Chapter 15

It was utterly dark with no moon and an overcast sky. That and the black clothes, gloves and ski mask helped to make me nearly invisible as I snuck through the woods behind the strip mall. I had my eyes locked on the security camera on the corner of the building as it slowly rotated back and forth. I waited until it was pointing in the opposite direction and bolted across the pavement to the back door of the Happy Life Yoga Studio.

Fortunately, the corner of the building and a large garbage dumpster helped block me from the camera when it panned back my way. I quickly disabled the security system, then picked the lock. I opened the door and silently slipped inside. I was in a small curtained alcove in the back of Marcel’s private office.

Well, that’s how Jude was able to get out when I visited earlier that day. She must have dodged out the back door and run around to the front. Nice move for someone trying to hide her behavior.

I stayed close to the back wall of the office, then used a broom to knock the cheap security camera off its mount. It was a Bluetooth camera that streamed its display out to the cloud somewhere. I stomped on it until I was confident it would stream no more, then I sat down at Marcel’s desk and inspected his computer. I was hoping that Slick was not very worried about physical security.

I nudged the mouse, and the computer screen came to life showing a Windows desktop littered with folders. So much for physical security. I scanned the desktop folders and found one named “Cam Shots.” Could he have made it any easier?

I opened the folder and found it littered with sub-folders, each named for a different woman. It seemed that Marcel was meticulous and well-organized. I took a USB thumb drive off my keychain and inserted it into an open slot on the front of his computer and dragged a copy of the folder onto it.

As I scanned down the list, my heart stopped when I saw a folder named Jude. I opened it. It was filled with a mix of still photographs and video clips. I set the display to show extra-large thumbnails so that I could see a quick preview of all the files. Most of them were pictures of Jude in varying degrees of dress and undress, pictures of her in the ladies room checking herself in front of the mirror, pictures of her on the toilet. This mother fucker must have cameras in the dressing room and bathroom too. Son of a bitch.

I saw a thumbnail picture of Jude sitting on the toilet and double-clicked it. It was a three-minute long video clip of her walking in, pulling her yoga pants and panties down, sitting, doing her business, wiping and pulling her pants up. He even recorded her washing her hands afterward. My blood was boiling. I didn’t have time to go through all the videos so it would have to wait until I got home. My quick search did reveal a couple of photographs that confirmed my darkest suspicions.

I exited the folder and did a quick search of his desktop and hard drive. I didn’t find anything else of interest, so I reopened the “Cam Shots” folder, and quickly scrolled down. I found what I was looking for, under ‘M’. I opened the folder named “Melissa.” There were ten times as many files as in Jude’s folder and a large number of videos. I scrolled down and down, then went back and sorted by recent date. The first file was dated two weeks before her death. I double clicked it.