A Legal Trap - Chapter 9

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The author retains all rights to this original work of fiction.

Last Updated: 2/16/2024 to smooth out portions of the story.
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March 12th, 8:33 a.m.
I rolled over lazily, pulling covers from every corner of the bed around me. Paul was gone; he’d left sometime around 2 AM, so the bed felt a bit empty. There wasn’t much conversation before he left, but the kiss goodbye certainly made me feel like this evening could be considered a success. I stared at the ceiling, listening to the drone of the AC, and couldn’t help but smile. Last night, Paul, was a major shift in my universe; I hoped he felt the same way I was feeling right now.

My stomach gurgling and an urgent need to pee made it difficult to keep basking in or replaying the events from last night. Time to get rolling...

March 12th, 9:21 a.m.
The plan for the morning was to eat and get in a run before it got too sweltering hot out. Forecast for the day: low 80’s. I had changed into my running gear, brought along my Android tablet, and was seated at a window table in the restaurant for some breakfast. Food was ordered with little fuss from a polite server that barely gave me a second look—thankfully. My hair was pulled, so if someone had their Trans-radar on, well, it would probably be going off pretty loud about now.

Luckily my presence went unnoticed, though I tried really hard to just blend in and not be a focus of anyone’s attention by doing something foolish – like knocking over my water or dropping a fork or chewing too loudly. I finished off my first glass of water pretty quickly and motioned to a busboy for a refill. He came over quickly and to save him a return trip I flipped over the three other glasses on the table, and he got the message, filling them with a smile.

I opened my tablet, started a browser, and navigated to the firm’s webmail client. Credentials entered, and I had seven new emails since checking yesterday. Two were likely questions about work that I was doing and reassigned to others based on their subject, one an IT warning email about virus protection, two about food in the break room, travel arrangements from Kendal for Sunday, and one from Lisa. I opened that one first.

‘Hey, you better come back with a tan! I saw the weather forecast – bikini by the pool! Bring some sun back with you. Not to be a rumormonger, but you said you were helping Jacob with a case down there, right? Well, the rumor around here is that Janet and Martin are splitting from Jacob. I don’t know how that would work exactly. I mean, this is his firm, and the majority of the clients are here because of Jacob. You didn’t hear that from me. Bryant says hi! You know I’m going to do some crazy shit to that boy one of these days! Hey, get laid while you’re down there, will you? Hugz! Lisa’

There would generally be a lot to smile about in this email if it didn’t have that rumor crap regarding Janet and Martin having plans to break the firm up. I respected each of the partners, but I certainly didn’t want to have to choose sides or be without a job all together. Maybe Jacob knew this was in the works and was the reason for the ‘no sharing’ demand with Janet—and viscera Janet wanting to know everything. Great! Do I need to update my resume?

My yogurt, banana, and oatmeal were delivered with a smile by my server; I thanked her and asked for the bill. She returned a minute later, and I signed it to my room. I grabbed the yogurt and banana, and headed back to my room eating the banana on the way. Inside my room, I finished the yogurt, grabbed a bottle of water, headphones, and an armband, and headed for the door. Room key? Check…

I needed a good run to clear my mind.

March 12th, 10:19 a.m.
At nearly the three-mile mark and halfway into the song 'Havana' by an artist I wasn’t familiar with but was totally digging the heavy Latin beat, my phone rang. Out of breath, I answered, “This is... Elizabeth.”

“Hey… You out running?”

“Hey yourself..." I replied, trying really hard not to huff loud enough for the microphone in my Bluetooth headphones. “Yes, about three miles in; another two, and I’ll be good.”

I slowed to a walk on a trail between developments.

“You’re already good,” Paul said.

How could you not want to hear that daily and often?

“You’re not so bad yourself.”

“Oh, I’m bad... But I won’t divulge those secrets just yet,” he said, chuckling. "Hey, the reason for the call is that I could use your insight into something. I’ve been looking over the internet traffic from Carson's, and Amber was in a chat room talking to someone named ‘FlowerGirl’. Nothing too crazy in the transcripts, but the IP address traces to the general Vancouver, BC, area. Too close to her, 'Daddy' not to have a second set of eyes look over their conversation. Are you going to be much longer?”

If I picked up the pace, I could be back at the hotel in fifteen minutes. Of course, I’d be wiped, but that was part of clearing my head; the reset running did it for me. Then I'd need to get cleaned up, so in about an hour and a half I’d be available.

"Where are you?” I asked.

“Just leaving Carson’s...”

“Are you talking and driving?” I asked playfully, my breathing nearly back to normal.

“No! I hate that shit.”

“Good, me too. Wanna come to my room, say,” I looked at the time on my phone and said, “Twelve-ish?”

“It’s going to take you that long to run two miles?”

“No,” I complained. “But I’ll need to get cleaned up! Sheesh…”

“I’m kidding, just kidding... Sure, I’ll pop by around twelve, unless you need help in the shower.”

OK, if he were in front of me, I would totally be blushing. Then I wondered if he really knew what he was suggesting and how that might look—us in the shower together? No, he’s just being a normal guy; I’m taking it to the polar extreme. Fuck! Get a grip.
“Thanks for the offer; it’s tempting, but I can manage. Thank you very much.”

“OK, but if you change your mind, give me a call.”

He didn’t sound disappointed or anything, but I felt weird about that exchange. I mean, yes! Come over, wash my back, and let me wash you all over! However, there was one thing remaining on… Augh! God! Get fucking over it! Take his banter for what it was—good-natured flirting. Sheesh!

“You’re pretty silly... See you in a bit.” I finally got out.

“Thanks Elizabeth.”

March 12th, 12:07 p.m.
Breathe… Being late wasn’t a crime! Should be though! I hated being late to anything, and people who were late were... The knock on the door kicked that thought down the road for another time. I didn’t look out the peephole and just opened the door. Paul was smiling and extended a bag of Cool Ranch Dorito's.

“Peace offering for being late... I got them in the gift shop. Reeeeally expensive!”

I couldn’t help but smile, taking the bag and waving him in. He knows being late isn’t my thing; that’s something, right? He cares to know that. He stepped inside, kissing me quickly, and then headed for the couch to set up his laptop.

I was floating, soaring really, from one little kiss. Sure, I’d liked it to have been longer, but it meant the world to me that we were being so normal, especially given some of what had taken place the last twenty-four hours. No awkward reset or regret or starting over or…

"Hey, are you going to join me?” he asked.

Doh!

“Yeah…. Water? There’s pop in the fridge, but I think they charge for that.”

“They do… Coke, please,” he said, smiling.

“Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be?”

“Yup…”

I went to the refrigerator and pulled a Coke for him and a bottle of water for me. I joined him on the couch, watching various screens flash on the TV as he was trying to get setup. The Coke opening made him pause; he kissed my cheek and took the can from me. I broke open the bag of chips, and he grabbed a couple, crunching them while something was obviously loading on the screen. Did he have any idea what this, him, us, just sitting here, all casual like, meant to me?

“OK, so here’s a list of sites she visited. I asked Carson’s to pull the plug on the video game machine the boys used and to refrain from connecting to their Wi-Fi network. So everything here,” he scrolled down a huge list of activities. “It's all from Amber. Certainly she’s bored—some of this stuff is insignificant—but she’s also trying to figure out getting back into her accounts—see here, Patreon—a failed attempt. Oh, and PayPal—she’s locked out her account trying to guess the password.”

I watched as he flipped to a browser and pulled up a Hotmail login page. He entered an email address and password and went to the ‘Sent’ folder.

“She created this email account last night. Here you can see she’s trying to remember an email address—it could be his, it could be someone else. Each attempt failed, and an email address with unknown errors kicked back to her. Tough one to pin down likely—I mean, what kid even knows a phone number for a friend these days? Nothing in any of the failed emails—just her saying, 'Hello, write me back!',” he explained.

“I don’t know hardly anyone’s number. Thank God for having a contacts list. I’d be totally lost without it. Same thing for email addresses—an address book for that,” I offered.

“Exactly… She tried combinations of these addresses, b8dlef, b8dleaf, lefb8d, and a few others like that—see here.” He flipped to a list of returned error emails from unknown email addresses kicked back from the Hotmail server. “Looks like ‘b8d’ something is part of someone’s address—maybe his. I keep reading ‘Be-eighty’.”

“Makes sense,” I bought all that, certainly it seemed reasonable. I had hoped that with all that had happened Amber was going to move on from trying to connect with this guy. “Did you do a search for just the ‘b8d’ as part of a possible email address?”

“Yup, almost a million references in Google, even more in some off-the-grid searches.”

I must have looked confused; he explained at a really high level about a ‘dark’ web that the general public couldn’t venture to without knowing a lot of shit about what the internet really was. Okay, so there was an underbelly on the web; they were likely not communicating there.

“Did you check her email accounts to see if she emailed anyone with an email address like this? I mean, she talked to the guy via email plenty of times, but that address was something like 'dla'-something, right?” I asked.

Paul nodded, flipping to some program or command-line prompt thing. There, he started typing computer gibberish and hit enter, flipping back to the main screen for her new email account.

“Do you think she knows you were in this new account of hers?” I asked.

“Her being locked out, she knows her accounts have been viewed—that's my guess. This new one, hard to say,” he said.

“You said she was in a chat room with someone?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s probably a dead end, but here,” more clicking, screens changing quickly on the TV, then a listing showing the conversation. “Here,” he handed me a wireless mouse and a pad to run it over. “Scroll and see what you think.”

I began reading:

FlowerGirl: No names, no rules now.
Abreeze: K
FlowerGirl: Waiting long
Abreeze: No
FlowerGirl: Feel better
Abreeze: Much
FlowerGirl: He wants to know about the police.
Abreeze: I didn't say anything.
FlowerGirl: Best to let things settle.
Abreeze: Parents are pissed.
FlowerGirl: Figures, you're a big girl. How are they?
Abreeze: They hurt
FlowerGirl: They will look great. I'm jealous
Abreeze: I hope so.
FlowerGirl: Do you see them?
Abreeze: Yes, gross, bruised. Wrapped up per doctor's orders
FlowerGirl: Time; they'll be amazing.
Abreeze: I know
FlowerGirl: New clothes for you!
Abreeze: lol
FlowerGirl: He’ll buy them.
Abreeze: I miss him.
FlowerGirl: He knows
Abreeze: Next week?
FlowerGirl: Working on that.
Abreeze: Email
FlowerGirl: Yes, details
Abreeze: Call him?
FlowerGirl: Will see. Email first. I could be monitoring you.
Abreeze: Parents are hovering.
FlowerGirl: To be expected. Email
Abreeze: I will
FlowerGirl: Bye
Abreeze: K

I read it twice. Crap. It could be him, but then again, the conversation sounded like a third party. I put the mouse down.

“See what I mean? This could be someone connected to both of them, an intermediary,” Paul said. "If they are doing that whole 'Daddy and Sissy' thing, maybe there is another girl?"

Damn mind reader! I suppressed an urge to smile.

“Yeah, some of it sounds like two girls talking; then again it could be him twisting the chat to appear as someone else so he can talk to her. It feels like the whole conversation is coded, but I don't understand why. Why not just ‘chat’ if this is him? Does he know she’s being monitored? Maybe she knows? Could she know?” I asked.

“He had to have seen the police presence in Santa Fe, and he’s probably spooked and overly cautious now about anything he says or does. This could be something they worked out as an emergency way to converse. I don't recall seeing any activity in this chat room before on her computer. This is strange, for sure,” Paul said sounding a bit defeated.

“FlowerGirl? That just isn’t... Wait! Flower… Oh crap! French! Canada is French and flower that’s la fleur! This is absolutely him! David Lafleur—that’s his name, right? This is them talking; I would bet money on it!” I shouted excited.

I watched Paul switch to a browser, Google, type in ‘flower in French’, hit enter, and on the screen was ‘fleur’.

“Whoa… Well, that’s interesting! I agree, this might actually be him; this is,” he said, looking worried, “This isn’t good, though. They’re talking about ‘Next Week’. Are they meeting somehow?”

I asked him to switch back to the chat transcript; there it was: ‘Next Week’. Yeah, that’s not good.

“Did you search for the user name ‘FlowerGirl’?”

“Yeah, sixty-eight million references, and most are for the actual words together, ‘flower girl’,” he replied.

“Dang… What’s that email address she was trying to connect to too, ‘b8dlef’? What if it’s ‘b8dlafleur’? Can you send a message to that address like junk mail and see if it bounces back?”

“Are you sure you don’t know computer stuff?” he asked.

I giggled and said, “I can barely login to email by myself, let alone search the web!”

That was actually a tiny white lie, but only because I didn’t want to turn the spotlight on the successes from the last couple minutes onto my use of the internet in a past life I was happy to be rid of.

“I highly doubt that,” he said, flipping to an email client and opening a new message, typing:

‘Job Opportunity’ in the subject line, then typing ‘Earn a six-figure salary after just three months. We will show you how. Contact Carmen Carey at 801-552-3266.’

“That should do,” he said before hitting send. “If it’s going to fail, it’ll be pretty quick. I'm positive this isn't an email address she's ever tried to use before.”

We watched the screen for over a minute.

“I think that worked... Can you spoof her email account?”

“Right, you don’t know anything about computers? Spoof? You crack me up, Liz,” he said, smiling, and I pushed his shoulder playfully. “Hey now... Just telling it like it is.”

“Ha ha… What’s taking you so long to spoof her email account?”

He laughed and extended the laptop toward me. I stood and took the bag of chips.

“No chips until we’re talking to this guy.”

“I’m working on it... I probably should call Jacob; can you do that while I get this going?”

“Sure…” I went to the bedroom and grabbed my phone from the nightstand, found Jacob’s number in my 'Recent' calls from him calling me the other day, and hit dial.

On the third ring, he answered, “Elizabeth?”

I put the phone on speakerphone, "Yes, Mr. Wentz, I’m here with Paul." I looked at Paul, mouthing for him to talk.

"Hey Jacob... We’ve been reviewing the internet traffic from last night. We think Amber contacted David Lafleur in a chat room and then made several attempts to contact him via email.”

“That’s unfortunate… I think Stephanie is going to have to pull her access completely.”

“Yes, that’s probably best for now. We are going to try making contact with him via email to see if we can figure out what they might have had in the way of contingency plans,” Paul said.

“Why are you going to do that?” Jacob asked.

Paul didn't hesitate: “In the chat, there's a mention of ‘Next week’. In the context of what’s in the chat, there’s no conclusive proof that this is David Lafleur, but we feel there’s enough going on here between the chat and her attempts to contact him via email that something is going on between them still. The plan is to spoof her email account, make contact, and see what we can figure out what their plans are. Provide that to Landon or Phoenix PD.”

There was dead air for a moment.

“She’s tried to email him?”

“Yes, Jacob. She couldn’t remember the exact email address. We think we’ve figured it out and are going to try making contact.”

“Do it… I’ll let Landon know what you’re doing. Are you still working with Tim at the bureau?”

“Yes.”

“Keep him in the loop. Let the bureau coordinate with Phoenix PD. Anything else?”

Paul looked at me, and I quickly shook my head and said, ‘No’.

“No, we’re good here, Jacob.”

“Thank you both... Great work.”

“Elizabeth cracked this one open, Jacob. Any chance we could keep her around a few more days?”

Another pause, “Let’s see where this email thing goes. If you think she’s needed Paul, I’m going to defer to your judgment. Elizabeth, any problems staying longer?”

"No, Mr. Wentz. However, I can best assist you and Carson’s I’m happy to help. I did get travel plans from Kendal in an email, though. I'm leaving Sunday early afternoon, 12:45 PM.”

“Okay, let's see where this goes. Excellent work you two, thank you both again. Call me with an update later, Paul.”

I said, “Yes, Mr. Wentz.” At the same time, Paul was saying, “Sure thing, Jacob.”

The line went dead. I looked at Paul with a questioning glance before putting my phone back on the charger on the kitchen countertop.

“What? I don’t want you to leave,” he said, smiling.

Back to soaring, I went!

March 12th, 2:38 PM
We took a break for lunch in the hotel restaurant, followed by a little kissing after returning to my room. It could easily have progressed, but we both sensed we had to get back to making contact—if this email address was even the right one. Paul checked—still no return error, so the address was good, but was it David Lafleur’s?

Over lunch, it was decided I would craft the email to David, but beforehand I needed to study some of her previous email correspondence to capture her tone and style. If this was his email address, we didn’t want to scare him off. Getting their plans was the goal. Hopefully Jacob had arranged the cutting of Amber’s access to the internet, and Carson’s were told to be on high alert, given what we suspected was some kind of meeting between these two next week.

“No pressure,” Paul said with just the slightest of grins.

“Thanks,” I said, nervous about what I was going to type.

“Probably best to keep it simple and lure him into conversing,” he suggested.

“I agree; I just have to capture how she talks to her ‘Daddy’,” I thought aloud.

I began typing; it wasn’t like we couldn’t edit this email a hundred different ways. She always referred to him as 'Daddy' and never as David; she was his sissy. I wanted to gag thinking about all the connotations that entailed. When talking about her breasts, they were ‘tits’ and they never talked about 'making love'—it was always ‘fucking me’, and there were always references to money as if they had earned it together. Augh! This wasn’t going to be easy.

‘Daddy,

I miss you. I need you! The cops have all my accounts and won’t let me back in. Our money is locked up, and I don’t know how to get it back. Can you get access? Should we contact PayPal? My parents are watching me go crazy. Tits hurt like crazy! I need to get out of here. Next week, you said next week, right? I want to be with you, like we were fucking in our videos.
Noozle you’z

a’

I looked at Paul and asked, “Well?”

“It looks good to me. You’re using her terms of endearment, not much content except for wanting direction, letting him know what’s going on, and of course pressing about next week. I don’t think it’s too much for a first email.”

I read it again and deleted the ‘Can you access?’, explaining to Paul that if she wasn’t getting into her account, it was likely she’d know he couldn’t either, so why ask? We both read it again, and Paul took the laptop back, saved the email to the Drafts folder, then tossed out an idea about how to capture his IP address. I didn’t understand it, but it dealt with putting a link in the email that went to a clothing store site, after capturing the user’s computer information as part of the click-redirect link.

“So, just say something about wanting to wear something from this site for him—he said he was buying clothes—give him something to look at that she would want to wear for him.”

“Like lingerie?”

“That shit always worked to get me to do it,” he said, looking embarrassed. “A lifetime ago.”

“I get it; don’t sweat it,” I said, reaching for the laptop. “Let’s see what you’d like me to wear for you; maybe it’s good enough for Amber and her 'Daddy'?”

I smiled at him and jumped into browsing in the lingerie section of the site he was going to use as some tracker to Lafleur. After a few ‘Nahs’ from Paul, we settled on a pink sheer teddy. Pink because I’d seen an email from David saying he liked a picture Amber sent him wearing pink sheer panties. Probably overkill, but the lingerie had a large underwire bra built in—maybe he could envision her enhancements nicely peeking out from the whole ensemble.

“Do you mention the size?” Paul asked.

“No, he was there; he knows what her breast size is now.”

“Yeah, good catch.”

Paul reopened the email saved to the Drafts folder, added the link and associated tracking features, and then had me add the bait around the hook. The updated email read:

‘Daddy,

I miss you. I need you! The cops have all my accounts and won’t let me back in. Our money is locked up, and I don’t know how to get it back. My parents are watching me go crazy! Tits hurt like crazy! I need to get out of here. Next week, you said next week, right? I want to be with you, like we were fucking in our video.

I want to wear this for you, Daddy. <[ link]>

Noozle you’z…

a’

We both reread it, nodded in agreement that it looked good, and Paul hit Send. I had seen a couple emails where she ended them with 'Noozle you'z'. I have no idea what that meant exactly; hopefully it was the right bait to get him talking. Time would tell.

March 12th, 5:26 p.m.
"And then the car just stopped..."

I looked up from my basket of Buffalo wings, licked a couple fingers, and gave Paul a look.

"I'm listening silly... I'm not sure why you started talking about a car chase."

We'd decided on something casual and quick for dinner, so we wouldn't be away from our test email for too long. This led to learning we both had a love for good Buffalo wings and how we ended up in an upscale bar in Scottsdale known for its Buffalo wings.
"No, something is up. What's got you tuning me out?" he asked.

OK, 'Yes'... I was tuning you out. I heard everything you said about working for Cisco Systems or whatever high-tech firm with a name that sounded like Cisco. Then you thought it would be funny to talk about a police car chase you'd seen: 'And then the car just stopped...' To the point of tuning him out – guilty. I was thinking about so many things: Amber and her trying to contact her 'Daddy' and the email from Lisa about Janet and Martin possibly breaking up the firm.

"It's nothing. I hope."

"Okay, it must be something. I don't usually bore a date so much that she tunes me out," he chuckled. "What else is rolling around between those pretty ears?"

I knew I was blushing, so I picked up my rum and Coke, taking a sip. If we're going to 'date' guess there's no harm in sharing, right?

"Okay, you asked... I got a weird email from Lisa today; I'm not sure how to process it."

"She's talking about her espresso guy again?"

A little, but not like she had a number of times in past emails she’d sent me. I wondered if some IT guy somewhere... Wait, had part of Paul checking me out included hacking into the firm's computer systems and tooling around my email? How did he know about Lisa and Bryant? He has snooped! I hadn’t picked up on it last night when he mentioned Lisa, but you dropped one too many breadcrumbs. Let’s see if he’ll share with me…

"You already know about Janet and Martin, don't you?" I asked, giving him my best stink-eye look.

Now it was Paul's turn to squirm. He reached for his beer and took a long pull before saying, "I might..."

::: --- :::

I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Bronwen Welsh in proofreading and giving me insightful advice. She is an accomplished author in her own right and I appreciate her time more than I can say...

Don't be afraid to click the "Thumbs Up" icon for this short story if it's done anything for you (you don't have to have an account to do so, and there are no prizes for most likes or payouts for that matter (I’d have bot’ed that bitch long ago if there was)). If you comment, I will reply, so let’s chat or not or whatever floats your noddle.

If there are problems or you have criticisms you'd like to share privately, feel free to message me on the site (you’ll need an account) or via email ([email protected](link sends e-mail)(link sends e-mail)(link sends e-mail)) - I'd love to address them if I can.

I'm trying to grow as a storyteller; I'm far from perfect, so any help is much appreciated and valued. Thanks for reading...

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Comments

Stories within

RachelMnM's picture

Stories... :-) Hugz to you Dorothy Colleen!

XOXOXO

Rachel M. Moore...

Interesting Events

Elizabeth is happy with the way things are going with Paul, and he's happy too and has gotten relaxed enough around her that he's let his guard down and let slip that he knows more than he should. She knows that he's looked at her, and will likely not be very upset that he'd hacked into her company (and her email) as part of that background look, but we'll have to see how it goes.

It's a shame that Amber hasn't learned her lesson, but good for the story and for Paul and Elizabeth working together for a longer time. Thanks for sharing.

Developing...

RachelMnM's picture

Paul and Elizabeth have certainly developed a chemistry, after some ups and downs... Can it last if Amber isn't their binding catalyst?

XOXOXO

Rachel M. Moore...

Hmmm

Is this a form of casting bread upon the water (Appropriate ? it is Easter) And looking for answers?
So Paul knew the very first time he met Elizabeth that she was pre-surgical TG?

Karen

Yes...

RachelMnM's picture

Yes, he knew... Jacob (and Janet / Martin) recruited Elizabeth to help locate Amber because she was a Trans woman and could make sense of the things Paul was finding. You as the reader have to decide did he check her out before knowing she was coming or after. I think, after and by all accounts he knows way more about Elizabeth than she'd care for him to know - her dark side.

XOXOXO

Rachel M. Moore...

Great story!

Good writing, a well balanced blend of Elizabeth's struggles and a crime story. Plenty to keep me interested. Thanks so much!

Cindy.

Cindy Jenkins

Thank You Cindy...

RachelMnM's picture

This one is a little different for me... Love writing it, just wish I had more time. :-)

XOXOXO

Rachel M. Moore...

As always

following with interest.

A lot to...

RachelMnM's picture

Follow... Pile any more on Elizabeth's plate and things could go crashing down. Thanks for following!

XOXOXO

Rachel M. Moore...

Legal Trap #9

Nice to see Elizabeth and Paul getting closer and I love the mystery element about Daddy, oh and the legal team mystery also. What is going on there I wonder. I think Amber just wants what Amber wants and she knows where it is going to lead but wants it anyway but we will see. Thanks for this it is a nice storyline.

Some nice...

RachelMnM's picture

Some not so nice stuff going on... The 'Daddy' thing - can that get worse?! The firm being broken up? And Elizabeth with Paul - can it last? The answers are coming... :-)

XOXOXO

Rachel M. Moore...

Will it take actual experience?

Jamie Lee's picture

Amber has a really strong "won't happen to me" attitude. Her need for affection and validation as a new woman is so strong nothing Elizabeth told her made any difference. "Daddy loves me," period! End of story.

Amber doesn't understand what she's getting into. She doesn't understand what her "Daddy" has in store for her. What she believes will happen may be turned upside down when "Daddy" pimps her out to others who have his tastes. Or worse.

As Paul and Elizabeth work together, she's revealing more information about herself Paul wouldn't find with his snooping. He now knows she has more knowledge about computers than she first let on--her suggestions on how to get that pigs' IP address and a few other things.

The Carsons are worried about Amber, but she is of legal age. If they want to keep her safe and from leaving they need to get a lawyer involved and either have her committed for psychological evaluation, or put her in a room in the house with only one entrance and exit and lock the door.

How does Paul know about the firm breaking up? Did he snoop or did he hear it from Jacob?

Others have feelings too.

All great observations...

RachelMnM's picture

Amber is young, impatient, and missing something she was able to find on the internet. Unfortunately - not the best place to find the stuff she really needs... Paul can only snoop so much, so learning things from Liz as they go is really a more natural way of doing it... Does Paul know about the firm breaking up? You'll have to keep reading! :-)

XOXOXO

Rachel M. Moore...

I sense . . .

Emma Anne Tate's picture

That Paul is about to spill a whole bag of beans! About time, too.

Really enjoying this, Rachel!

Emma

Keep an eye on...

RachelMnM's picture

Paul. He's got some some skills and is a pretty solid guy. :-)

XOXOXO

Rachel M. Moore...