Page 7 of Outlaw Ridge: Jesse
“Deep,” she assured him. “Why?”
“Because I want to go back through all the notes and files on your abduction. I want to know everything you remembered about the man who took you. It might help to look at it with fresh eyes.”
Thoughfreshwas stretching it. Lauren wasn’t the only one who had become a champion of justice because of what had happened to her. It was the reason Jesse was now wearing a badge instead of making a whole lot more money as a Strike Force operative.
She nodded and took out her phone. “I’ll text you all the files and my personal notes.”
Jesse waited until she had done that before he fired off another question. “Who do you suspect of abducting you?”
Lauren hesitated, her fingers tightening around her phone that she was still holding. “I’ve never had proof,” she admitted. “But if you’re asking who’s at the top of my list…”
Jesse leaned forward, watching her closely. “I am.”
“Dr. Ethan Graves,” she said.
Jesse’s jaw tensed. “The profiler?”
She nodded. “He’s also a psychologist with a background in criminal justice, and after I was reported missing, he volunteered his services to Outlaw Ridge PD to do a profile. In the days and weeks following my escape, Dr. Graves interviewed me many times.” She exhaled sharply. “And there was something about him that always felt… wrong. Not in what he said, but in how he said it. It was the way he asked certain questions. The way he looked at me.”
Jesse filed that away. “You ever tell anyone?”
“I mentioned it once to the lead detective.” She let out a bitter laugh. “He told me I was traumatized and seeing shadows where there weren’t any.”
Jesse considered that. Maybe the lead detective had been right, but he would trust Lauren on this.
“What else?” he pushed. “Any reason besides your gut that you put the profiler’s name at the top of the list?”
Lauren swiped through her phone, then turned the screen toward him. “This.”
It was an old case file. A profile for her abductor. But what caught Jesse’s eye was the signature at the bottom of one of the reports.
Dr. Ethan Graves.
“That’s standard, right?” Jesse asked. “I mean, he did volunteer to do that profile.”
“Look at the date,” she insisted.
Jesse did. And his blood ran cold. Dr. Graves had signed off on the profile report less than twenty-four hours after Lauren had been taken. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “What was he basing this profile on? Had he talked to any other abductees that could have been taken by this perp?”
“No.” A muscle flickered in her jaw. “At this point, no one had any info about who had taken me or where I was being held. I asked Dr. Graves about this only a couple of months ago when I finally noticed it. He said it was a mistake, that he’d simply put the wrong date on the form.”
“A couple of months ago,” he repeated, mentally playing that out. Yeah, it could have been a mistake or maybe the doctor had been writing up a profile to throw anyone off his scent.
But even Jesse had to admit that was a stretch.
“What motive could Graves have for kidnapping teenage girls and branding them with tattoos?” he asked.
Lauren didn’t hesitate. She pulled up something else on her phone. It was a screenshot of an old post on social media. “Seventeen years ago, one of Dr. Graves’ patients accused him of having an inappropriate relationship with her. The person whoposted this is no longer on social media, and I haven’t been able to find her. But what if Graves abducted her to silence her and then took several others to cover up his actual target?”
Jesse stayed quiet for a while. “It’s possible,” he finally said, but he wasn’t completely convinced.
Lauren didn’t seem convinced either. “There are no other complaints,” she had to add. “And I can’t find a single report about one of his clients going missing. But he could have covered that up somehow. Or maybe the client who made that post didn’t have anyone in her life to file a missing person’s report.” She stopped, sighed again. “I know how this must sound. As if I’m the one twisted up and looking for bogeymen when there aren’t any.”
Jesse reached across the desk, took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “We’re all twisted up in one way or another. And just because that theory sounds a little out there, it doesn’t mean Graves wasn’t your abductor.”
Lauren stared at him a long time. “Say it. Go ahead and say that I could have triggered him to abduct again when I asked him about that profile a couple of months ago.”
Now, it was Jesse who sighed. “A trigger doesn’t give anyone an excuse to abduct someone and leave the scene we saw in the shop.”
