Mason Kimble loaded the video into Final Cut Pro. It popped up in the directory as Untitled. He double-clicked on it, and the footage appeared in the preview screen.
“How much are you going to use?” Gerard Cardigan said.
“Just a clip, a teaser. Enough to prove we have footage she wouldn’t want going public. A good clip, though.”
Mason clicked Play and they watched the video of Tessa Tweed again. He stopped it on the money shot, backed up a few seconds, and marked the clip. Then he ran it forward a few seconds past the spot where he’d stopped before, and marked the clip again. He clicked on the section he’d marked, and that short segment jumped down into the timeline of the film. He clicked on that and played the segment in the viewer screen.
“And that’s it,” he said. He loaded a blank disc into the computer and copied the clip. “Now we play that back to make sure it transferred.” He ejected the disc, fed it into a DVD player, and played it back. “Beautiful.”
He ejected the disc, wiped any fingerprints off it, and slipped it into a white paper sleeve.
“Now we delete this entire project from Final Cut Pro without saving it, and it’s as if it’s never been here.”
Mason deleted the project. He picked up the disc. “And we are left with this marvelous preview of coming attractions.” He slipped the disc sleeve into a padded manila envelope. Then from a plastic shopping bag on his desk, he removed a brand-new cell phone, wiped it clean, and put it in, too. “Now, there’s a pretty package.” Mason extended it to Gerard. “Would you be so good as to see that the young lady gets it?”
“Do you want to put her name on it?”
Mason smiled. “Oh, she’ll know who it’s for.”