Page 47 of Unraveling an Enigma
My breathing stops, my eyes darting to his. “Where was the camera located?”
I wait for him to answer.
“In the living room,” he finally responds.
My breathing returns, grateful it wasn’t housed in Isabelle’s bedroom.
Hunter runs his hand over his beard while he opens a laptop sitting on the speckled bench. He removes a USB port from a camera with a lens not much bigger than the tip of a ball point pen. He places the mini storage device into a large USB. Once he inserts the USB into his laptop, he clicks an old black camera icon on the monitor. Suddenly, his pupils widen as he freezes.
“Fuck,” he mumbles under his breath as he pivots around, his back now facing the laptop screen.
My confused gaze shifts to the computer screen. Blood scorches through my veins so fast it burns. Inches of Isabelle’s beautiful naked skin is plastered across the monitor.
The first few images aren’t too concerning because most of Isabelle’s body is covered by my torso, but the ones taken as our vigorous morning activities progressed are the most disturbing. Every inch of her delicate skin I devoured the morning I was arrested is on display. I can still recall the taste of honey on her lips from the sweetened coffee she was drinking before she straddled my lap to nibble on my ear.
Never able to restrain myself when Isabelle is in my presence, I ended an important call and took her for the second time that morning on the red shag rug in her living room floor. The photos give a play-by-play recount of our sexual activities that morning.
Clenching my jaw, I harshly yank the USB out of Hunter’s laptop and store it in the breast pocket of my suit jacket. My jaw muscle quivers and the veins in my hands pulsate.
I pivot to face Hunter. “Who has access to these images?”
He shrugs. “This kind of device requires them to be downloaded from the apparatus. I’m hoping since the pictures weren’t wiped, it means they weren’t downloaded yet.”
“Who do you think it is, Col or IA?” I ask, my voice a deep snarl.
Hunter winces. “It’s hard to say. Whoever it is, they're smart. They placed the camera high enough so it would give them a birds’ eye view of the entire apartment.” His eyes glance down to the original device housing the microscopic USB. “But this equipment is basic; you can pick it up at any spy shop.”
Hunter strides to his toolbox and grabs a black device. “This one, on the other hand, is more complicated. This may be a government-issued device.”
I snatch the plastic bag out of his hand. It looks like a small storage device you would use in a digital camera. “Do they have to personally download this device as well?”
“No,” he says with a brisk shake of his head “But with that being stored in Izzy’s cell phone, every call or message she made would have been automatically transcribed and sent to the owners’ computer mainframe.”
“What about private conversations while the phone is in the area?” I ask as the heaviness on my chest becomes paramount.
Hunter nods. “Any conversations, music, radio, etc. would have been transcribed.”
Fuck! So Isabelle was telling the truth. She wasn’t the one who told the FBI about my phone call that morning.
“The good news is, that device has a serial number attached to it,” Hunter says smugly.
My eyes shoot to him. “Have you traced it?”
“It’s running through my system. Since I had to hack into a few backdoors, it will take a few hours to finalize,” he replies with a smirk.
I nod. “Be sure to inform me the instant you discover anything.”
My gaze shifts back to Hunter’s laptop. “Can you adjust the perimeter of my google alert to include Isabelle? If those photos surface on the net—”
“I’ll set it up. If they surface, they will be immediately removed. I’ll also corrupt their system with a few nasty viruses in return,” Hunter interrupts. The truthfulness in his tone offers me a small amount of relief.
“If you give me the USB from the camera, I can run it through a program to see when it was last accessed,” he suggests, his voice rattling with nerves.
My nostrils flare as a growl emits from my snapped shut mouth.
“It is the only way we will know if anyone else has viewed those images,” he explains, his gaze seeking mine. “I won’t need to open the files to run the search, but I can’t execute the program if I don’t have the USB.”
“Can you run it on any computer?”
