Page 26 of Kidnapped in Dark Waters
They all came inside where Daniel sat in the recliner facing Dominique on the sofa and the other two men stood on either side of him.
“Hi, Dominique,” he greeted her softly. “Are you okay?”
“As okay as I can be,” she replied.
“Luke told me a little bit of what was going on, but I want you to tell me exactly what happened,” Daniel said as he pulled a notepad from his pocket.
As she once again relayed the afternoon event, Luke’s muscles tensed up all over again. He wanted to find the man and beat the hell out of him for touching her…for frightening her so badly. He wanted the man in jail for what he’d done to her.
Once she was finished telling Daniel what had happened, Daniel began to ask her questions. “You didn’t see him at all?”
She shook her head. “By the time I got free of the bag over my head, he was gone.”
“Did you smell anything? Maybe cologne or something else?” Daniel asked. She paused for a long moment and then shook her head.
“All I smelled was the burlap of the bag,” she replied.
“Well, it’s obvious the note that was left for you is connected to this. I would guess he intended to kidnap you,” Daniel said. His words shot a new fear for her through Luke.
Daniel continued to question her, including asking her where, in the swamp, this encounter had taken place. Once he had a good idea of that, he sent Clay and Roger out to see if they could find anything that might help them identify the perp. If they were lucky, he might have dropped something that would give them some clarity.
Once they left, Daniel continued questioning Dominique. “I want you to think of any man who has been giving you attention lately. Not only in your personal life, but in your work life as well.”
“There’s nobody in my personal life except Luke,” she replied.
“What about at the café?”
She frowned. “I’ve got three regulars who instantly come to mind. They are flirty with me, but it’s all in good fun. I can’t imagine any of them being responsible for this.”
“Names?” Daniel asked.
Another frown tugged across her forehead. “There’s Burt Stanfield. Second is Austin Colbert and the third is Jacob Benoit. They’re all regulars of mine and they all flirt with me, but it’s nothing deep and I still just can’t imagine one of them attacked me this afternoon.”
Daniel wrote the names down. “The three of them are a good place to start my investigation. We’ll check out their alibis for the afternoon and see what we come up with.” He looked up at herat her once again. “What about old boyfriends? Who was the last person you dated?”
“Oliver LeBoeuf, but that was almost a year ago,” she replied.
“Who broke up with whom?” Daniel asked.
“I broke things off with him, but we parted on a friendly basis. I can’t imagine him being behind all this, either,” she protested. “This is all my fault,” she added miserably, the words surprising Luke.
“How on earth could it have been your fault?” he asked incredulously.
“I should have been more aware. I should have heard him come up behind me long before he was close enough to put a burlap bag over my head. But I was into my own head and distracted. Had I been paying more attention this probably wouldn’t have happened.”
“That’s not true,” Luke said, jumping to her defense. “No way should you take on any responsibility for what happened to you.”
“And I definitely agree with Luke,” Daniel added. “Nobody is responsible for the attack on you except the perpetrator, and I promise you I’m going to do everything in my power to find out who that is as quickly as possible.”
Dominique opened her mouth as if to say something, but then she grasped the locket that Luke now knew from one of their previous conversations held some of her mother’s ashes, and bit her bottom lip.
Luke could guess what she wanted to say. Daniel had promised the very same thing concerning her mother’s murder and here it was a little over two months later with nobody in jail for the crime.
At that moment, the door opened and Clay and Roger returned. Clay carried with him a large burlap bag. “We found it right in the area where Dominique told us she’d been attacked.”
“Did you find anything else around that area?” Daniel asked.
“No, nothing more,” Roger replied.
