Page 15 of Fate's Unseen Shadow

“I guess all three.” He looked past her and pointed to the empty bottle on the counter. “Did the wine help or hurt your mood?”

“It did make me cry a few more times, but I think you’re safe from tears for now.” She wanted him to come inside and stay. Last night had been necessary. She’d expelled the last of her pity party alone. But today she was back. Not as Elizabeth, but as Ella. Whoever that turned out to be.

“I don’t mind the tears. I hate that I’m unable to fix it for you, but I will.”

And his easy confidence peeled off another layer of stress. She stepped to the side. “Do you want to come in?”

Why was she nervous about asking him to stay? She never got nervous. Her father had trained her for her job, but he’d never prepped her for a set of dark eyes that made her stumble over her words.

Damon moved past her. “Breakfast is on its way. I ordered a large coffee. I wasn’t sure if you drank coffee or not.”

Damn. The fresh scent of his shower mixed with his cologne. She closed the door behind him, exhaling to get her reaction under control. “I love coffee. I used to live off the stuff.”

He pulled out a chair at the small four-person dining room table and waited.

Hiding her smile, she took the seat he offered. “Did you find the missing child?” He sat across from her. “Or do you have to keep looking today?”

“We found him. Along with six others.”

“Six?” She leaned forward, propping her elbows on the table, chin in her hands. “Were they, uh, alive?” What a horrible thing to ask, but based on the lack of surprise in his expression, it wasn’t out of the question.

“Yes. But it was ugly. They had him, and the others, drugged. Ryker found them for sale on a human trafficking website on the dark web.”

She jerked upright, her mouth falling open. “That’s horrible!”

Damon scratched his cheek and relaxed back in the chair. “It is, and it won’t be the last time we deal with this shit. Thankfully, we have Ryker. In the last few years, everything has changed in terms of how we find people. Not sure we’d be any more efficient than the police if we didn’t have him breaking laws and hacking into websites.”

“So, you and your friends are really good at your job?”

“If by good you mean we get results, yes. We’ve only had two cases we couldn’t solve in the last five years. The number of jobs are picking up. Either more kids are disappearing or people are contacting us. It’s not to say that the police or the FBI wouldn’t find the children eventually. They do. We cut through the bullshit and find them however we can.”

“And you don’t get in trouble for it?”

He shrugged. “I won’t say we’venevergotten in trouble for it, but it would be a public relations nightmare for them to prosecute us for finding missing children and saving their lives.” He drummed his fingers on the table, studying her.

She returned his direct eye contact. “Do you think you’ll be as successful at finding a killer?”

“I’ll be honest, Ella. This is a first. We find people, but we’ve never solved crimes. We leave that to the police. They need evidence for prosecution. It’s easy to do when we find a child or teenager in someone’s basement. But police need to gather the evidence so the prosecutor can prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Harder to do with the victim sitting across from me.”

“I’m sure it doesn’t help that the police told me I made up everything about the stalker. I told them when they first arrived, but they dismissed me. Again.”

“Yes. I saw that in the report Ryker pulled.” He narrowed his eyes. “I can’t promise we’ll solve this, but I can tell you we’re going to give it a hell of a go. And until we do, you’re safe. You can stay here as long as you need to.” Damon’s phone chimed. “That’s breakfast. Hold on a second.” He left the apartment to meet the delivery person at the parking lot before bringing it back upstairs. “Before I forget, I picked you up a phone and a prepaid debit card. It has $2,000 on it right now. If you need more, let me know.”

“Thank you. I’ll pay you back. I feel like I’ll be saying that daily.”

“Then don’t. It’ll get annoying.”

She snorted at the bluntness of his statement. “Noted.”

Damon pulled breakfast sandwiches out of the brown paper sack. He set tiny creamers and sugar packets on the counter beside the coffee. “I told them to put everything for coffee in the bag. I didn’t know how you liked it.”

“One step away from causing a cavity.”

He laughed lightly. “Good to know. Eat up. You have a long day ahead of you. It’s Thursday. We get a decent crowd at Cager on Thursdays, but nothing unmanageable. I’ll drive you over around five-thirty. Give you an hour or two with Lacy, the bartender, before it gets busy. Then you’ll be good to go on your own by Friday or Saturday night.”

She paused in unwrapping the sandwich. “Will you not be there?”

“I will. The guys will show up and leave as they please, but I’ll stay all night.” He smiled and took a big bite.

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