“Does she?” he asked, immediately regretting playing dumb.
“There’s a video of her killing Maxwell Carlton. What would you like me to do about it? I’m not an attorney, Anthony. I simply deal with facts. My detectives gathered enough evidence to convince Judge Proctor to issue an arrest warrant. What do you want me to do?”
“Your job,” the mayor said. “She’s not your perp. That means someone else out there is walking around scot-free.”
“Anthony, my hands are tied.”
“Thanks anyway,” he said and hung up. So much for parting amiably. He was pretty sure he’d just royally pissed her off.
The mayor had one more call to make. The Attorney General for the state of California. Merilee Conley. Another former girlfriend and lover. Thank God, he always ended his relationships on a good note.
“Merilee? I need your help. A woman I know is being framed with a video I would stake my life on not being her. But I’ve seen it with my own eyes. It’s her. What the hell?”
Merilee had an answer—a ready answer. It was called Deepfake technology. She quickly explained it to the mayor.
“What can I do about it?” he asked.
Thirty minutes later the mayor had a game plan to try to help Gia Santella.
He shook his head. He didn’t know why he was going to put his neck on the line for a woman he barely knew, but he’d never felt more compelled to do anything in his life.
Thirty-Five
Sorry, not sorry, James.
As soon as my feet hit the pavement, I ran.
My first stop was to buy three burner phones. I knew the camera in the store would capture my purchase, so I headed straight to the Tenderloin to buy them.
James and Dante and anyone else who knew me would think I retreated to my old neighborhood, but I had no plans to stay in the TL. Too obvious.
Instead, I headed for the docks. I knew there was a homeless community there.
I needed a vehicle to sleep in.
As soon as I got the first burner phone up and running, I dialed Tony.
“I need a van. No windows. I’m on the run. A murder rap. I didn’t do it.”
He didn’t even hesitate.
“I’ll have a van for you in the parking lot of El Mercado’s Burritos in the Mission. Key will be on top of the passenger side rear tire. 0700.”
Then he hung up.
I had an hour to kill.
I pulled my hair back in a tight ponytail and pulled my hoodie up until most of my face was obscured. I headed to Chinatown. I walked the streets, ducking my head to avoid any CCTV cameras.
Aware of the possibility that every camera in the city would eventually be searching for my face, I walked with my head down and hopped a bus headed toward the Mission.
I snuck into a bodega and bought a bag of food that wouldn’t go bad—canned beans, tuna, bottled water, and some beef jerky. I wasn’t sure how long I was going to have to hide out.
I’d lay low in the city—maybe pay someone to use my ID to get out of town. My only hope was to stay in town and figure out who was framing me. If I ran, I wouldn’t be able to prove my innocence.
Speaking of, I needed help.
While I hid in the alley near the bodega I dialed Danny. He didn’t pick up. He was probably still asleep. I left a message.
“I’m on the run. I’ll call you in four hours.”
That should give me enough time to settle into my new home at the homeless camp.
The van was where Tony said it would be. Of course. That guy was salt of the earth. I could count on him during the apocalypse. If he said he’d do something, you could count on it.
I drove over to the homeless camp and parked in a spot near the underpass. I knew the cops didn’t come down there very often. During our dinner, the mayor had said helping the homeless was one of his top priorities, and that was one reason he told the cops to lay off this camp until the city had a better option for these people.
Once I was parked, I dialed Danny.
“Any luck? How do we fight back against this type of technology?” I asked.
“If you know what to look for, you might be able to tell a Deepfake,” he said. “There’s a whole list of stuff to look for. Are they blinking naturally, making weird faces, is their posture weird, are their movements jerky or disjointed? Is the lighting weird, like with shadows or their skin tone? Is the hair weird? Like you can’t really recreate frizzy hair. When they smile, are their teeth just a line of white without individual teeth? Is it blurry? Are the voices weird or out of synch with the movement of the mouth?”
“Are all these things enough to prove its Deepfake?” I asked. “Like will this hold up in court?”
“I don’t know. I know the first thing I did was slow down the video so I could look at it better. The problem is, it was filmed in the dark, so I couldn’t really zoom in on things that might show it was fake. Our best bet is going to be if I can find the video’s digital fingerprint through block chain technology. That fingerprint can help us show the video is fake. But it’s going to take time.”
“I’m back in court on Tuesday. And I’m not going to show.”
“Didn’t James vouch for you?”
I ignored this.
“What are my options? Besides finding the killer myself?”
Danny was silent for a second.
“I don’t think this video would hold up in court.”
“That’s it?” I said. “My future depends on that: ‘I don’t think?’”
“I’m pretty sure I can prove it’s a fake. Then there is no case, right?”
“I can’t wait for that. I’ll be in touch soon,” I said and hung up.
Thirty-Six
The van was what I liked to call a Kidnapper Van. In other words,
