Chapter Three
Cara sat on the rock-hard sofa of the condo Zarah had secured for her and stared down at the phone Special Agent Wyatt Dawson had programmed for her. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d held a device set up to have so little function in the modern world. Cara took him up on his offer to drive her to the short-term rental. She was still reeling from the events of the day and found she was more than willing to let someone else take over.
As if defying the man with the gun and taking a leap toward freedom had depleted all her decision-making capabilities.
Agent Dawson, Wyatt, had insisted on walking her to the door. He actually groaned when he spotted the bags waiting for her on the unit’s welcome mat. “Who is this Zarah person?” he’d asked as he helped her carry the haul inside.
“Zarah Parvich is my assistant. Virtual assistant. She works out of her home in the San Fernando Valley.”
“She’s definitely on the ball.”
“I’d be lost without her.”
Wyatt set the bags on the condo’s kitchen island, then launched into a lengthy spiel on smartphone safety. Then he proceeded to check and double-check the settings on her new device. By the time he was finished, she was looking at a phone she could only use as, well, a phone.
“I programmed my number in as well as the numbers for Masterson and the CCD extension,” he said as she continued to stare at the unadorned wallpaper on the screen. “I’ve also set it to decline any unknown callers. I’d recommend you refrain from adding more contacts. Any call coming to this new number will go straight to voicemail.”
No apps. No email. No turning the cellular signal on unless she intended to make a call, and then she was to remember to switch it off the minute she hung up. She had a new phone number, one she’d have to use to call Zarah and communicate verbally if she was getting the gist of Agent Dawson’s instructions.
“Assume everything is compromised,” he told her. “For the time being, write things down.”
He gestured to the spiral-bound notebook Zarah had shipped with the bags of food, toiletries and a wardrobe of leggings, T-shirts and zippered hoodies. Zarah knew Cara well enough to include a journal. Cara was a big fan of journaling and often encouraged others to dump their concerns onto the page.
She tried not to think about the notebook tucked into her carry-on bag. All her innermost thoughts and worries were riding around with a kidnapper. Possibly fodder for ongoing stalking.
“Do you think it would be okay to connect to the Wi-Fi here?” Wyatt nodded slowly, and Cara could practically feel the tug of his reluctance. “What?”
“I downloaded a more secure browser. It’s the one with the fireball icon. Use it instead of the default.” He went on, rambling about how Wi-Fi connections in public spaces where log-in was not required would be best from a security standpoint. He mentioned fast-food restaurants, coffee shops or stores, but cautioned her against attempting to log into any of her social media accounts. “Oh, and be sure to clear your cache when you’re done.”
She nodded. “Thank you. I will.”
Wyatt clapped his hands together, then rubbed his palms. “Okay, then. You’ll be all right here?”
His obvious reluctance to leave her alone in this strange place touched her. “I will be.”
He walked to the window and peered down into the complex’s parking area. “It’s a weeknight, so there shouldn’t be much trouble.”
“I’ll call if there are any issues.” Wyatt scraped his palms down his pants as he turned back. He looked...nervous. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“Nothing. Uh—” he flashed a weak smile “—I, um, I wanted to say... You should know...”
When he petered out without actually saying a damn thing, she set the stripped-down phone aside and rose to her feet. “I should know what?”
He shook his head, holding up his hands in futile surrender. “Nothing bad. I was only... I use your app.”
The words came out in such a rush it took Cara a moment to process them. “Wha—Oh. Oh... You do?”
“Yes.” He wet his lips, then gave a vigorous nod. “Actually, I know a few people who do. They made a free trial part of our healthcare package a couple years ago, and well, I’m a fan.” He tossed the last off with a dismissive little laugh. “Ponied up for my own subscription.”
But Cara wasn’t inclined to dismiss anyone who appreciated her work. “Wow. I’m flattered. And so gratified you find it helpful.”
“Very helpful.”
She wanted to ask what he liked best. Wanted to know if he was in it for the finance or life coaching, like most men claimed, or if he stuck around because he found some benefit in the wellness practices. Or had he—as the fouler emails and messages she’d received implied—found a more prurient solace while watching her videos or listening to her voice?
She didn’t want to know.
Not only was he a competent, attractive man who looked good in his buttoned-up clothes, but also because, like the truck driver who’d coaxed her out of the ditch and made sure she was delivered into safe hands, Wyatt Dawson seemed inherently decent. He didn’t seem to be infected with the sort of Southern-fried misogyny Trooper Masterson and so many of the young men she’d known growing up were steeped in. He hadn’t once condescended to her, or made her feel like a nuisance. Quite the opposite. He was warm, easygoing and seemingly determined to put her mind at ease.
Fixing her most serene smile in place, she rose and offered him her hand to shake. “Thank you... Wyatt. I appreciate both your diligence and your kind words.”
He bobbed his head, then backed away. “I’ll get out of your hair. If I hear anything, I’ll call.”
“Thank you again,” she said.
He stepped into the hall, but made no move toward the building’s entrance.
“Is there something else?” she asked.
He didn’t bother to hide his sheepish smile. “I guess I don’t need to remind you to lock up.”
“No, but you can stand there and listen as I do.” She flashed a quick, shaky smile. “Good night, Special Agent Dawson.”
He inclined his head and mimicked touching the brim of a hat. “Good night, Ms. Beckett.”
She closed the heavy door between them, then made a racket of engaging the locks before moving to the electronic alarm panel. It was set up differently from the one at her home, so she took a moment to scan the printed instructions the unit’s owner had framed beside it.
“Don’t forget there’s an alarm,” he called from the other side of the door.
“I’m doing it now,” she called back. “Jeez. Give a person a minute.”
“Sorry.”
The buttons beeped and she pressed them in the preset sequence. Three short bleats signaled her success. She glanced down to where a slit of light from the hall crept into the unit. She could see his shadow.
Cara was about to call out to him. She wanted to chastise him for hovering, but his presence was disturbingly comforting. A childish part of her wanted to chase him off for that reason alone. She could accuse him of acting like a creeper. Say he was—
“Good night.” His voice seeped through the door, quiet, calm and deep. “Try to rest tonight. Tomorrow is as good a day as any to start fresh.”
She listened to his footsteps as he walked down the hall. The outer door latched with a loud ka-thunk . Stepping back into the unit, Cara placed her hands on her hips and let her head fall forward. She drew two breaths before releasing her hands and shaking her arms until they went noodle limp.
Once she’d released some of the tension in her neck and shoulders, she made her way into the small galley-style kitchen to sort through the bags Zarah had had delivered. As she unpacked each item, she made herself pause for a moment of gratitude.
She was alive.
She was well.
She had everything she needed.
Cara truly believed her life was better than a fairy tale. She got to build a company from the ground up with her two best friends at her side. Every day, she got to do work she loved. She brought people comfort in times of anxiety and solace in moments of sadness, and helped them find peace in the beats between each breath.
On the day Chris and Tom asked her to do the voice-over work on the new application they’d created as part of their final project before graduation, she’d planned to audition for a shampoo commercial. But they were desperate, and she didn’t want to let them down. She’d been so naive when they met in their freshman dormitory at the University of California, Los Angeles. Like thousands of other transplants, she planned to be a star. Chris and Tom wanted to be the next Jobs and Wozniak.
They’d been the first friends she’d made in California, and for a lonesome girl from a small town in Arkansas, their friendship meant more than the possibility of commercial residuals.
She reached into another bag and her hand closed around a tube. She pulled it out and saw Zarah had thought to buy her favorite brand of deodorant. Tears filled her eyes as she offered up heartfelt gratitude for her young assistant.
Cara knew she had people who loved and supported her.
People who knew her and understood her better than her own family.
Her folks thought the whole acting thing was a phase. They didn’t mind her going out to California for college because she’d sailed out on a flotilla of scholarships and financial aid programs. Cara knew they had not so secretly hoped when she got out to LA and realized how mercurial Hollywood could be, she’d settle into a more practical degree program. They hadn’t counted on her loving every bit of the hustle and grind.
They never imagined she wouldn’t come home and take over the land three generations of Becketts had toiled over. A sharp pang of guilt twanged through her as she glanced over at the phone she’d abandoned on the coffee table. Should she call them? Maybe not get into the details of what happened, but let them know she was coming to stay for a little while?
Her heart rate ramped up at the very thought, but the next thing she knew, she was palming the phone. Her thumb hovered over the keypad as she checked the time. They’d be getting ready for bed. Things had been strained between her and her parents for so long. They weren’t estranged, exactly, but her refusal to come home after graduation had cracked the foundation of their relationship.
Biting her lip, she punched out a 424 area code rather than the 870 attached to the landline her parents insisted on keeping.
Zarah picked up on the second ring. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” Cara informed her.
Her assistant let out a long breath. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” Cara nodded, even though she knew the younger woman couldn’t see her. Maybe she was trying to reassure herself.
“Did you get the stuff I ordered? Is the place okay?” the younger woman asked, breathless. “I can’t believe this happened to you. In Arkansas! I mean, I expect to hear about bad stuff out here, but I didn’t know you had anything more than, uh, farmland in Arkansas.”
“You’re not far off. Actually, rice is the biggest crop here,” Cara said, doodling the words “rice is nice” on the first page of her new notebook.
Zarah’s spongelike ability to absorb random bits of information was one of her most charming quirks. The quickest way to talk her down was to load her up with tasty tidbits of trivia she could whip out at a moment’s notice.
“Really?” The younger woman hummed as she filed the information away in her mind palace. “I had no idea.”
“Facts are fun,” Cara said, forcing a bright note into her tone. “Were you able to get into my place without any trouble?”
“Oh, yeah. No problem. I grabbed your passport for ID and found the credit card right where you said it would be. I raided petty cash for a couple hundred and put it in the envelope in case. I overnighted it all to you in care of Special Agent Dawson at the Arkansas State Police. It should arrive before 8:00 a.m.”
Cara fought the urge to roll her eyes. When Wyatt Dawson found out Zarah had sent supplies from one of the superstores to the condo, he insisted she call her assistant back and route any future shipments through him. Cara thought it was overkill, but she’d been too tired to fight him on it.
“Thank you so much for all you’ve done.”
“Oh, jeez, no problem,” Zarah said, allowing her native Minnesotan to show through for a second. “I’m so relieved you’re okay. So scary, you know?”
Smiling her first genuine smile of the night, Cara said, “I know.”
“Are you calling me from the new phone?”
“Yes, but don’t give the number to anyone yet. The police are cloning my old number. Anything sent to it will show on this one too. They’re monitoring both numbers, so they can capture any calls or texts.”
“Oh. Cool.” She gave a little laugh. “It sounds like they’re pretty cyber savvy there in Arkansas.”
Cara frowned, both mildly offended on behalf of her home state and bemused by the younger woman’s blunt assessment. “Yes, they are. But that also means the guy who has my phone might be checking it too, if he can get past my security code. I’m not putting anything past anyone these days.”
“I totally hear you,” Zarah said.
Tired, and not prepared to answer questions, Cara shifted into business mode. “Hey, so I need some contact information. If I send you a list, will you email them back to me?”
“Email? Can’t I text them?”
Zarah sounded perplexed by the notion of using such antiquated means of communication. Smirking at the notebook where she started jotting names, Cara wondered if Zarah would find Special Agent Dawson nearly as cute if she passed on his suggestion regarding the pen and paper.
“We’re trying to go low-tech on this,” Cara informed her. “I’m staying off apps, and texts are not secure. We know my work email has been hacked, but I have an old address I use as a spam catcher. I was thinking maybe if you don’t mind me sending a list to your personal email?”
“Oh! Yeah. Totally makes sense.”
Zarah rattled off an email address. They ended the call and Cara tapped her pen against the pad as she racked her brain for any other contacts she wanted to add to her list. Then she opened the secure browser and attempted to access the email account she never used. It took three attempts before she recalled the correct password, and even then she had to run the gauntlet of selecting security images of cacti and bicycles before the server demanded access to send a one-time code to her phone.
Gnawing her bottom lip, she weighed the risk of exposure before typing in her digits. She figured her detractors would have to be pretty darn dedicated to watch her every move all the time. Besides, she’d done all of her travel correspondence through her work email. The odds of anyone tracking down the handle she’d barely used since college had to be slim.
She fired off the list of names along with her heartfelt thanks for going above and beyond, and the reassurance there was no hurry to reply because she’d be logging out and heading straight for the shower then bed. The message whooshed its way to California. Her inbox was full of unopened newsletters, discount codes and special offers she’d relegated to limbo. With a couple taps, she sent them all to the trash bin.
She logged out of the email server, then backed out of the secure browser, sure to wait until flames rolled up the screen as an indication the connection had been torched. Satisfied she’d done all she could to cover her tracks, she stowed the last of the food items before grabbing the clothes and toiletries and heading for the bathroom. The sooner she got to sleep, the sooner morning would come.
Standing under the hot spray, she did her level best to tap into the gratitude and positivity she touted on the app, but her mind continued to whirl. Then her ankles gave out.
Sitting on the floor of a strange tub with her legs drawn close and her head pressed to her knees, she let the tears flow. They ran down her cheeks hot and salty as the cooling water pummeled her shoulders and back. Shivering, she told herself everything would be better in the morning.
It had to be.
Because if things could get worse than being abducted at gunpoint, she didn’t want to know how.
H EAVY POUNDING WOKE her from a fitful sleep. She wasn’t quite ready to surface, but the dream of someone sawing her in half was every bit as disturbing as the persistent thumps. Cracking an eyelid, Cara found herself staring at sunlight streaming through unfamiliar curtains. Another round of demanding knocks came, and the phone she’d clutched until she fell asleep buzzed insistently from under her pillow.
She sat up, her eyes gritty from too many tears and too little sleep.
Someone was calling her name through the door. She ran a hand over her hair. It was flat on one side and sticking up on the other. She’d fallen asleep while it was still damp.
“Cara? If you don’t answer in the next thirty seconds, I’m busting down this door.”
The person issuing the threat was a man. But it didn’t sound like a threat. It sounded like a warning. Yanking the phone from its nesting spot, she swung her legs over the side of the bed as she read the name on the screen. Swiping with her thumb, she said, “Agent Dawson?”
“Why aren’t you answering your door?” he demanded. His tone was edgy and sharp.
“I was sleeping,” she grumbled, staggering across the living room to the door.
She started disengaging the locks, but his gravelly bark stopped her. “Peephole.”
“I know it’s you,” she argued. “I can hear you through the door and the phone.”
“Check anyway,” he growled.
She obliged him with a huff. Sure enough, Special Agent Wyatt Dawson stood in the hall holding an overnight envelope and wearing a shearling-lined denim jacket. “Nice jacket,” she said, matching him grump for grump. “You headed out to rope some steers this morning?”
“Disarm the alarm.”
She wanted to tell him where he could get off, but she was hoping the envelope contained the cash, cards and passport Zarah had shipped.
“Sir, yes, sir,” she replied, turning away from the door. She disabled the alarm system, then twisted the locks. Stepping back to allow him entry, she muttered, “You’re eager to get a jump on the day.”
He stepped over the threshold, then quickly closed the door behind him. Once he had her locked in again, he turned and thrust the envelope at her. “Do you have a Webmail address?”
“What?”
“Do you have a Webmail email account?” he demanded.
“Yes, but I don’t use—”
“Did you send an email to someone last night?”
Cara pushed her hand through her hair, her anger rising even as her stomach sank. “What if I did?” she challenged.
“If you did, you exposed your account and someone got hold of it,” he shot back.
“How? I was barely on there for two minutes,” she cried, incredulous.
“Doesn’t take long if someone is tracking your every move. Did you do some kind of password recovery or two-step verification?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and blew out a long breath. Apparently, Wyatt Dawson knew a confession when he heard one, because he pressed on.
“We got a call from a sergeant with Company E this morning. A woman claiming to be Elizabeth Beckett contacted them about an email she received concerning her daughter,” he said, watching her closely.
“Elizabeth Beckett? My mom?”
His lips flattened into a thin line. “I suppose so.” Wyatt pulled out his phone and started tapping. Once he got what he was after, he turned his phone over to her. It was a photo of a computer screen. On the screen was an email from the account she’d used to contact Zarah the night before, but this one was addressed to her parents’ email address.
It was a ransom letter from a man who claimed to have taken her from the parking deck at Clinton National Airport in Little Rock. The amount he was asking for to secure her release was absurd. Her parents were ranchers. Even if they sold every head of cattle and every acre of land, they couldn’t have come up with the outrageous figure demanded.
She looked at the time stamp on the email. It was sent less than an hour after she emailed Zarah the list of contact names. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. She swiped at the phone screen, desperate to make the message disappear. “I need to call them.”
“They know you’re okay,” Wyatt assured her, gently removing his phone from her grasp. “I spoke to your mother. Your father too. I gave them a brief rundown on what’s happening, but I think we should vacate in case this location is compromised.”
“Compromised?” she repeated, willing her brain to catch up.
“They obviously have a thumb on your correspondence. Probably phished your work email to identify your personal accounts. I’m going to need details on everything since you were first aware someone had your information.” He blew out a breath, his hands braced on his hips as he scanned the condo. “Gather your stuff. You can call your folks once we’re out of here.”
Her stuff? She looked down at the package he’d thrust at her. Pulling the tear strip, she peered into the envelope. An envelope she assumed held the cash Zarah had mentioned, two credit cards—though who knew if they’d be any good to her—and her passport.
“What do you mean we ?”
“Apparently, Mrs. Elizabeth Beckett knows people,” he said with a wry smile. “You related to Paul Stanton? An uncle or something?”
“Paul Stanton?” she repeated blankly. “I, uh, I don’t have an uncle. There’s my aunt CeCe, but she never married.”
“Nope. The name doesn’t ring any bells? Lieutenant Governor Paul Stanton,” he repeated.
She squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to recall the bits and pieces of hometown news her mother relayed whenever they spoke. Finally, the light bulb came on. “Oh, Paul Stanton. He’s not actually my uncle. A family friend. Or friend of my mother’s, I should say. He and my mom went to prom together and kept in touch. My dad hates him, but I remember her telling me he’s some kind of big shot now.”
“Well, your mama called him, and good old Uncle Paul made a couple calls, and it looks like you’ve got yourself your very own special agent,” he said, holding his arms out wide.
“What?”
“Come on.” He made his way to the kitchen and began bagging the supplies she’d unpacked the night before. When she didn’t move, he motioned to the bedroom. “I’ll fill you in on the way.”
“On the way to where?” she asked, standing her ground.
He dropped a box of her favorite cheese crackers into the delivery bag and looked up at her, one dark brow raised. “I am to escort you home, Ms. Beckett.”
“Home?” Dread pooled in the pit of her stomach when she pictured poor Nancy bandaged up in her hospital bed. “To California?”
“Oh, no, ma’am. I’m under strict instruction to deliver you into the hands of Mrs. Elizabeth Beckett ASAP.”
“My mama?”
He looked her straight in the eye. “We’re headin’ to Snowball. Hope you have a jacket. It can be chilly up in the hills this time of year.”