Memories Ch. 05

"Only the men?"

"No, the girls too. They were encouraged to join the act. Same for me, I also stripped together with a few other girls on stage. I recall feeling very embarrassed, but not doing it would have made me feel even more embarrassed. Everyone else was getting naked, so I couldn't stay behind.

"And the strangest thing may be that after this event, after everyone had stripped, we basically just went back to our drinks and continued as before. The only difference being that suddenly everyone was naked. And nobody seemed to care too much about that little detail."

"And your clothes?"

"This must be where I lost them. I have no idea, it seems I totally forgot about them after stripping. Just like the guys before me, and the girls with me, I took my clothes off one by one, dancing all the while, trying to make it look sexy, and tossed them away. I don't know what I was thinking, I wasn't thinking mostly, I just went with the flow."

"And what happened next?"

"Really I don't know what happened. My memories are mostly fragments, a bit of this, a bit of that, just like remembering a dream. I don't remember how I did that strip act, I just remember being there, with two or three other girls, stripping, and ending up naked. That's about how detailed it gets in my memory. It's of course easy to fill in the likely details but they're not in my memory."

All the pieces came together nicely. I could pretty much make a mental reconstruction of what happened that evening, and even what happened leading up to that day. The Facebook logs spoke for themselves of course, and Ms Locatelli's memories gave a clear outline of what happened that night.

The only thing that was still missing, and it was a major one of course, was the lack of any clear clue as to who was behind these parties. Who organised them. And along that line, who visited the parties, as those men could be charged with rape. If only one of the women involved actually wanted to file a complaint of course.

Later that afternoon, Thelma contacted me again. It had been a few days since we last talked. After shrugging off her usual complaint of me being hard to reach, we got down to business.

"We made some good progress over the past few days, but we're running out of leads again," I confessed.

"Sorry to hear that. I hoped you could give me some good info."

"Well, as I said we made progress. It's just that this guy has put up huge barriers, and is taking his anonymity very serious."

"So what's your plan?"

"Investigation is still moving, there are leads that need work. We also got the other side of the equation, the Facebook user that sells invitations to these parties."

"Wow. Great progress. Now you just have to buy an invitation and follow the money, right?"

"Well... not so much, as also that's been taken care of by him. Deposit before the party to be paid by Bitcoin to secure a place, the rest to be paid at the door, cash only. And those parties don't come cheap of course. Bitcoin is as good as untraceable by design, which is of course why he uses it."

"Any drugs in play?"

"Yes, something unknown."

"Unknown again. You guys know so much, yet so little. I'm sure you have a lot more to tell me, so -"

"Macy's at seven?" I interrupted her.

"Exactly."

At the agreed time I showed up at Macy's, to find Thelma sitting in the by now quite familiar corner.

After some small talk and ordering our food, I got down to business and told her in more detail what we had found out, under condition of absolute confidentiality, as I couldn't allow anything of this to end up in the media. At least, not for now. I told her about the character profile of Sonar, the account Radar which we thought was the same person, the final stories of Ms Locatelli, the drug the doctor found. Thelma seemed to be quite impressed by what we had figured out, and had not much to add. Her own investigation had come to a halt at that point.

By the time I had finished, our food arrived and we started to eat.

A few bites in, Thelma stopped eating and said, "I also have something to ask you."

She looked at me, her face looked tense. "I think ... I think I do ... I ..." She took a deep breath, looked at me, took another deep breath, and blurted out, "I want to go and join one of those parties. See what's going on. What's real, what's not. And I want you to join as I'm afraid to do it alone."

I looked at her, in shock. I barely moved for a moment, as this was about the last thing I expected from her. And asking me to join? Me? To join her? To a sex party? I didn't know what to say.

"OK, I said it. Hope you don't get angry at me," she said after a long pause. The tension had gone from her face, it had understandably been hard for her to ask. She quickly took another bite of her food and looked down at her plate.

"I'm not angry, I'm just ... well ... surprised," I said, looking at her. "Why would you want to join such a party? Not waiting for our investigation to finish? You know what you're in for. And thanks to whatever drug they manage to sneak into you, you won't remember anything."

"That's where I'm relying on you," she said. "To observe and be my memory if I can't remember. To gather clues on who is there, and how they get to be invited. Where the party is. Who this Sonar guy may be."

"Who says they won't drug me as well, if I'm coming with you. These men there are paying customers of this Radar figure, probably the same as Sonar, who arranges for the girls for them to enjoy."

Thelma looked down at her food, playing a bit with it. "Good one," she said. Looking up she continued, "Do you have any idea of the drug they use?"

"Yes, a benzo-something. The actual name I forgot. Related to the well-known Rohypnol date rape drug. And as it's a new one, they don't know what it is exactly. These type of drugs are known to loosen inhibitions, and to cause memory loss. Exactly what we see happening here."

"Maybe we could take an anti-drug beforehand."

I looked at her, speechless for a moment. She really was intent on going through with it. I was still trying to come to terms with her request.

"Why me?" I asked.

"I trust you," she replied, without hesitation.

"You know what's going on at those parties. You'll get to do it with all those total strangers, you're their toy. You really want that?"

"Not all strangers, which is why I'm asking you to be there."

"Not my idea of a date."

"It's not a date, it's business. You want to crack the case, I'm looking for a scoop."

"True."

I looked at her, then down at my food. I didn't know how to deal with this. I agreed with her that I really wanted to crack this case, that I was more than curious to figure out who was behind it, but I didn't think this was the way to go about it.

"Look, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked. I enjoy being with you, I trust you, and to have any chance of success with such a plan I'm going to need your help."

"I'm not offended, just surprised," I said, putting my hand on hers. "Of course I'm also very curious about what's going on, I just think this is a bridge too far. We're also not done with the investigation, and I still have hope to track Sonar down through different means."

"I understand."

We both sat there silently, eating our food, contemplating what would be next.

I started to realise how driven she was to do this, and I was afraid she would go through with it alone if she couldn't find a partner. The idea that she was so willing to put her body on the line just to get a scoop surprised me. Or was it just to get the scoop?

Thinking of what I saw from Ms Locatelli in the video made me wonder. Does that woman really enjoy sex that way? Pure physical, no emotional bond, just raw sex? Her body's response indicated that she did enjoy it very much. I looked at the pretty girl next to me, would she have such thoughts, too? Just wanting to feel what it is to be subjected to that?

Of course there is no denying the fact that I was also very curious about what was going on at those parties. Getting to have unconditional sex with multiple pretty girls, that's of course the dream of every guy. It's just not something many guys would get to do.

"What are you thinking?" she said, pulling me away from my thoughts.

"Oh, nothing."

"You were looking at me really thoughtful," she continued.

"I was just thinking about the case."

And then suddenly, I knew how to proceed. I sat up, and asked her, "Do you have time, tomorrow afternoon?"

"Why, you asking me for a date?"

"No, a photo shoot."

"What, you want me to be your model? I'm no model, I'm not that pretty."

"You are pretty, and you'll do great as a model. But of course the photo shoot is just a cover for an investigation. I want to have a much closer look at Hotel Aralla, and doing a photo shoot is the perfect excuse for it."

"Why? It's just a ruin."

"You remember the victims had to call a number after arriving at the car park, to go to the party? Well we traced those numbers, and the phone company told that they have been used from that place, and only from that place. So there must be something there."

"Sounds like fun."

We agreed to meet that Friday afternoon, shortly after lunchtime, at the gate of the hotel compound.

Arriving there I noticed another car there, but not Thelma's. Probably some other visitors. Out of habit I quickly took down the license plate number of their car, then with my camera bag on my shoulder I stood next to my car, waiting for Thelma to arrive.

Two men appeared from the hotel, one carrying a large bag.

"Good afternoon," one of them greeted me.

"Good afternoon," I replied.

"Waiting for someone?"

"Yeah... my friend should come soon, we're going to do some photo shooting here. It's an interesting and rather beautiful place."

"Sure it is. You know it's haunted, don't you?" the other man said.

"Is it? Maybe I'll see a ghost appear in my photos then!"

We all laughed, and just as the two men got into their car, I saw Thelma arrive. She got out as the other men left. She looked stunning. She had really gotten into her role as a model, wearing some subtle make-up, medium high heels. Her slim, spaghetti strap sun dress ended just above her knees. The rays of the sun played with her red hair, making it look as if it was on fire. I was so glad it was a warm, sunny day.

"Do I look good?" she said, as she lifted her arms and spun around. Then she put her hands on her waist and looked at me, waiting for my approval.

I looked at her, from top to toe. "More than good. You look stunning." And that was the truth.

"I'm glad you like it." With a sway in her step she walked towards me and grabbed my arm. "Let's go, I'm yearning to see this place up close, and looking forward to the beautiful photos you can make of me."

Old ruins provide for plenty of interesting photo opportunities, as well as places to hide things. I was looking for anything out of the ordinary. Anything that looked new, that looked used, or was otherwise out of place. And so did Thelma. Being there for a photo shoot allowed us to look around for a long time without anyone getting suspicious.

And it was just a joy shooting her. It appeared to me she had done this before, at least she knew how to strike a good pose, and also had many suggestions on good shots. And quite some of her suggestions involved her having to bend over, letting her dress fall open a bit, giving me some great views of her chest. Definitely all intentionally, at least she could have worn a bra under it. She looked really hot, and made it hard for me to focus on what we were really there for.

All in all we had a great time together. Looking around, inspecting the whole place, making the photos. But there was nothing suspicious in the area, until she suddenly pointed up while making a nice pose: pushing her chest forward, head back, looking up, her hair hanging down.

"Hey, look," she exclaimed.

"I'm looking, and you look hot," was my first thought. "Where?" I asked instead.

"Up there. Come here, you probably can't see it from there. A shiny metal rod, looks like an antenna."

Perched on the top of the wall was indeed a small metal rod, with a black base, and a thin wire running down. It was almost invisible, hidden under the vegetation along the wall. It ran down to the ground, and into a pile of debris.

I lifted an old wooden board, and discovered something I had never seen before. In a waterproof container there was a rectangular device, and a car battery wired to it. It all looked pretty new. Opening the device I discovered a long battery of SIM card holders, with about twenty SIM cards in it, from different companies.

"Bingo. This is going to explain a lot," I said to Thelma, who was standing next to me, looking totally surprised. "Very well spotted, it was really well hidden."

I took photographs of the SIM cards - their serial numbers were exposed, so I didn't even have to remove them from the holder, and closed the box and put it back exactly the way I found it. A few more photographs to record the situation, and I was done.

"What is it?" Thelma asked.

"No idea. But one way or another this is going to explain why all the calls appear to originate from this one location, just looking at all those SIM cards."

"Why are you leaving this here?"

"I don't want to alarm them. We know where it is, they don't know we know. My best guess is that this is some kind of mobile phone repeater. So it appears the calls are all answered from here, while the actual location is somewhere else."

"Wow."

"So our work is done here, thank you very much for your help."

"No more photos?"

"I have over two hundred photos of you already."

"I see. At least we should finish the one we were just shooting. I think it's a good one. I like the look of that old window frame."

"Sure."

Another half hour and a couple dozen photos later we finally called it a day. Of course she tried to get me out on a date again, but this time I had to disappoint her, as I was going to watch a ball game with some old friends of mine. I didn't really mind not being able to go out with her this time. Even though she was obviously trying to seduce me that afternoon, I was still unsure of her real intentions.

Over the weekend I rested, and tried not to think too much about Thelma and the Ms Locatelli case. Also I spent some time sorting through the pictures that I took of Thelma, making it of course hard to not think about her. What a beautiful girl she is, it is hard to make a bad photo of her. It was a great joy looking at those photos.

In the end I sorted out a dozen that I really liked, and e-mailed them to her. Less than an hour later I got her reply. A big thank you, and that she wanted to give me a big kiss for making such nice photos.