The Voyeur 4

Author's Note: Sorry, it's been a bit since I paid attention to this story! Let me know what you think.

EEEEEEEEEEE

Don Ressler ran on a treadmill looking outside at the snowy DC streets in front of him while he listened to Metallica. He and Liz had come back from a great weekend at the cabin where they had truly had privacy for the first time in a week. Besides Reddington's men watching the road, they were blissfully alone. Ressler checked each day for tracks in the deep snow and, finding none, knew the voyeur must not be in town for the weekend. So, he felt comfortable staying with Liz last night and making love to her in her apartment under the cover of darkness.

Ressler was on his 8th mile when his phone buzzed in the tray in front of him.

He looked at the text from Aram. You need to call me.

Ressler looked at the urgent message and slowed down his run and called Aram, listening for the rings through his wireless earbuds.

"Hey Aram, what's up?" Ressler asked.

"Uh, I found some video footage of you and Liz in his files on the dark web," Aram said.

Ressler furrowed his brow they knew there was footage so he wasn't sure why Aram felt the urgency to tell him.

"And?" Ressler asked.

"Uh, is Liz with you?" He asked, noting the man was out of breath.

"No, I'm at the gym, why?" Ressler asked.

"She's going to want to know this too," Aram said.

"Know what? You haven't told me anything, Aram," Ressler said.

"Please know that I clicked on it and saw all of ten seconds before I realized…" Aram said quickly.

Ressler's stomach dropped, the only thing that would get Aram talking like a gerbil on meth was something that involved sex. He slowed his treadmill to a stop.

"And what was the footage of?" Ressler asked as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"There seem to be two cameras in your cabin," Aram said quietly. "Uh, one in the bedroom and one in the kitchen…which is the file I thought would be safe to look at…but it sooo wasn't."

"Shit," Ressler hissed into the phone, knowing that he and Liz, in their exuberance, however misguided it was, had taken full advantage of what they assumed was private time together.

"The cameras seemed to be remotely controlled," Aram said. "I'm tracking the source but it's quite scrambled and…"

"And he clicked them on and off to collect the best footage?" Ressler asked through gritted teeth.

"I haven't opened any of the other files," Aram admitted. "The kitchen one told me enough. I thought maybe you and Liz could access them?"

Ressler walked toward the change room.

"I'll be there in 15 minutes," he said as he hung up the phone. He quickly showered, dressed and was at the Post Office in 18 minutes.

"Who else has access to this?" Ressler asked.

"Just him," Aram said. "It's quite locked down."

Ressler nodded.

"Can you send me the files?" Ressler asked.

"Uh, I'm not sure you want that sent over the FBI server," Aram said. "Take this flash drive and watch the videos from there."

Ressler nodded and walked with purpose to his office, firmly shutting the door, closing the blinds and putting on headphones.

He watched the videos and most of them were intrusive and a total breach of privacy but nothing that any other couple doesn't do. He hadn't realized he made a certain face when he orgasmed; it reminded him of his Uncle Herb when he sold a car. That connection was one Ressler could have lived without knowing.

He paced their office waiting for Liz to show up so he could share that their private weekend was anything but private, and that now Aram knew why she was walking around in nothing but an apron with flour on her bare ass one afternoon at the cabin.

The door to their office opened and Liz stepped inside looking at him strangely.

"What's the matter with Aram? I brought in homemade cookies from that bakery at my corner and all I got to was homemade and he bolted out of the office," Liz said with a chuckle. "He off gluten again?"

"No, I think he's off anything he think you and I baked," Ressler winced as he pulled out his desk chair and gestured for her to have a seat.

"Huh?" Liz asked him as she sat down.

"The cabin was not as private as we thought," Ressler said quietly as he leaned over her and clicked on a file.

The video of them in his kitchen with Ressler's head buried between her legs, her apron pushed up to her waist, as she sat on the edge of a counter covered in flour started to play.

"Jesus Christ," Liz said as she leaned forward and snapped the laptop shut and looked around them.

"The door is shut, the blinds are shut, and you can listen with these," Ressler said as he placed headphones over her ears.

"I know what we sound like," Liz said rejecting the headphones. "What I don't know is how this happened? There were no tracks…"

"He must have installed them after the last sweep but before the snow," Ressler explained.

"I…Ressler, what else…?" Liz asked.

"He operated the cameras by remote, so he must have been watching the video and hit record when things got interesting," Ressler explained.

"Is this his surveillance for the month then?" Liz asked. "Did we miss our shot to catch him?"

"That I don't know," Ressler said. "He has a pattern of monthly supervision, but possibly this was bonus footage for him?"

"Holy shit," Liz sighed. "The entire weekend?"

"He appears to have picked only some specific moments," Ressler said. "I've watched them all."

"And?" Liz asked.

"No morning sex," he said. "Possibly because of the covers or maybe he's not up yet to watch and know when to turn on the camera?"

"What other times did he not capture?" Liz asked.

"Remember making out when I was making nachos?" Ressler asked.

"It was a little more than making out," Liz smirked.

"Well, he didn't record whatever it was," Ressler said with a sigh.

"Okay, mornings was about 9ish?" Liz asked.

Ressler nodded.

"And the nachos…wasn't that around lunch time?" Liz asked.

"Yeah, didn't we have that for lunch? I would have started making it around 11 am," Ressler explained.

"So, sometime between 9 am and 11 am we know he's not observing because he's…sleeping? Working?"

"That's a short shift if he's working.

"Not if he starts in the middle of the night," Liz said. "Any nighttime sex on this drive?"

"Actually," Ressler said thoughtfully. "I'm going to say no, nothing past 10ish, give or take."

Liz nodded. "So, someone who can't record between about 11 pm and 11 am on a weekend because of work or sleep?"

"But he has before," Ressler said as he called up the photo files of one of them sleeping together snuggled up in bed at his cabin taken from outside the window. "This is a morning shot."

"But for that one he took the time to follow us there," Liz said. "For this…he could do it from the comfort of his little seedy home."

Ressler nodded. "We'd need to take in time differences, east coast, west coast, Europe, Asia…."

"I think he's state-side," Liz said. "Who can afford to travel monthly at all different times for 12 occasions each year? He is probably this coast."

Ressler agreed with her. "So, someone who works about 11 pm to 11am or somewhere in there."

"Hospital staff? Cop? Night watchman?" Liz asked.

"Maybe," Ressler said. "Or maybe it's his bedtime?"

"For a man who collects sex video of his victims, those are weird hours to not be available," Liz commented.

"So, night shift work?" Ressler concluded. "That narrows it down to millions of people."

Liz chuckled.

"Do you have that file on our top picks based on arrests?" Liz asked.

"Yeah, here," Ressler said as he handed it to her. "But Reddington thinks he's still under the radar and not one of these pervs."

"Yeah, but could one of these pervs know him?" Liz asked with a raised eyebrow.

"How many?" Ressler asked.

"A good twenty," Liz said as she flipped a page.

"I'll get Aram to work on warrants," Ressler said as he reached for the door handle.

"I'm going to call Reddington and tell him about the cameras and see if he knows anyone who may be the installation person," Liz said as she reached for her purse.

Ressler stopped at the door and turned around and looked at her.

"I'm sorry Liz," he said honestly. "I should have…"

"Known?" Liz asked him as she turned to look at him. "Ressler if either of us knew this was going to happen none of that…" Liz said as she pointed at a frozen image on the screen of them kissing in the bedroom. "…would have happened."

He nodded.

"And that's why Aram doesn't want your cookies," Ressler explained. "He clicked on a kitchen video, thinking it was safe and…"

"When I wore just the apron and we made pizza…" Liz realized.

"Yeah, I think he's a little traumatized," Ressler huffed.

Liz dropped her head to her chest. "It's only been a week and I hate that our friends and co-workers know this much about our private life."

Ressler let go of the handle and walked toward her and crouched in front of her, placing his hands on her knees and asking her to look at him.

"I love you," he said softly. "And you and I still have a wonderful secret right now, one that no one knows," he said as he played with her ring finger. "and it makes me think we can get through this. It helps me to know that we'll get our privacy back, the sooner the better, okay?"

"I love you too," Liz said with a small smile. "And yes, I like that we have that."

He stood in front of her and placed a soft hand on her head and then left their office to go work on warrants with Aram.

Liz took the flash drive out of the laptop and pocketed it. No one needed to see any footage of them this past weekend to know his cabin had been compromised. Aram may never be able to look at flour the same way again, but Liz was not ashamed of anything she did with the man she loved.

To be continued…