CHAPTER SEVEN
Wilden grabbed up his phone and called a familiar number. He had just heard about Jason's warrant for arrest which meant it was time for plan C. He and the doctor had put this plan together the moment after Ian's arrest warrant.
"Tonight." Wilden said in lieu of a greeting. "I'll take care of Garret."
"They know about him already?"
"Yeah, Eric was there when his dad signed the arrest warrant."
"How?"
"Those idiots had a club name before I took over and they all put it in their yearbook. Spencer probably figured it out."
"She would." He said before shaking impending thoughts of her out of his head so he could stay focused. "And you're sure Jason doesn't know about me or the grand plan."
"No. That's why you have to be the one to do it." Wilden confirmed. "Ian assured me that Jason and Garret still think framing the girls is the ultimate plan."
"But Ian's out there and he knows about me."
"That was your own fault." Wilden said harshly. "Seducing his girlfriend to get up close and personal with her little sister was a bad move. You should have just waited until we had everything in place."
"Calm down, mate, I saw an opportunity and went for it. To be honest I didn't think the grand plan would actually happen. And to be fair, you didn't show me how many people were paying to watch until after Ian first disappeared. Come on don't tell me you weren't using Ashley to get to Hanna."
"But that was still part of the plan!" Wilden argued. "I shadow Hanna. Ian on Spencer. Eric's brother on Aria. Emily was our wild card, but you got CeCe for her to redeem yourself for moving in on Spencer."
"Sorry, mate, I thought it was done for when they found Allison's body."
"Are you kidding me? That made our investors more excited. Once I explained that pinning the murder on them would mean we could grab them and people would just think they were fugitives, the money poured in. Watching is one thing but getting to indulge your fantasy or at least watch someone else do it-priceless."
"You're right, mate. It's why I couldn't help myself when I saw the chance. I admit it. My plan was balls-up." Wren conceded. "I hope we can still see to yours. I'll take care of my end. You yours. Got it?"
"Absolutely." Wilden smiled before ending the call.
Wren Kingston took the small plastic baggy out of his locker and put it in the pants pocket of his scrubs. The bag was from Wilden. In it were fibers from Garret's uniform that he would place in Jason's fingernail and some of Garret's hair that he would put somewhere on Jason's bed. Wilden had already convinced Garret to leave town but before he left to stop by Jason's to learn where Ian had fled. He convinced Garret that just as Melissa and Ian were able to disappear, Ian could make it happen for Garrett too. Wilden said that Garrett could get a lot of money from Ian and Wilden would meet up with them later with their new identities.
Garret bought it.
Counting on people seeing the uniform and not much else, Garret used it to sneak into the hospital and up to Jason's room. When he got to Jason and saw that he had been smothered to death with his pillow, Garret still didn't realize he was being set up.
Maybe if he had run immediately out and gotten help instead of pulling himself together and calmly leaving Jason's room so he could sneak back out to his car, he would have looked a lot less guilty to the hospital cameras watching him.
He didn't even get to start his car before he was surrounded by the police in the hospital parking lot with their guns drawn and covered in head to toe with full on SWAT gear.
Wilden knew the timing didn't have to be perfect but the closer it was to perfection the better just in case. The moment he heard the order to roll down your window and drop out your firearm, Wilden took aim.
As soon as Garret's car window started to move down, Wilden fired at a police officer. The angle of which he fired made it look like the shot came from the direction of Garret's car window. It was far from perfect, but the desired result was still achieved. The surrounding police immediately returned fire thinking Garret was shooting at them.
In the ensuing chaos, Wilden made sure he was the first officer to open Garret's car door. As other officers approached, Wilden surreptitiously planted the gun he fired by Garret's dead hand.
"Nice work." Wren whispered into his phone as he watched the breaking news report three hours later. "Are you sure Ian won't be a problem?"
"Positive." Wilden assured the doctor. "He's scared shitless of me and he really wants to be a family man, so he'll do anything to protect Melissa and the brat she's carrying. He won't say a word about you especially since he's getting paid."
"And the grand plan?"
"On hold, at least for now." Wilden sighed. "Damn investors got spooked because a reporter said the police are going to thoroughly investigate the N.A.T. club for Allison's murder taking our dolls off the suspect list. Sorry you won't get Spencer or Hannah."
"It's alright, mate. Best to quit while we're ahead."
"At least for now. I made enough to hold me over for a while. And with Jason and Garret dead and Ian on the run, they'll think the videos made by a bunch of clowns in high school was the motive for Alison's murder and it ended with them. Do you want me to give you a call when we're up and running again? May take a while but I can send you videos as soon as I put a new collection together."
"Sure mate. But just in case, don't give me a call until your new dolls are locked up in the bunker. I couldn't resist Alison's friends and now I'm gutted. Don't want to make that mistake again."
"Will do." Wilden said.
"Best of luck. Until next time."
"Until next time." Wilden repeated before hanging up.
Aria, Hannah, Caleb, Emily, Spencer, and Toby were all staring at the television in shock as the events of the shootout at Rosewood Hospital were laid out by a reporter. Spencer's parents were still at the police station dealing with the fall out of Melissa and Ian fleeing so the four best friends decided to leave their phones at Arias and go to Spencer's where they could talk without A listening. Because Ian was still on the loose, they called Caleb and Toby over too as a safety precaution.
"Ian may not be a problem for much longer." Hanna commented. When everyone looked at her she continued. "Looks like someone is killing off N.A.T. members." Hannah gestured towards the television.
"Garret had to know shooting at the police was suicide. Do you think that's what he wanted?" Aria asked.
"It doesn't make sense." Toby thought out loud. "If Garret killed Jason, he was covering his tracks. So why then do a suicide by police?"
"What if he didn't kill Jason?" Spencer suggested. "Seriously why would he do that?"
"Because Jason could tell the cops on him." Emily explained but Spencer shrugged.
"The cops were already planning to arrest Garret for tampering with evidence. Maybe Jason would expose Garret for watching child pornography, but both those things are way less serious than first degree murder. And because Jason could finger him, Garret had to know that Jason turning up dead would mean he was their prime suspect. Him and Ian because they were all part of the club. That's too short of a list since all Ian would need is an alibi."
"What are you saying, Spence?" Aria questioned.
"Someone else is involved." Caleb answered instead catching on to Spencer's line of thinking. "Someone powerful enough to set it up where they could kill two birds at one time."
"Someone who needed to get rid of both Jason and Garret before they fingered them." Spencer continued.
"Okay, can we please stop saying 'fingered?' It's gross." Hanna stated.
"So, there's another N.A.T. member out there besides Ian." Toby said ignoring Hannah.
"Me and Spencer combed through that yearbook though. No one else used those initials."
"Are we sure it's someone who is worried about being fing...exposed." Emily asked. "Maybe it's someone just being a vigilante?"
"You mean our tormentor turned frenemy, A." Aria said.
"If that's true then we are really screwed. "Spencer shuddered.
"How come?"
"We left our phones upstairs at Aria's because we found out A bugged them and before that we didn't even have our phones when we were here looking for the yearbook." Spencer began. "A would not have heard from us that Garret was N.A.T. So, either A has bugged every phone in Rosewood, or they are also on the police force or a judge that signed the warrant, and they had the skill to orchestrate two murders in a few hours. If A can do that…"
"We are so screwed." Hanna finished
"No that doesn't fit." Caleb shook his head. "Because if A could do that, from what you told me, why play mind games with teenage girls? I think it's someone trying to cover their tracks and Spencer I think you're onto something when you said it was someone also on the police force. We know it was a cop who killed Garret. Maybe it wasn't self-defense."
"If another cop's involved that means we're still in danger." Emily voiced. "And who's to say it's just one cop, it could be a whole bunch."
"And maybe not just cops?" Hannah contributed. The group looked around feeding from each other's growing unease.
"Wait." Toby put his hand up. "Are we being too paranoid?"
"no." Aria shook her head. "I can't help but think about what you said, Hanna, that night at the hospital to Alavez." Aria spoke in a low voice as she recalled that night. "You called the cops morons because they had all this time to solve Allison's murder and they didn't. Maybe they just didn't want to because they're so corrupt. I mean they first tried to pin the murder on you Toby then you, Spence."
"They didn't look into Ian as a suspect even after we said he tried to kill you and he skipped town." Hanna added.
"You think the whole Rosewood PD is corrupt?"
"Maybe not all of them. It might even be just a small network but enough to make evidence disappear, get planted, and even make murder happen to protect the network."
"What are we going to do?" Aria couldn't keep the fear out of her voice.
"We have to expose them all." Spencer answered. "We did it with Garret. We'll figure out who else is in this 'network.'
"And I think I know where to start." Caleb nodded. He turned abruptly and grabbed his laptop bag off the floor.
Everyone remained silent as he brought it back to the island and turned it on. "If there's a group of dirty cops, they didn't just come together to cover up your friend, Alison's murder. Melissa, Ian, and Jason did that and none of them are cops." Caleb's hands flew across the keyboard as he spoke. "The thing you said about the network got me thinking. If a cop is dirty especially a whole group of them, it's because they found a way to make money illegally and their position as cops shields their operation."
"So, like being able to get into the evidence room to sell weapons or drugs from a big drug bust like in the movie Bad Boys." Hannah nodded.
"Yeah but Rosewood is hardly the place where major drug busts happen. This is a far cry from L.A." Toby reasoned. "How are they making money here?"
"The videos." Spencer said suddenly.
"Exactly." Caleb nodded.
"The videos?" Emily was still confused as were Aria, Toby, and Hannah.
"I told you, Jason's house, was party central." Spencer explained. "We already know they were showing the videos. What if they were charging to watch?" The idea made them all sick but that didn't mean it wasn't true. "If enough perverts were willing to pay to watch teenage girls being-" She paused and swallowed hard. "Being violated. Why not see if there's a bigger market? That's just capitalism. Who knows maybe a cop caught a NAT member filming in one of our windows and to get out of being arrested they let him in on their perversion?"
"And maybe it's the cop who sees the 'business' potential and Ian, Jason, and Garret become just foot soldiers." Toby offers.
"That sounds really great. Well not great. It's sick. I just mean it makes a lot of sense." Emily says. "How can we find out if that's true though?"
"I just did." Caleb says as his hands stilled on the keyboard. "Welcome to the dark web." He then said as everyone gathered behind him to see what was on his computer screen.
The page had about twenty thumbnail pictures on it and the bottom showed there were a lot more pages included on the site. They were small but the girls could make out their faces and bedrooms easily enough. Underneath were captions like "filthy 14-year-old fresh from the shower," and "spy a sleeping beauty." Each thumbnail had a price. The most expensive were variations of titles having to do with Jason raping his sister. When Caleb clicked on one image, a form popped up asking for credit card information.
Even though they were all staring at the site, the disbelief was palpable. How could someone do this? To children? To anyone? It was beyond sick. But it was lucrative and that was probably the only justification whoever set this up needed.
"We've got to show this to the police." Aria whispered, her voice part of the pit in her stomach.
"We can't trust the police." Spencer choked in an effort to stifle the tears welling in her eyes.
"Who can we trust?" Hanna shook her head. "Do we tell our parents?"
"They'll probably just go to the police and that might put them in danger." Toby said. "We need someone outside of Rosewood but who could get things handled here."
They all took a moment to think about anyone they knew that met that criteria.
"I know!" It was Emily who spoke first. "My dad. He's military. He's bound to know people in high enough places that could take this on."
"Great idea, Em." Aria praised.
"Call him now." Spencer said. "We cannot sit on this and let A, Ian, or Rosewood PD have the chance to know what we uncovered."