Page 7 of Shadowing Her Stalker

“May I come in?” He pointed to the chair opposite the small desk where she’d sat to use the telephone.

She inclined her head, and he caught the light bounce off the diamond studs she wore in her ears. They weren’t ostentatious, but were certainly more than mere chips. As he settled in the chair he took in the gold bangles on her wrist. A delicate chain holding a pendant with a large multicolored stone encircled her throat. She wore rings on multiple fingers and one thumb, but the third finger on her left hand was bare. He filed the information away as he leaned back in the chair, assuming a pose more in line with casual conversation than interrogation.

“You don’t believe the man who abducted you intended to rob you.” He made it a statement, knowing it would draw more of an answer from her than a question.

She shook her head. “No. I offered him my wallet, the car, anything he wanted. He said he wanted me.”

Wyatt pursed his lips, letting the words hang in the air for a minute as he formulated his next question. But before he could ask it, she shook her head.

“No, not wanted. Needed. I told him to take what he needed, and he said he was, then ordered me to drive.”

Nodding, Wyatt resisted the urge to lean forward in his chair. He didn’t want to come across as aggressive. He wanted her comfortable enough to tell her story her way. To remember things as they actually happened without framing them through the lens of hindsight.

“He wasn’t familiar to you at all.” Again, a statement, not a question.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve lived in Arkansas, Special Agent Daw—”

“Wyatt,” he interrupted.

“Wyatt,” she repeated with a nod, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“Something funny,” he asked.

“I don’t run into too many Wyatts in LA.”

He smirked. “Maybe not.” Since she felt comfortable enough to mock him, he leaned forward, planting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands. “May I call you Cara?”

“Yes.”

“Cara, tell me about the doxing incident,” he said, driving straight to his main point of interest. “Do you know what precipitated it? What fallout have you experienced? Did you feel you were in danger in California?”

She gaped at him for a moment, seemingly stunned by the abrupt shift in conversation. “I, uh, I don’t know why,” she managed to stammer. “I mean, there have always been, um, detractors, but no. I have no idea why someone decided to make my personal information public. And I don’t know why anyone would be interested. I’m not a celebrity or anything.” She opened her hands in a helpless shrug. “I’m not even an influencer.”

Wyatt huffed, charmed by her naive assessment of her standing in the virtual community. “Aren’t you?”

He pulled out his own phone and woke the screen. The welcome page of the LYYF app appeared, and front and center was a close-up video of Cara asking, “Are you ready to get the most from your LYYF?”

She didn’t respond, but her expression hardened. “As for fallout. My address and phone were posted on a number of message boards. If you’re at all familiar with the internet, you know there are some users who aren’t always pleasant.”

“Harassment?”

She nodded. “Mostly in-app and social media messages at first, but then they hacked my company email and things spiraled even more from there. The LAPD have been on the case. I can give you the information of the...” She paused, grimaced, then shook her head. “I had contact information in my phone, but now—”

Her phone was gone.

He watched her swallow hard and hoped she was gulping down her fear. It was hard to outrun internet harassment. Life outside of the app would be better if she gathered her resolve and found a way to stand her ground. Then again, the woman had jumped out of a car in the middle of nowhere when a man was holding a gun on her. If knowing when to bail wasn’t the biggest part of taking control of one’s life, he didn’t know what was.

“You’ve never seen the man who abducted you?” he asked, shifting into lightning-round mode.

“No.”

“Did he mention LYYF, or give any indication he knew who you were?”

She started to shake her head, then stopped. “Not directly. He only said the part about taking what he needed then ordered me to drive.”

“But you believe the implication was you were what he was after,” he concluded.

“Yes.”

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