As the yoga class progresses, a rhythm develops. Like a skilled conductor, Yogi Jack directs his students into position, silently traveling through the studio and adjusting their stances. His touch is gentle and lingering. The corrections vary: legs widened or narrowed to mirror their hip width, knees repositioned above planted feet, rounded back stretches deepened, hips pulled back and up, twists enhanced. Some of his touches are straightforward and helpful to the pose, while others are all about contact.
Unlike other yoga instructors who explain the adjustment in process, Jack is silent. His students don’t know why their positions were wrong, but the comfort of the new one he configures each into is answer enough—at least for that moment. Technical speak would interrupt the intoxicating feel-good vibe created in his class. It would force rational thought at a time when they welcomed the blurring of lines. Each student enjoys the dark, the music, the endorphin release. The women are old enough to savor moments when they can momentarily lose themselves without enhancements. Exercise, at least when not overdone, is nothing but good for them.
Touches that are more about contact than instruction are also welcomed by the regulars. Jack is the class bonus. His attractiveness and emotional availability fuels their fantasies of an ideal man—handsome, sensitive, evolved—while his attention staves off their concerns about aging. Jack knows this and plays with them by selectively doling out his touches. He understands that no matter how assured they are, there is an insecure part in all of them—one that craves attention to validate their waning attractiveness, to validate their worth.
Jack exploits these insecurities; there are weeks when he ignores students or only makes minor adjustments, and others when he repeatedly returns to them in one class. He wants them to wonder why they were ignored on some days and why they weren’t on others. He wants the women to long for his contact, to feel as though they are his chosen adjustment.
These touches have nothing to do with proper yoga positioning. They have everything to do with manipulation.
* * *
As Abby allowed Sabrina her night out and waited for Kevin to come over to her house to discuss what she and Elizabeth discovered, she was furious with herself for being taken advantage of by Jack. Why didn’t I see this earlier? she thought. Everything was crystal clear to her now: the do-gooder persona and charity, the yoga classes’ manufactured sexual tension, the push for private sessions and workshop registration, the encouragement of kundalini growth, and ultimately, his sexcapades service. It’s all one big twisted business model, she thought. And he set it up so he could easily destroy anyone who betrays him.
Once Kevin arrived, she explained what Leaha told her and asked, “Can you arrest him on fraud charges?”
“Well, there are a number of things to consider,” he responded. “For one, we need to destroy all incriminating evidence against you, me, the police department, and anyone else he’s recorded. That stuff we can get with a ‘no knock’ warrant.”
“What’s that?” Abby asked.
“It’s a warrant that allows you to enter a property without prior notice. It’s typically done when there is concern for the safety of the officers, or when it’s believed that the evidence could be disposed of between notice and execution of the warrant. In this case, I’ll indicate the latter to the judge. And since we’re going to destroy the recordings and they’ll never be used in a court case, I’ll instruct the officers to ‘forget’ to leave the notice of an executed search warrant behind. We’ll trail Jack and only enter the locations where we think the recordings are stored when he isn’t in them. I’ll have to plan to confront him quickly before he realizes the videos are gone, and, possibly have the officers go back with dupes to put in the hiding spots. Jack can’t find out about the search warrants before we want him to know.”
“His assistant Leaha has a set of videos,” said Abby. “She’s going to bring them with her when she comes to see you tomorrow. Before executing the search warrant, your officers could buy the same kind of videos and duplicate the packaging to make them look like Jack’s. That way if they’re the same as Leaha’s set, the officers could switch them then and not have to go back.”
“That’s good,” said Kevin before continuing. “Secondly, even without the videos, if we arrest him for fraud, he could still go public with the sexcapades by convincing the people he hired for them to back up his claims. Some of them could even start a blackmail campaign against the women they were involved with. We don’t want that to happen. I don’t think we should arrest him. I think we need to find a way to scare him and run him out of town.”
“But what would scare him?” Abby asked.
“That’s what I need to figure out,” Kevin said.