough on there to put him in prison for back-to-back life sentences. He’s also been soliciting nudes online, then blackmailing people and taunting them with threats to expose them to their families and everyone on their friends list. One of his victims tried to kill himself. And if that wasn’t enough, he’s been straight-up hacking crypto wallets. As far as I can tell, he stole varying amounts of crypto from over fifty people, including a hundred grand from my sister—her life savings, which she was going to use for college.”

Rigs gets it immediately. “If we turn over the laptop to incriminate him further, we won’t be able to take the crypto back, because whoever does a forensic examination of the computer will know we took it, right?”

“Yeah, that’s the problem. I can cover my sister’s college, but all those other people might not be in a position to lose the money this asshole stole from them.”

A long silence spins out among the four of us, and Rigs shoots Siege a meaningful look.

As usual, our club officers have the right idea. “We just got word back that Terrance is being charged with first-degree murder for killing Lexi’s father, attempted murder for trying to kill her that same night, and a bunch of other misdemeanors—breaking and entering, threats of bodily harm, assault with a deadly weapon, and who knows what else. There are nineteen charges total, and our police contact says the evidence is pretty cut and dried in his case,” Siege tells us.

Thrilled to hear it, I ask, “What about his father?”

Siege’s expression turns amused. “They found Terrance’s prints on the jewelry in the kill bag. Once they started talkingabout charging him for the murders of all those women, he immediately turned state’s evidence against his father. Our contact says he’s singing like a bird, so I don’t think we have to worry about either of them making it out of prison alive.”

Glancing around the room at each of us in turn, he continues, “Since they’re both already gonna be in prison for life, I don’t see any reason to pile on more incriminating evidence. It would just complicate the case and drag it out more. I know your Lexi would prefer to have justice now, not years from now after everything’s untangled and winds its way through the courts.”

Rigs adds, “If somehow justice fails and either of them gets out of prison, we’ll just give them a dirt nap. I won’t lose any sleep over ending either one of those deranged bastards. They’re both a danger to society.”

Siege nods. “I agree with giving them a dirt nap. If the long arm of the law won’t protect society from men who kill for sport, the task falls to us. It’s the least we can do.”

Rigs addresses the issue about the stolen money first. “I say we return all the crypto he stole to the rightful owners, including your sister, and then just call it a day.” He pauses and looks at me, “You can do that anonymously, right?”

I nod.

“Then you can forward the porn anonymously to the feds. I want whoever made that shit he was watching arrested. But like Siege said, it’ll take years to unravel that skein of fucked-upness.”

“I agree about forwarding the porn to the feds, and I’ll see it done. But I want to point out that not all the crypto was ill-gotten gains. He legitimately earned a good chunk of it.”

Dutch makes a low, angry noise in the back of his throat. “Tell me we’re not thinking about giving that depraved asshole back his money.”

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