The Other Side Page 8

  ‘Where are you lost, Rachel? I asked you something,’ said Sam as he observed Rachel lost in some thoughts.

  ‘Oh nothing, was checking a video on the internet,’ lied Rachel.

  She had wanted to test Sam every day. She felt like a better detective than Harvey with this new technology Apple had started. But it cost her inner peace. She would track Sam. Some days his answers would match with the frequent locations data, and some days it would not. Rachel was mad at him, for she didn’t understand why he had to lie even for a single day. She was not able to keep this feeling with herself anymore, and one fine day she confronted Sam. He was completely unaware of the trap within the Apple phone. So to cover up his lies, he had lied more. He manipulated everything very smartly. With his sweet talk, Sam tried convincing Rachel that he hadn’t do anything wrong or lied on purpose. But Rachel knew he was lying. After such incidents, it was difficult for Rachel to trust Sam completely.

  Sam also had a habit of being carried away by sweet talk, the way he lures Rachel. He used to become friendly with anyone he would meet, especially girls, which Rachel personally didn’t like.

  The other thing which affected their relationship was time. Sam used to be so work-oriented, his first priority in life had become work and he tended to neglect Rachel and family life. This irked Rachel, when she needed Sam the most, he was never available. Sam had shown all these changes after marriage and not when they were dating.

  Similarly, the problem Sam had with Rachel was a little obvious. Sam always felt that Rachel was needlessly suspicious. He hated the fact that she did not implicitly trust him. She always asked him questions, and that irked him. He wanted her to be more understanding and less suspicious. He wanted her to support his dreams and thus help him to handle his workload. Though Sam didn’t tell her anything directly and end up in one or another soup.

  The insecurities never left Rachel’s mind during those years. It had an impact on her health. Her immune system was affected as she kept thinking and worrying about all these matters. Her food habits were disturbed. And before she realized, she fell ill. She got affected with tuberculosis and was on medication for six months. She had got extra-pulmonary TB, the noncontagious one. Even during the time when she needed Sam to be around, he was busy with his work, ambition, and goals. She was under a health care volunteer, who took care of her. Sam’s not being there during those times had created a mark on Rachel’s mind. Sam realized his mistake quite later and tried to cover up. Things started getting better for them, but not completely.

  Chapter 18

  A few days passed and Sam was far from uncovering the blackmailer’s identity of whereabouts. He did not know what was taking Harvey so long. So too with his marital worries. He still did not know why Rachel’s had visited a family court lawyer.

  Just as he left for work, he got another email from the blackmailer.

  ‘Sam Geller, this is the last email. You can take it as a warning, it is to inform you that if you don’t pay the money, then we are going to disclose your information with additional spices. Since you have failed the last time, the amount of money has been increased. The amount needs to be transferred to the following bank account: 00000068004706308.’

  Sam called Harvey, and they met at Sam’s office. Sam gave Harvey the bank details of the blackmailer, and it seemed of some other country. Harvey made certain calls and found out that the bank was in India. He was shocked and thought of Kavya. He shared his thoughts with Sam who disagreed with his suspicion immediately.

  ‘Kavya is not that type of a girl Harvey, I got her text message a day back saying that she is loving it here in the US and that she will be returning to India with Kabir in about ten days. Why would she be friendly if she is the culprit? It’s someone else Harvey, work on that,’ explained Sam. The email gave a lead to the IP address, this time too it was different from the previous one.

  While Sam and Harvey were busy discussing the blackmailer, Sam got a text message from Rachel. At first, he was very excited and hoped for some sweet message from Rachel. It had been long since they had a friendly conversation with each other. Maybe Rachel would have realized she was being rude for a few days and might have texted. As Sam opened the text message, an image opened with a caption saying, ‘Look who photobombed in my friend’s selfie photo.’

  Looking at the photo at first, he didn’t catch the message she had written. He looked at the picture clearly and closely, and then realized that he too was there in the picture, and who was sitting with him but Kavya. Their faces were clear in that photo. The photo had been uploaded on Facebook by Rachel’s friend. Being captured in someone else’s selfie which comes out to be one’s wife’s friend was quite a surprise. And especially when you have not said anything about that girl to your wife. Sam understood the sarcastic tone in the message and the purpose of sending the photo to him. He showed it to Harvey, who was almost dead with laughter looking at what fate had in store for his best friend. His friend was getting into a messier soup day by day.

  ‘Good one,’ Sam replied to Rachel over the text message and left the topic there. He didn’t bother to give any clarification as it would make him look guilty in the first place. Something was cooking in Rachel’s mind, thought Sam. He had first seen her in the CCTV footage of his office, then outside a divorce lawyer’s office and now this photo. Sam thought of let some time pass and then talk to her about it, once and for all.

  Meanwhile, the fallout of the website scam was there to see in the US and Canada, with the subject refusing to die down. Many cases had been filed and many detectives and cyber experts hired, as victims ran helter skelter to save their reputation and angry spouses decided to punish their partners. Many people had come to Harvey’s agency too to seek help and met them all. He accompanied a journalist friend and started interviewing victims of the Ashton Martinson leak. They started researching on the reasons for so many subscribing to the Ashton Martinson website in the first place.

  ‘I joined the website one night when I was bored, drunk and rather curious about the website. I did nothing else and never opened the website after the first day. Now I feel sick thinking about that night when I signed up. I can’t sleep or eat properly trying to hide that something is wrong from my wife,’ said one of the victims. They confessed what they had done wrong, nearly done or hadn’t done at all. There were in sheer fear and living through a nightmarish situation. They wondered if admitting the truth to the people who mattered to them was a good idea, what the cost of confessing would be.

  ‘I opened the account because I was not feeling complete with my marriage. We lacked compatibility, and that affected our relationship. I opened the account to find someone with whom I could talk to freely. Without the fear of being judged. Who could respect my feelings, that’s it and nothing more. It was all about talking and chatting about emotional matters. I was not expecting or looking for sexual favours. Nor was I expecting to meet the person,’ said the other victim.

  Some victims said they loved their wife and had known them since when they were very young. But there were other problems; there were kids, and over the years for many of them intimacy had suffered. Their relationship lacked the romance factor, but since they had a good partnership in other matters they continued with the status quo; they didn’t want to upend their relationship and everything else. And thus for fulfilling their sexual needs, they opened the account in the website. Some of them were on the site with the permission of their spouses.

  Peoples reasons were complex. They were real, and this was always the reasoning for cheating. It highlighted the significant problems of a relationship which is never discussed, the best kept secrets, the naked truth behind the mask of a happy couple. And that was the reason why Ashton Martinson had millions of users. They all trusted on the promise that the website had given. The hidden identity! Harvey understood how complex the situation was getting day by day. It was like an epidemic spreading all around the globe, certainly in the United Sta
tes and Canada. Harvey knew he alone would not be able to investigate the cases further. He joined hands with various other agencies and the impact teams who were busy investigating the hackers. A clue could emerge and benefit all the sleuths and their clients.

  Even as the problem became more challenging, Harvey that he didn’t mind spending his days and nights working on the matter. With so much going around, there was something new which came to Harvey’s knowledge every day. The scam was one of the biggest in the history of online breaching. Apart from private detectives, the American investigative agencies had also got on to the problem. Harvey suspected everything and everyone that related to the scam. And he was still suspicious of Kavya. But he didn’t tell Sam so after he disagreed with Harvey on this one.

  Chapter 19

  Sam had stopped making efforts to speak to Rachel after she sent him that photo. He delayed the plans to confess to his actions. As to the date and the ring that he had brought, that was now on the backburner. Rachel didn’t expect this behaviour of Sam. From outside she showed that she was not bothered and she was avoiding Sam for a reason. Deep in her heart she wanted Sam to make an effort, talk to her, and comfort her even though she had been misleading him. But men are men, they don’t understand this complex thinking of women, and thus he did what he felt. As for him, he felt that she was not in the right state of mind and it was better to leave her alone for a while. Often such misunderstandings are the only cause of heartbreaks. Unspoken expectation comes with a lot of baggage. Rachel was not convinced that Sam would ever change for the good. But was Sam a bad guy? No.

  After a couple of days, Rachel flew to New York for a few days. She had work. She would meet a close friend and catch up with some quality time. Just to irk Sam more, she kept her cell switched off when she was free and relaxing.

  ‘Why are you doing all this? What’s the point? Its better you talk to him once. Why do you want to carry the unnecessary burden of stress with you?’ asked Rachel’s friend, when they were having a coffee in the café near Times Square.

  ‘You will not understand. A little avoidance is a must with guys like Sam, or else they start taking you for granted. I have suffered enough of that in the past. He was never around when I needed him the most. For him, work is only his priority,’ answered Rachel.

  ‘I would still suggest you give it a try. Sam is a great guy, so what if he has high ambitions? Try to support him. I am sure he knows your worth. He will definitely understand you. But talk to him what you need in a relationship directly. Without any twist and turns or by misleading him. Don’t expect that he would understand what you don’t say. Trust me, you guys will make the best couple,’ suggested Rachel’s friend.

  ‘We will see how it works out dear; as of now, can we please carry with our plans?’ asked Rachel.

  ‘I don’t mind Rachel. But you are sure right, it won’t have any risk? What if Sam comes to know about it?’ asked Rachel’s friend.

  ‘No, Sam will not come to know about it, don’t worry about it. I will take care of him. As of now, let’s do it,’ said Rachel.

  The break in New York gave Rachel enough time to think about her relationship with Sam and what she wanted to do ahead in life. After hanging around with her friend in New York, whenever she came back to the hotel, she wouldn’t sleep directly. She would pamper herself with long showers, movies, reading books, etc. She would order red wine for herself and indulge in good music, sitting by the window and gazing at the view of New York City. At times, such me time is required for the wellness of the self. To compose ourselves better, to know ourselves better. Rachel thought about Sam and what her friend had suggested. She wondered if she really was misleading Sam. Or did she expect too much from him? Was his not being there during her tuberculosis treatment, when she needed him most, the real reason for being upset with him. Was that reason worth to break the relationship or let the sufferings affect their relationship? No, she thought. Rachel’s friend did make some point. She felt good about the whole trip and with a new perspective to look at her marriage. She decided to talk to Sam about it when she returned.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Sam and Harvey worked day and night digging away for information about the scam. Harvey had shifted to Sam’s house for a few days while Rachel was in New York. After a long time, they were catching up in this fashion. Even the boys were indulging in some ‘me time’. After spending a day full of workload and stress, in the night they binge-watched movies and the latest season of Suits. They ordered late night pizza’s and drank lots of beer. In the morning they would get up late and rush to work. This break was much-needed after the scam that had shaken their lives.

  Teaming up with the other investigators had also made Harvey’s work easier. He was relieved, but a disturbing feeling kept nagging him. The pattern of the other blackmailers of the scam and that of Sam was very different. Most of the victims they had interviewed showed the same pattern – an email, some hush money and that was about it.

  The website’s owner, Rainbow Corp. formerly known as Allover Media, an internet company based in Toronto had appointed a team to look out for the hackers too with the promise of a large reward. The Toronto police department, too, with the help of cyber breach team was working on the same matter. There was a new CEO at the helm of the company too. Nathan Benedict, the CEO of Allover Media resigned and the company was rebranded to Rainbow Corp. with Ralph Sadie as the new CEO.

  One of the biggest mistakes of the Ashton Martinson website was the promise to remove all traces of the user data once users deleted their account. And for that service the site charged as much as $19. This feature brought the website more than $1.7 million annually. But what came later was that the service deleted only profile data; payment data was still saved on a file. Thus, even if the user made an account with a fake name, their real name remained embedded in the payment data, indelible. The hacker easily nailed the customer’s credit card data, real names, billing addresses, sexual fantasies, etc. It meant that people who thought they were covering their tracks, never did. The scam was a big lesson to apply for businesses to revamp the security of their cyber systems as well as business practices. Deleting data from a computer used for business may not mean the data is deleted permanently. Computers can retain file information anytime. So for example, when you delete a file, you are only deleting the route to the file, and if it goes to someone’s hand with good knowledge, they can quickly get their hands on the hard drive, which generally leads to the data breach.

  Ultimately the company was helpless before its unknown hackers. The relentless hackers cost the company a lot. The hackers warned the company to close the site permanently and threatened to leak their database. They had also sent emails to their customers, blackmailing them personally. Before all hell broke loose, the company had an IPO scheduled just a few weeks after the scam. Now an IPO became of no point. There was no way they could raise the previously anticipated amount of $200 million on the initial stock purchase. Apart from this, the company faced legal lawsuits and audits. When Benedict, was forced to resign, he had given only one reason – ‘It is for the better future and in the interest of the company.’

  Sam had got a reminder email again from the blackmailer. He had no other option left at that moment but to send the blackmailer the money. Sam was not sure if they would stop blackmailing him if he paid up. But he didn’t want to take any chance of exposing himself in to the world. That would cost him everything he had built up in his life. He just could not afford it. And thus, after talking to Harvey, he sent the money to that account. The account was in India.

  With the information Harvey had, it looked like all the blackmailers and hackers were from the US itself. He wondered why India was coming in the picture. And Kavya was from India. Sam had already lost so much amount of money to her. Harvey wanted to know her bank details and also wanted to find out more about her. Harvey knew Sam would never support him for what he wanted to do. So he decided to d
o it alone, without informing Sam about it.

  ‘Hey Sam, I am going out of town for a few days, I will be back next week. Till that time if any emergency occurs regarding the blackmailer or Rachel, then do let me know. I will always be available for you,’ Harvey told Sam.

  ‘But Harvey, all of sudden where are you going? You didn’t inform anything about it when you were staying here,’ questioned Sam.

  ‘It’s a work emergency Sam, this might help me nail our blackmailer as well. Still not sure though, but I want to give it a try,’ answered Harvey.

  So, Harvey emplaned for Mumbai.

  Chapter 20

  Harvey was travelling for the first time to India. He had heard a lot about the country and ever since wanted to visit and explore West Bengal, the North East, Kerala, Goa and Rajasthan – he was fascinated at the diversity of culture and tradition of India, each state filled with its unique and rich heritage. He had heard a lot about the cheap weed and alcohol available in Goa, but due to the hustle he had left behind in Los Angeles, he had no extra time to go anywhere apart from Mumbai. He knew he came to India with a major risk.

  He had booked Novotel Juhu hotel for his stay. He knew that Kavya lived somewhere in Juhu. Along with that, he had also informed an Indian friend named Sahil about his arrival. Sahil was a journalist and worked for Mumbai News. He had a lot of contacts in the city, and thus it would be easy for Harvey to track Kavya and garner information about her. Sahil was going to assist him on this trip. It was raining when Harvey landed in Mumbai airport. As soon as he came out of the airport, he saw Sahil waiting for him. Harvey and Sahil both were too excited to meet each other. Sahil first met Harvey in London where they had studied for their respective courses. Since it was raining, Harvey got a nice petrichor welcome, the earthy scent of rains falling on the soil. It was so fresh, pure, and magical.