Page 12 of Guarded from Sabotage

“Oh. Right.” Sarah’s hand trembles under mine, and I instinctively wrap my fingers around hers. She sucks in a tiny breath and I think,oh, shit. Did I just screw up?But then she squeezes my hand back and flashes me a quick, thankful smile.

Holding her hand can be professional. I’m just comforting her. It doesn’t mean anything.

Sarah takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. “At first, they just kept trying to get me to admit it. That I stole the car. They had me in a room, and it was like on those shows, with the nice cop and the mean one. The mean one”—she makes quotes with her free hand—“kept telling me how serious the charges could be. Years in prison, fines…”

She pauses, and her little white teeth dig into her full lower lip for a second. “The other one tried to convince me it would be better if I confessed right away, and if I returned the car, they might be able to reduce the charges. But I couldn’t do either of those things, because I didn’tdoit.”

I know the basics after calling Quint, one of our contacts with the San Antonio police department, but I want to hear this from Sarah’s perspective. “So what happened?” I ask gently. “Since they let you go, obviously they realized it couldn’t have been you.”

“I had an alibi,” Sarah replies with a tiny lift of her chin. “The day it happened, I was in meetings and appointments all day. There was no possible way I could have gotten to Austin, test driven a car and found a place to stash it, all in the fifteen minutes I had free for lunch that day.”

“Why did they accuse you, then?”

Sarah’s eyes flicker with disappointment, and I realize she thinks I’m asking because I still doubt her. So I quickly explain, “I know you didn’t do it, Sarah. I just want to know whytheythink you did.”

Her cheeks go pink. “Sorry, Dante. I know you didn’t mean anything… I’ve just had so many people accuse me of lying, I’ve come to expect it.”

“I understand.” I give her hand another reassuring squeeze. “You don’t need to apologize. And I don’t think you’re lying. Not even for a second.”

“Thank you.” She swallows hard. “That really means a lot.” There’s a long pause—I’m pretty sure she’s trying not to cry—before Sarah says, “They thought it was me because the person who did it used my license. Or at least, a license they got under my name. But I never lost mine. It’s still in my wallet. The only thing I can think of is somehow this person applied for a renewal? I just don’t know how they did it.”

“We can figure that out,” I assure her. “Matt’s our computer guy, and he can find out anything online. As soon as I update him on your case, he’ll get right to work figuring all this out.”

Sarah flinches—it’s nearly imperceptible, but I see it—and draws her hand away from mine; tucking a strand of hair behind her ear before clasping both her hands in her lap.

Shockingly, my hand feels cold at the loss. And I feel bad mentioning her case, even though that’s what it is, because it seems to have shattered the small connection we had.

But I push that thought to the side—she’s a client, she’s engaged—and move on. “After the police, can you tell me what else happened? Hanna mentioned something about bank accounts? Loans?”

“Right.” Sarah gives me a tight nod. “So. It was two days after that when I tried to withdraw money from my checking account, and the balance was zero.”

And over the next five minutes, I hear just how much worse things got for her.

After she realized her bank account was cleaned out, she called the bank to report it, but got the same reaction as with the credit card companies. All her information on the account was changed, and she couldn’t convince them it was actually her. And when Sarah called the police, they said without the bank’s cooperation, there was nothing they could do.

Thousands of dollars lost, and no matter how many calls Sarah made, no one would agree to help her. Some even called her a liar and a fraud.

Then the same thing happened with her savings account, and more hard-earned money was gone.

When she looked up her credit report, she found two personal loans in her name totalling over thirty-thousand dollars, but she never applied for either of them.

“Nothing’s the same,” Sarah says, frustration evident in her features. “Even my social security number. I went to the social security office and they told me it had been changed. I don’t even know how that’s possible. Don’t you need a birth certificate for that? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Tears well up as she meets my gaze. “I don’t understand, Dante. If it was just my credit cards, or my bank account… but it’severything. I knew identity theft was a problem, and I always thought I was careful about it. Changing my passwords, two-factor authentication… but this? I just—” Her voice breaks.

Shit. She looks so sad and small and vulnerable, every protective instinct is urging me to do something. Hug her. Rub her shoulders to relieve the tight set of them. Hold her hand again.

But that’s not why I’m here.

So I reply in a low, soothing tone, “I’m so sorry, Sarah. What’s happened to you is awful. But we’ll figure this out. I promise.”

A glimmer of hope lights her eyes. “So you’re going to help me? Take my case?”

“Yes.” Technically, I need to run it by the team once more now that I have all the information, but I’m positive everyone will agree. “We’re going to help you.”

“And I won’t be taking attention away from another client? One who’s in real danger?” Tiny worry lines etch across herforehead. “I mean, I really need help, but if you can help someone who’s been abducted, or they’re being stalked…”

“Sarah.” I can’t help it. I reach out to take her hand again. “We don’t have set criteria for who we help. You’re in a bad spot, and I think we can help. That’s all there is to it.”

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