Page 24 of Shadowing Her Stalker

“Oh, good,” she gushed, clearly relieved. “I poured tea for everyone, but if you want something different—”

“Tea’s great. Thank you.”

He picked up the spoon Betsy placed on a paper napkin, but waited until Cara and her mother joined them at the table to dig in. Cara darted a glance in her father’s direction and rolled her eyes. James had already depleted half his bowl. By his daughter’s bemused expression, he gathered this was the norm in the Beckett household.

“Help yourself to some corn bread,” Betsy invited, gesturing to a napkin-lined basket she’d placed at the center of the table.

Cara raised an eyebrow, smirking at the basket of warm corn bread as she slathered peanut butter on a saltine. Apparently the presentation of the corn bread was not a part of the norm. He smiled as he helped himself to a wedge of the warm bread, then crumbled some into his stew.

“Thank you. It all smells delicious.”

“If you ask me, everything smells fishy,” James declared, not looking up from the depths of his bowl. “Why don’t you tell us what the heck is goin’ on here?”

“Jim, let them eat their lunch in peace,” Betsy admonished.

Wyatt met Cara’s eyes across the table. She swallowed the cracker she’d been chewing, then washed the crumbs down with a gulp of sweet iced tea. When she was ready, she folded her hands in front of her and angled her body to look her father directly in the eye.

“I’m not sure if you’re aware, but my partners and I have decided to take our company public. We’ll make a number of shares available for the public to buy on the stock market,” she began.

“I know what goin’ public means,” James growled. “I’m not uneducated, and no matter what you think of this place, your mother and I don’t live under a rock.”

“I know, Daddy,” Cara said with the wary patience of a person who has covered this ground before. “Okay, so I guess you know it means I’ll make a lot of money when it happens. On paper, at least.”

“I told you from the beginning, this whole thing is like a house of cards,” James started. “Monopoly money. It’s all paper printed up in New York City and assigned a value by some...guru who pretends to know the value of air.”

Cara tensed and Betsy cringed. This obviously wasn’t the first time they’d heard his opinion on Cara’s business.

James waved his hand in the air like he was wielding a magic wand. “How can you build anything real without hard assets? Land, buildings, equipment, cattle—”

“Cattle you take to market and sell at a price set by demand on the commodities market,” Cara interjected. “A made-up number conjured by the beef oracle of the sale barn.”

“Actually, companies like LYYF and other web-based businesses do have real assets. Intellectual property, patents, trademarks and copyrighted catalog are all tangible and valuable assets,” Wyatt interjected smoothly. “There’s also licensing, subscription and franchising.” James opened his mouth to argue, but Wyatt shook his head. “But we’re not here to debate the valuation of Cara’s company. We’re here because your daughter has become the target of some very real threats.”

Cara’s father’s jaw snapped shut and a hush fell over the room. Wyatt nodded to Cara. “Go on. Tell them.”

“I started getting messages online. Which, to be honest, is not unusual. Women are not particularly revered in technology circles. There’s a small, but vocal, faction of people out there who don’t believe I should be a full partner in LYYF because I didn’t contribute to the technological side of its development.”

“But it’s your face out there,” Betsy countered. “Your voice people want to hear.”

“Thank you, Mama.”

Cara sighed and reached for another saltine even though the rest of them had stopped eating. She smeared creamy peanut butter onto cracker after cracker, setting them out in a row as she detailed the threats she’d been receiving, the attack on her neighbor and finally her flight to Little Rock and the events of the past twenty-four hours.

“Oh, my Lord, Cara,” Betsy said, pressing one horrified hand to her chest and covering her mouth with the other.

James Beckett sat with his fist clenched tight and his head bowed. Silent. Unmoving. And seething.

“You can rest assured we have our best people working on the case,” Wyatt said, speaking up for the first time since Cara started her recitation.

“Your best people?” James lifted his head, his jaw set and his eyes alight with the need to take action. “What about the FBI? Shouldn’t they be working on this? She was kidnapped, for the love of everything holy,” he cried, shoving his chair back and jumping to his feet.

Wyatt didn’t move. If he were to get up too, it would only stoke Cara’s father’s ire. What they needed now was de-escalation. Calm. Sanctuary.

In other words, they all needed to take a deep breath.

“We are liaising with agents in the FBI field office, but since Ms. Beckett has been recovered unharmed and no one crossed state lines, they are deferring to the state police as lead on the investigation. Of course, we have full access to any resources they have when it comes to the identification and apprehension of the man who abducted her.”

“I have every faith in Special Agent Dawson and his associates,” Cara announced.

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