Page 101 of The Change
“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.”
“Inthisworld, 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.”
“How do you know he wasn’t lying so he wouldn’t look completely incompetent?” Jo asked.
“Because Rocca said he arrested Danill Chertov on the night of June eighth. He claims they kept him in custody until Chertov informed on his boss. Rocca said he used Chertov’s intel to get an arrest warrant for Harding. But I know for a fact that none of that ever happened.”
“How?” Nessa asked.
Harriett grinned. “Chertov broke into my house on June seventh. He’s been in my compost pile ever since.”
The room fell silent.
“So we’re fucked,” Jo finally said.
“Why?” Nessa asked.
“Don’t you see? We can’t prove Rocca lied without revealing that Harriett killed someone.”
“Doyou twobelieve that Rocca was involved?” Harriett asked her friends.
