Page 108 of A Secret to Die For

Fires… Dust… Oh my gosh. The pieces began to click together. If I’d gotten the “third floor” part confused, then perhaps I’d misunderstood “fires” too? Because what did we have in front of us? Files.

“Can I try?” I asked, and Aaron angled the laptop toward me.

My fingers trembled as I entered Duster816.

Password accepted.

I’d never felt relief like it, not even on the day a semi swerved into my lane and missed me by inches. When the driver got arrested—he landed in a tree—he’d claimed he was avoiding Bigfoot, and then he blew double the limit in a breath test after a deputy took him back to the station.

Thank goodness.

“Told you that you knew it,” Blue said, sounding smug. “You should trust your instincts more.”

No way. I’d just used up my entire quota of luck for the next decade.

The drive contained seven files—a plain text document and six videos. Aaron tried opening the document first, and we all leaned closer when several paragraphs popped up on the screen.

If you’re reading this, then I’m dead. And the person responsible is one of the six men in these videos. Scum rises to the top. Those in power protect themselves.

But I should start at the beginning…

Eight weeks ago, a young woman approached me after my yoga class and said a friend needed to speak with me. Usually, I’d have brushed her off, but she was persistent. She talked the whole way to my car. Her friend was in trouble, she claimed. She’d seen things she shouldn’t, and she believed her revelations would rock Capitol Hill to its core. She had to speak with me because Mike Colvin was the one man who she thought might be able to help. What can I say? I got curious. Pete drove me, and we met at a diner in Maryland.

She introduced herself as Samantha, but I have no idea if that was her real name. It probably wasn’t.

Samantha claimed she’d been recruited two years ago to work as a high-end escort. The money was good, she said, and the work sure beat waitressing. But after six months, she started to recognise some of her clients. Rich men, powerful men, politicians. And she began to overhear things. She realised that her clients weren’t the men she was servicing, but instead were the men who watched. Who recorded the interactions. They called themselves Compass, and she was a tiny cog in a vast machine. Honestly, I thought she was a fantasist when she talked about a new world order, about a small but mighty movement slowly aligning governments to its own way of thinking. But then she showed me the videos. Just a sample, she said. There are hundreds more, thousands even, blackmail material against those in positions of influence.

She was terrified, that much was obvious. She’d come to realise that women like her didn’t have a long life expectancy. If they learned too much or if they outlived their usefulness, they disappeared. Her time was coming, she feared, and if the worst happened, she didn’t want her death to be in vain. I asked why she didn’t just run. She told me they’d always find her.

Samantha came to me because Mike was one of the few targets Compass hadn’t been able to catch in a compromising position. Squeaky clean, she said. She wanted him to see the videos, to set wheels in motion to investigate what sounded like a huge conspiracy theory.

A conspiracy theory that I think might be real.

Watch the videos and read Mike’s obituary, mine too. You’ll see.

I took copies of the videos, and I went to Mike. I truly thought he would do the right thing, the honourable thing. But that was my biggest mistake. I came to realise that when you mix men with politics, greed trumps everything. Instead of starting an investigation, Mike tried to use the videos to his own advantage. The opportunity was too good to pass up, he said. Margins in the House were razor thin, and if he could swing a vote or two our way… Our way. I no longer wanted to be a part of this, and I told him so. We fought about it. He promised to reconsider, but by then, the damage was already done. This morning, I attended his funeral. A heart attack, the powers that be said. A simple yet unfortunate medical issue.

Samantha said professionals were good at that. At making death look like an accident or pinning the blame on somebody else.

It’s not only money that makes the world go round; it’s blackmail and murder too.

So, now you know.

Do with this information what you will, but do it very, very carefully.

Claire Baldwin-Forlani.

There was absolute silence in Aaron’s study as we all digested the contents of the letter. Now I knew why my mom had died, and the reason was worse than anything I could possibly have imagined. She’d stumbled across a den of vipers, and then someone she cared about had betrayed her. I’d experienced betrayal myself, but for Mom, it had been a hundred times worse. Not knowing who to trust, not knowing who to turn to… At least I had my friends.

Luca was the first to speak. “Well, fuck.”

Blue was next. “Come on, let’s watch the videos.”

Gracie gripped my hand as Aaron clicked on the first file, but truthfully, it was a bit of a let-down. Two men eating in a restaurant, and one passed an envelope across the table to the other. I didn’t recognise either of them.

“Any ideas?” Blue asked.

It was Deck who answered. “The man on the left is Senator Presley, and he’s an asshole. No idea about the other guy.”

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