The EDITED folder opened. There were hundreds of files.
The extensions all said .fcpx.
Claire had no idea what that meant, but she didn’t recognize .fcpx as anything to do with Paul’s architectural software. She clicked on the top file, which had last been opened today. At 4 a.m. this morning, Paul had been sitting at this computer while Anna Kilpatrick’s body was being discovered on the BeltLine.
The words FINAL CUT PRO filled the monitor. The software was registered to Buckminster Fuller.
Paul’s most recent project loaded onto the screen. There were three panels across the middle section. One showed a list of files. The other showed thumbnails of various frames in the movie. The main panel had only one image: Anna Kilpatrick, chained to the wall, frozen in time.
There was a full assortment of editing options laid out underneath the main image, and below that were long strips of film that Claire assumed were pieces of the last Anna Kilpatrick movie. She recognized the buttons for correcting red eye and softening lines, but the others were a mystery. Claire clicked on some of the tabs. Filtering. Music. Text. Color correction. Stabilization. Reverb. Pitch correction. There were even sound files to layer into the background: Rain Falling. Car Noise. Forest Sounds. Water Dripping.
As with everything else in Paul’s life, he had complete control.
Unlike when she’d viewed the movies at home, Claire was able to click on the magnifying glass and zoom into the image. She studied the girl’s face. There was no doubt in her mind that she was really looking at Anna Kilpatrick.
And there was no doubt that you didn’t need someone standing behind the camera to zoom in the frame.
The buttons to fast-forward, rewind, and play all looked as familiar as the buttons on the VCR. Claire started the movie. The speakers were down low. She could hear Anna crying. As before, the masked man’s face suddenly filled the screen. He smiled, his wet lips showing underneath the metal teeth of the zipper.
Claire realized that this was the edited version, the one Paul had sent out to his customers. She closed the file. She went back to the folders on the dock and opened the one that was labeled RAW. The most recent file was dated yesterday. Paul had imported the movie sometime around midnight. At the time, Lydia and Claire were going through Paul’s color-coded private detective files at the Dunwoody house.
What heady hours to think that her husband was only a rapist.
She clicked on the file. The same three panels came up on the screen with the editing options below.
Claire pressed PLAY.
The footage started the same way: A wide shot of Anna Kilpatrick chained to the wall. Her eyes were closed. Her head was bent. The masked man came into the camera frame. He had the same build, the same coloring, as the man Claire had seen in all of the other movies, but there was something different about him. His skin tone was lighter. His lips were not as red.
There was also something different about the sound. She realized the footage hadn’t been mixed yet. All the ambient noise was still there. Claire heard the whir of a heater. The man’s footsteps. His breathing. He cleared his throat. Anna startled. Her eyes opened. She struggled against the chains. The man ignored her. He neatly laid out his tools on a rolling table—the cattle prod, the machete, the branding iron. A metal heating element was wrapped around the X to heat the iron. The short electrical cord was tied to a longer extension cord and plugged into an outlet.
The man squirted a glob of lubricant onto his palm and started to stroke himself. He cleared his throat again. There was something eerily businesslike about the routine, as if he was getting ready for another day at the office.
None of this would make it into the final clip. This was pre-production. These were the mundane details that Paul had edited out.
The masked man turned to the camera. Claire fought the urge to jump out of the way. He put his face close to the lens, which she gathered was something of a trademark, like the lion roaring for MGM. The man smiled for the audience, his teeth flashing against the metal zipper. Then he walked over to Anna.
Anna screamed.
He waited for her to stop. The sound wound down from her throat like a siren.
He used his finger to pry open a wound on her belly. She screamed again. The man waited again, but he wasn’t unmoved. His cock had gotten harder. His skin was flushed with excitement.
“Please,” Anna begged. “Please stop.”
The man leaned in, his lips close to Anna’s ear. He whispered something that made the girl flinch.
Claire sat up in the chair. She used the mouse to rewind the movie. She turned up the sound. She pressed PLAY.
Anna Kilpatrick was begging, “—stop.”
The man leaned in, his lips close to Anna’s ear. Claire dialed up the sound. She leaned forward, too, her ear as close to the computer speaker as the man’s mouth was to Anna’s ear.
The masked man whispered in a soft drawl, “Tell me you want this.”
Claire froze. She stared blankly at the metal shelves with their ancient equipment. Her vision blurred. She felt a sharp, sudden pain in her chest.
He repeated, “Tell me you want—”
Claire paused the movie. She didn’t rewind. Instead, she clicked on the magnifying glass to manually zoom in on the masked man’s back.
This was the unedited footage. Paul hadn’t yet filtered the light or corrected the sound, nor had he erased any identifying marks, like the constellation of three moles underneath the killer’s left shoulder blade.
The kitchen phone started to ring.
Claire didn’t move.
The phone rang again.
And again.
She stood up. She left the garage. She pulled the door closed behind her. She walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone.
“You lied to me,” Paul said. “I had one of my people check the inventory from the crime scene. The keytag wasn’t on there.”
Claire could only hear the words “one of my people.” How many people did he have? Were Mayhew and Nolan the tip of the iceberg?
Paul said, “Where is it, Claire?”
“I have it. Hidden.”
“Where?”
Claire reached up and turned around the fake air freshener so she was out of view.
“Claire?”
“I’m leaving the house now. You are going to send me a photograph of Lydia every twenty minutes, and if I see that you’ve touched one hair on her head, I will upload the entire contents of the USB drive to YouTube.”
Paul scoffed. “You don’t know how to do that.”
“You don’t think I can walk into any copy store and find some pimply geek to do it for me?”
He didn’t answer. She couldn’t hear road noises anymore. He had stopped the car. He was pacing. She heard his shoes crunching on gravel. Was Lydia still in the trunk? She must be, because Paul had abducted Lydia for leverage and killing her would take everything away.
Suddenly, Claire was struck by a thought. Why had Paul taken Lydia in the first place? If he was really watching the Dunwoody house, then he knew that Lydia had only entered the scene less than a day ago. Even without that, Claire was the one who knew where the USB drive was. Claire was the one who could get it for him.
So, why hadn’t he taken Claire?
She had no doubt in her mind that under even the slightest threat of physical harm, she would’ve told Paul that Adam had the drive. But Paul hadn’t taken Claire. He had made the wrong choice. He never made the wrong choice.