Always Standing Steady

Still Alive

090500SJUL16: July 16, 2016. 0500. Topeka, Kansas, United States of America.

Red was the color for solid T.R.U.T.H. evidence. Or maybe it was orange? No: Red was the color for theories, orange was the color for things to investigate, and green was the color for solid evidence. Maybe it was pink? I really did not know. Nazirah and Diego's penchant for color coding everything was made more confusing by the fact that they had completely different colors for everything. I was seriously doing my best here.

I had been up most of the night to look over our new evidence. Thanks to Sicily, we now know that Janis Security and the mayor's office have some stake in T.R.U.T.H.. Thanks to Diego and his IRS friend, I had the financial records for all the over people in the same tax bracket as James as well as the expenditures for every department in the state. That was when I saw the pattern. Every other person in that tax bracket also had huge amounts of money unaccounted for; it was the kind of unaccounted for that even a Swiss bank account didn't explain. Many of these other people were missing a lot more than that hundred thousand that James was. It seems that they had paid T.R.U.T.H. the full amount.

Then there was the state government. A grant from the federal government had been given to Topeka to make the school system spit out more graduates and fewer criminals; however, that grant was tiny compared to the cost of everything that had actually been done. I slowly compared and budgets of each department with their expenditures; it was boring as hell, yes, but the inconsistencies were obvious. The budget for the mayor's office itself and the governor's campaign funds showed the same trend of grants and donations coming in but not nearly that amount coming out. I would need someone smarter than myself--Sicily or Nazirah, that is--to hack into the bank accounts to look at the individual payment receipts, but from where I stood, it looks like T.R.U.T.H.'s money isn't only coming from rich Topeka citizens.

Diego came down the stairs to join me with a tabled resting in the crook of his arm. "Your husband is refusing to let me help him make breakfast. He says he can handle it."

"We'll see," I murmured. Ezra had tried making me meals before; it turns out that he is excellent at pastries, grilling, and little else. "T.R.U.T.H. is getting their money from blackmailing those who can afford it--like Robin Hood with more treason--and from leaching it away from the local government. However, the cost of that revamping project far exceeds the grant from the federal government. T.R.U.T.H. must have some stake in the project."

Diego didn't respond, instead he held out his tablet. The screen showed a paused video--the blackmail video. The still the screen showed was obviously a shot from an expensive hotel; it showed two people in the bed having sex. There was also a time stamp and a location: Paris, France. February 14, 2013. 2:45am.

"Yes, that is Mia Stone and James Fisher. This is also about three hours after Nicolai Holloway got down on one knee in the wings of the Palais Garnier during the final bows of the performance of Sleeping Beauty. Mia agreed to marry him, had dinner with him, then met James Fisher in his hotel after Nicolai fell asleep," Diego explained. "I know, it's like a bad opera."

"And of course James would pay to keep that secret. I guess he hasn't changed." I paused. "Wait a minute. So James is in love with Mia--probably has been since she was underage--but Mia is engaged to someone else. If this tape got out, Nicolai would probably leave Mia. James would get her all to himself; he would get what he wanted, yet he is paying to keep it hidden."

"Sicily got it out of someone that whoever is behind T.R.U.T.H. is trying to rid the world of Islam because they think a Muslim terrorist's bomb killed you," Diego blurted out. "That person is committing treason of every flavor, not to mention blackmail. The only reason Fisher would have to pay money into this is to hide the whole deal: no sex tape means no blackmail means no T.R.U.T.H.."