Chapter Two
Wyatt Dawson didn’t mind working late. Truthfully, he preferred the office after hours. Because they were a small team, most of the members of the cybercrime division took work home with them, but he liked the time in the office alone. He wasn’t antisocial, though some would say he was; it was more that he liked the idea of keeping his work at work.
And he was so close to zeroing in on a solid lead.
Sitting at his desk with his feet up, he was scanning lines of data, looking for the IP address needed to confirm his suspicions. If he could connect the dots, all the extra hours would pay off. The spot on the multiagency task force investigating the sale and movement of illegally produced distilled spirits through northwest Arkansas would be his. He was close. He could taste it. So close he was tempted to ignore the ringing desk phone.
But he couldn’t. The cybercrime division was still in its infancy. He and his tiny group of talented colleagues were on a mission to prove their worth to the Department of Public Safety. And because they were worthy, he would take the call. Even though it was after hours.
Even though it meant shifting mental gears at the precise moment he needed them locked on target.
He frowned as the desk phone continued to pester him. The short two-tone ring indicated an intraoffice phone call. The last thing he needed was for someone on the inside to insinuate they weren’t pulling their weight. Dropping his feet to the floor, he reached for the receiver of the desk phone and wedged it between his ear and shoulder.
“CCD, Dawson here,” he said as he typed a note into his spreadsheet to mark where he’d left off.
“Agent Dawson? This is Trooper Chad Masterson,” the caller said with brisk efficiency. “I have a sort of unusual circumstance unfolding here, and I’m wondering if you might be able to help me.”
Wyatt shook his mouse to keep the computer from transitioning into sleep mode then sat up straighter in his chair and took hold of the receiver. “Happy to. How can I help?”
“Have you ever heard of a woman called Cara Beckett?” the trooper asked.
Scowling, Wyatt picked up a pen and jotted the name on a pad of sticky notes he kept beside the phone. The name did ring a bell, but he found the man’s coy approach annoying. He wasn’t a big fan of fishing expeditions whether they employed a line and hook, or clumsily delivered yes or no questions.
“I’m gonna need a little more than a name,” he informed his colleague.
“Cara Beckett,” the trooper repeated. “Says she works for a company called LYYF. Spelled with two Y ’s. L-Y-Y-F. ” Masterson was unable to mask the disdain in his voice as he spelled out the company name. “I believe it’s some kind of phone application.”
Wyatt sighed. The number of electronic troglodytes he encountered within the ranks of law enforcement never failed to amaze him. Sure, they were all for DNA matches and advanced ballistics, but tie a computer, tablet or smartphone to a crime and they bragged about how they were still using AOL as their email provider. Or pretended they hadn’t heard of one of the tech world’s biggest sensations.
“Yes, I’m familiar with the application,” he said briskly.
Truthfully, he was more than familiar. He was a daily user. He reached for his own phone and swiped through a couple of screens, stopping when he spotted the bright orange icon with the stylized L at its center. The home page loaded and he stared at the photo of a woman seated in the lotus position, her eyes closed and her lips curved into a serene smile.
All the puzzle pieces fell into place.
“Cara Beckett is one of the founding partners of LYYF. It’s a lifestyle and wellness application.” He tapped his pen on the desk a couple of times then opened the app, anxious to put the name and face together. “You probably have it on your phone too,” he informed Trooper Masterson. “Our health insurance provider gave everybody a free subscription to the service for a year as part of our benefits package a couple years ago.”
“Hmm, I’m not familiar,” Masterson said, unable to mask the hint of derision in his tone. “I’ll have to ask my wife if she tried it. She likes all those lifestyle things.” He guffawed. “I pay for the whole dang cable package, but all she ever watches is the home-makeover channel. If I come home to one more set of paint swatches I’m going to spit.”
Wyatt clenched his jaw. He had to take one of the calming breaths he learned from using LYYF before posing the obvious question. “Why are you asking me about Cara Beckett?”
“From what I gather, she’s some kind of celebrity.”
Wyatt frowned at the descriptor. Celebrity? Maybe in some circles, but not in the way Masterson would recognize.
“Not a Hollywood celebrity, but in other circles, yeah, maybe,” he conceded. “Again, why do you ask?”
“Because I got her sitting in an office down here. A trucker said she practically leaped out of a moving vehicle to get away from the guy she was ridin’ with.”
“Leaped out of a moving car?”
“Says she was abducted. Man with a gun jacked her rental car at the airport. The woman is pretty shaken up. No purse or phone or ID of any kind. No money. The guy who found her took her up to the truck stop and waited with her until a patrolman arrived. They brought her back here and dropped her at my desk, but I’m not quite sure what to make of her story.”
“Is there a reason why you don’t believe her story?” Wyatt asked.
“No particular reason,” Masterson replied cautiously. “It’s not something that happens around here very often.”
“Oh, I’d say we see our fair share of carjackings.” Wyatt himself had a friend who was lured from her car at a fast-food restaurant and left standing by as her vehicle sped away. She’d been one of the lucky ones.
“She keeps talking about somebody docking her and I’m not sure what she means.” Wyatt could hear the guy scratching his head. “She seems to think there’s some connection between the docking and what happened to her today. Keeps saying it can’t be a coincidence.”
“Docking?” Wyatt scowled as he watched the progress bar at the bottom of his screen creep toward completion. He glanced down at the name he’d scrawled on the sticky note, then zeroed in on the blinking cursor as if it might give up the answer to what was nagging him.
“What is Cara Beckett doing in Arkansas?” he whispered, talking to himself.
But Masterson answered. “Says she’s from here. Folks own a place up in Searcy County. Ranchers.”
“Searcy County? That’s north, isn’t it? They were heading south,” Wyatt noted.
“I don’t think this guy with the gun was hoping to meet the folks,” Masterson said dryly.
Wyatt turned the information he’d been given over in his head. “Docking? I don’t know what she means.”
“Makes two of us. I tried to get a better answer out of her but she kept goin’ on about her home address and phone number being leaked and someone called Nancy gettin’ attacked outside her house. Frankly, she’s a bit...overwrought,” Masterson drawled.
Wyatt sat up straighter partly because he was annoyed by the trooper’s supercilious attitude but mostly because he was catching on to exactly what Cara Beckett was trying to tell them.
“Do you mean doxing?” he demanded, his tone sharp.
“Excuse me?”
“Doxing.” But saying the word louder didn’t help it penetrate the trooper’s skull. “Doxing is when somebody on the internet, usually a hacker or some kind of troll, unearths someone’s personal information and publishes it for the world to see.”
He paused to let the explanation sink in, but Trooper Masterson remained quiet.
“It’s slang for dropping the documents on someone.”
“But why? Who is she?”
“She’s a partner in a tech company.”
“So shouldn’t she be able to stop this, uh, doxing thing?”
Wyatt rolled his eyes at the man’s naivete. “Picture some internet users as a pack of rabid dogs. There are always a few who will chase after a person at the slightest provocation.”
“You think this Cara Beckett person provoked this threat against her?”
“I’m not saying anything of the sort. She could simply be guilty of nothing more than breathing oxygen on a daily basis. It doesn’t take much to get a few disgruntled users to go after a high profile target.”
“You think her profile is high enough people would, uh, dox her? Kidnap her?” The other man sounded dubious. “I’ve never even heard of her.”
“You follow tech trends pretty closely, Masterson?”
“I know who Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are,” he countered.
“Congratulations,” Wyatt said dryly. “Listen, the lady you have sitting in an office down there might not be Bezos or Musk, but she’s far wealthier than you or I can ever dream of being.” He thought back to the article he’d read about the masterminds behind LYYF. “They’re about to take the company public. Soon Cara Beckett’s net worth will be stratospheric.”
“She doesn’t look like a millionaire right now,” Masterson grumbled.
“Billionaire,” Wyatt interjected.
“She’s wearin’ jeans and a plain white shirt. All muddy and stuff from rolling in the ditch. And the trucker gave her twenty dollars because she didn’t have any walking-around money.” Masterson added the last bit as if it was conclusive evidence against Wyatt’s claims. “She’s down here right now making some calls to see if she can round up a hotel or place to stay the night using a police report as ID.”
Wyatt swiped at his cell until his internet browser popped up. A quick query yielded the article he had read a few days before. In it, a slim smiling young woman with chic, close-cropped blond hair and wide blue eyes beamed out at him. She stood a half step in front of the men she claimed were her two best friends from college.
There were plenty of people who thought an out-of-work actress didn’t deserve the 33-percent partnership the creators of LYYF offered her in exchange for voice-over work when they were prestart-up. But they made a deal, and Cara Beckett become the voice and later, when their popular video sessions were added, the face of LYYF.
The trolls and tech bros liked to grumble about the equal partnership Chris Sharpe and Tom Wasinski had traded for her services at the beginning of their venture. But no one could deny Cara Beckett was as much a part of LYYF’s success as their clever coding and attractive graphics. No amount of superior interface could have made the app a phenomenon. Her face and voice were key. As was her willingness to step out from behind the curtain and become the public spokesperson her collaborators never wanted to be.
He scrolled through the profile he’d skimmed the week before. In the article, her cofounders weren’t shy about giving her the respect she deserved. Without Cara Beckett’s easy, open smile and welcoming demeanor, the application wouldn’t have been half the hit it was.
Glancing back at the desk phone, he noted the extension Masterson was using and rose from his chair. “Hang tight. I’ll be there in a few minutes to talk to her. If even a little bit of what you say she says happened to her is true, at best we’re dealing with the situation straddling multiple jurisdictions.”
“And worst-case scenario?”
“The media finds out,” Wyatt said grimly.
“Exactly what I’m afraid of.” Masterson heaved a sigh. “Come on down. She’s got nowhere else to go and no way to get there anyhow.”
M AST ERSON WAS EVERYTHING Wyatt expected from their conversation. Tall and not quite barrel-chested, he wore his dark hair in a high and tight buzz cut. As he drew closer and the two shook hands, Wyatt could see short strands of silver intensified the effect of the trooper’s white-walled haircut. Deep creases furrowed the man’s brow, and squint lines radiated from cool blue eyes. Wyatt couldn’t blame the man for his natural skepticism. No doubt, the man had seen some strange things in his years of service.
Cara Beckett sat in one of the small offices on the perimeter of the bullpen. The door was closed, but the miniblinds covering the office window were drawn up. She looked different in person. It wasn’t the grass-stained clothes or the smudge of mud dried on her jawline. Her hair looked softer. It was an inch or two longer than in the photos on the app, and the color was more a honey gold than beachy white-blond streaks.
She looked tired. Small. And though he knew from her yoga videos she was strong and almost rubber-band flexible, under the fluorescent lights of the Arkansas State Police Headquarters, she came across as almost unspeakably fragile.
“Have you gotten anything more from her?” Wyatt asked.
Masterson shook his head. “She just got off the phone.”
Wyatt nodded, then gestured to the door. “Do you mind if I have a chat?”
Sweeping an arm toward the door, Masterson said, “Have at it. I have a call in to the rental company to try to get the information on the stolen vehicle.”
With a nod, Wyatt started for the office door. He gave it a couple raps with the knuckle of his index finger, then cracked it open. Cara Beckett looked up with wide, frightened eyes.
He kept the opening to little more than a crack, but made sure to smile to show her he meant no harm. “Hello. Ms. Beckett?” She nodded, but he made no move to enter the small office. “I’m Special Agent Wyatt Dawson. I’m a member of our cybercrimes division. Trooper Masterson called me. May I speak with you for a few minutes?”
She eyed him warily. “Cybercrimes division? They have one of those here?”
He pushed the door open a few inches more, and allowed his smile to widen as well. “Anywhere the internet goes, so go the scammers.”
“And the trolls,” she said, bitterness edging her tone. “And the out-and-out criminals.”
“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.”
Wyatt nodded, then pressed on. “Did he make any sexual advances? Insinuations? Touch you in any way construed as intimate?”
“No. He didn’t touch me at all.” She let out a whoosh of breath. “No. Nothing, uh, sexual.”
“So let’s assume for now robbery and sexual assault weren’t his motive.” He sat up straight in the chair again, holding her gaze. “If he wasn’t someone you knew or recognized, we might also shelve personal agenda.”
“Personal agenda?”
“Old boyfriend, spurned lover, the guy who wanted to take you to the homecoming dance but never worked up the nerve to ask you,” he said with an offhanded wave. “You tick anyone off on the plane?”
The question coaxed a short huff of a laugh out of her. “I don’t think I talked to anyone.”
“Hog the armrest?”
She shook her head. “Dozed most of the way here. I haven’t been sleeping well.”
“Who knew you were coming to Arkansas?”
She shook her head. “My assistant. I think she told my partners. The neighbor who shares my cat.”
Lifting a brow, he asked, “You share a cat?”
“She’s a stray. Huge commitment issues. The McNeils and I both feed her. Why settle, right?”
He gave her a wry smile. “Smart cat.” Nodding to the desk phone, he asked, “Did you call your folks?”
She shook her head, but when she spoke her voice was barely more than a whisper. “No.”
“No?”
She raised one shoulder in a shrug, and the ruined white shirt she wore nearly slid off her shoulder. She wore some sort of spaghetti strap tank top thing under it. Her skin was tanned to a shade lighter than a golden glow. He wondered if the color came from the sun or a booth. Or maybe she had one of those spray-on jobs done. Either way, it was definitely more California tan than the blistering burns the Arkansas sun doled out.
She tipped her chin up. “My parents didn’t know I was coming. And now... I don’t want my mom to worry.”
Wyatt sensed there was more to the story there, but he didn’t press. Shifting gears, he hooked an arm over the back of the chair. “There are some nice hotels downtown. New ones, or you could go with a classic and stay at the Capital Hotel.” He bit the inside of his cheek. “Were you able to contact anyone who can help?”
She nodded. “Trooper Masterson let me call my assistant, Zarah. Thank goodness she had contact information on her website. She’s having a phone delivered from the TechMobile store and overnighting my passport, so I have official ID, and a credit card. I have a copy of my driver’s license in cloud storage as well. I assume I can use it along with the police report, if needed.” He nodded and she went on. “She also rented a condo here in town for a couple of nights. I’ll get a rideshare from here once I get the phone and pick up a new rental tomorrow.”
Wyatt pressed his lips together to keep from letting out a low whistle. “She sounds very efficient.” It never ceased to amaze him how money could pave right over the biggest potholes in life. Still, he wasn’t sure she’d thought her plan through. “Did she set the phone up from your previous account?”
Cara blinked twice. “I assume so. Why?”
He did his best to hide his grimace. With a single-word question, she’d proved the tech bros right about her lack of technological savvy. “You said you’ve been receiving messages from strangers either through apps or email?”
“Yes.”
“Texts as well?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes widened as she turned toward the window. Trooper Masterson approached the office, his expression sour as he raised his hand for them to see. A plastic bag imprinted with the TechMobile logo dangled from the tip of his index finger. The man was clearly peeved to be reduced to the role of delivery boy.
Wyatt stood and opened the door. “Thank you,” he said as he relieved the older man of the parcel. “If you want to finish up with Ms. Beckett’s statement, I’ll get this set up for her to use.”
“You don’t need—” she started to say as she rose from the chair, but she stopped when Wyatt looked over to her for permission to pull the familiar box from the bag. She nodded her assent.
“I’m happy to set this up to forward any communications coming in to your number to a dummy we’ll set up here. Once I’m finished, I’ll talk you through how best to use it without giving too much information about your location away,” he interrupted. “Then, if you’d like, I can drop you off at your rental.” When she seemed taken aback by the offer, he rushed to put her at ease. “Or we can get a patrol car to take you. Rideshare apps rely on cellular signals and GPS to triangulate location. We want to avoid anyone getting a read on where you are if we can.”
“You think someone will use my phone to track me?” She appeared both incredulous and horrified by the notion.
“It’s the fastest way. With all the apps we rely on and location-based services, we make it too easy,” Wyatt said with a grim scowl. “But I can help you. Let me help you.”
Cara Beckett scooted out from behind the desk to join Trooper Masterson in the doorway. She eyed the uniformed man for a long moment, then turned to Wyatt, taking in his flat-front khakis and checked button-down shirt.
“Thank you,” she said quietly, then slipped past the trooper to head back to his desk.
Wyatt and Masterson exchanged a nod-shrug combo before the older man turned away.
The second they were gone, he unboxed the phone and powered it up. The greeting screen appeared, and a smirk twisted his lips as he zipped through the multistep setup, denying the palm-sized supercomputer access to any of Cara Beckett’s information. As he continued to delete applications, deny access and ignore dire warnings, he murmured a steady stream of mumbles. “No. Nope. Bye now. Can’t accept. Decline. Nope. Nuh-uh,” he muttered to himself.
Once he’d pared the smartphone down to its minimal functions, he sat back, satisfied with his work. Reaching for his own phone, he dialed the number displayed in the settings. Cara’s phone sprang to life. He declined the call, then saved his contact information in her empty contact list.
He’d have to go over a list of dos, don’ts, and never-evers with her. Surely she’d see the reasoning behind it all. She had to. He’d make her see. Somehow, he had to make Cara Beckett understand if she wanted to get her life back, she’d have to do so without the help of the LYYF app in the short term.