Page 23 of Guarded from Danger

“Beth is a genius when it comes to finding information online,” Matt adds. “And she was abducted herself, years ago. So when I told her about you, she immediately offered to help.”

“Oh.” Lucy looks nonplussed for a second. “Well. Anyone who’s willing to help… Please, tell her thank you from me.”

“I’m sure you’ll get to talk to her one of these days,” Matt says with a smile. “But I will.”

“So the investigation into this game.” Dante looks at Matt. “What are your plans?”

“Try to catch as many people involved as possible. The majority of them are using VPNs to access the dark web, which makes it more complicated. Some of them are even chaining VPNs, which means they’re going through a series of anonymousnetworks. But it’s just a matter of tracking them down and doing a little… ethical hacking.”

“And you think you can find the people behind this?” Lucy’s hand squeezes mine.

“Eventually, yes.” Matt holds her gaze. “But also, the people bidding. That’s a crime, too. So we’re going to work to catch all of them.”

She stares at him for a second. Then her voice hardens as she says, “Good.”

After the updates, we move on to the part of the questioning I’ve been dreading.

We already have her account of the abduction and subsequent captivity from when she gave her account to the FBI, but we have to talk about those minutes in the garage, to possibly find some tiny clue that could have been missed. A slight accent, or a distinctive smell from the man who took her, or maybe some comment she might have forgotten to mention before.

One thing I learned in the Army, and now with Blade and Arrow, is sometimes the smallest detail can mean the difference between success and failure. So as much as I hate it, I have to ask Lucy to go over her harrowing experience again.

And she holds up surprisingly well, even though her voice trembles as she recalls the man grabbing her in the garage, describing the scent of the fabric over her mouth and nose, the low growl of the man holding her, and even how tall she thought he was.

“I could feel his breath on my hair,” she says, as her fingernails dig into my hand. “So I guess… he wasn’t that tall. But he was really strong.”

Fuck.

Now I’m envisioning some fucking piece of shit putting his hands on my girlfriend, threatening her, drugging her, and how scared she must have been…

Not now. I’ll let out my rage later, when I go to the gym. I’ll pound on the punching bags until my fury subsides, at least for a little while.

After Lucy finishes talking about the garage, she’s visibly shaken but insists on continuing. Even when Dante offers her an out, saying kindly, “This next part can be difficult. For all our clients. We’ll have to talk about people you know who could potentially be involved. It’s hard. If you’d rather come back to it tomorrow…”

“No.” Her chin juts out defiantly. “I just want to get through this.”

So she does. And it’s just as difficult as I anticipated. It’s always hard for clients to consider people they know, people they care about, might be behind this terrible thing that happened to them. Case in point, Niall’s wife, Jade. She was devastated when she found out who was behind her abduction, and it was one of the last people she would have expected.

For Lucy, who is one of the kindest and most trusting people I know, to think that someone she knows is behind this horrible game? It’s awful.

Rhiannon ends up taking over the questioning, mainly because she’s closest to Lucy aside from me, and she tries her best to be gentle about it. “Can you think of a coworker?” she asks Lucy. “Present or past? Maybe someone you had an argument with? Or got passed over for a promotion you got?”

“No.” Lucy shakes her head slowly. “I get along with everyone. Or… I thought I did. But I never pushed for promotions because I wanted to concentrate on writing. The job was secondary.”

“What about a competing author? Could someone be angry that you’re more successful?”

Lucy chews on her lip. “I don’t think so… There are so many authors that are more successful, that sell way more books… And I try to stay out of the drama in the writing communities online…”

From there, the questions move to fans of her books, and then to ex-boyfriends, which I really don’t love hearing about. But we have to consider it. She’s a beautiful woman, wealthy by association to her parents, successful—a jilted boyfriend could have decided to get his revenge for her dumping him.

But it’s when we move to Lucy’s close friends and family that she starts to waver. Her voice wobbles as she says, “My friend Amanda… she wouldn’t. She was assaulted in college. It’s why she learned martial arts. She just… she wouldn’t. And Kali, I’ve known her since high school. We had sleepovers. She came on vacations with my family. There’s no way…”

“I hate to ask this,” Rhiannon says apologetically, “but we have to consider everyone. Is there any way your parents?—”

And that’s when Lucy bursts into tears.

“They wouldn’t,” she says between sobs. “Never.Never. I just can’t think… can someone hate me that much? Someone I work with… the authors in my critique group… would they do that? I try to be nice… to everyone…”

A quick glance around the table shows five matching sympathetic expressions.

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