Given what had happened to his coworker Andy’s fiancée, Narelle, and how she’d almost been taken by sex traffickers, he wanted to cover all bases. Although most traffickers never took someone high profile, their targets were generally people who wouldn’t be missed.
“How do you cope with it all?” He opened the direct messages. There were so many that it would take him a while to get through them. Tonight, would be one of those nights where he spent it in front of a computer, with endless cups of coffee.
“You learn to ignore it. As I said, I tend not to look at my direct messages. Nothing good can come of doing so. Plus, it comes with the territory, and with all the social media around, everyone is accessible these days. The public feel closer to famous people now, more than they have in the past.”
Because of his past job as an SAS soldier, having a social media presence was never a good idea. After looking at Indigo’s, it reinforced his plan to stay well away from it all.
“They leave a digital footprint, that’s the only good thing I can see with social media, especially in situations like this.”
“What do you mean?” She leaned forward, as though keen to hear what he had to say.
“Every interaction, even when deleted, is still floating around. There are ways to get into the backend of people’s accounts and find out what they’re doing.” Wilt had long ago left his inhibitions about invading peoples’ privacy when they were dirtbags.
“Are you saying that you’ll be able to locate who sent me that threat?”
“I’m not going to outright say yes, because they could be very savvy with the computer and hide their footprints, but even the best users are fallible and make mistakes.”
“But not you?” Her eyebrow rose up, and she pursed her lips, clearly teasing him.
He laughed. “I make plenty of mistakes. I made one with you,” he finished quietly.
“Maybe. Is there anything there?” She pointed to her phone.
He’d been so caught up in talking that he hadn’t looked at the messages. At least five had come in since he opened that part of the platform. He scrolled down, trying to see if he could pick out a username that wasn’t common. Or that looked like someone was trying to hide their identity. Problem was, there was so many, and none of them matched the email address of the person who’d sent the threat through to Zara. Not that he could see.
“Hard to tell. It’s going to take some time. I think I’m going to have to look at them all.”
“That’s going to take hours. Do any names match the person who sent the threat?”
“Not yet.”
Indigo yawned and looked at her watch. “Are you planning on staying here all night?”
“Do you want me to?” He could easily work here as he could at his own bungalow. He just needed to get his laptop.
“Given you still haven’t told me what the threat was, I only have to assume it’s really bad.”
He hadn’t been consciously withholding that information, but he could see how she would think that. “The person said that you’d taken the job off a more deserving model, and that it would be very easy to mar your face and your body without anyone being able to stop them. They finished off with this:Better be careful with what you eat and drink. You never know what you might find. Or what might happen.”
“Whoa. I don’t think I’ve ever had a comment about taking a job off another model on any of my posts, let alone twisted into a threat. I have to admit the food and drink thing is concerning.”
“Exactly.” Anyone could be paid to slip something into Indigo’s meals. While he had the program running to check her messages to see if there were any suspicious ones, he was going to make arrangements to ensure food and drinks for the rest of the trip was under their control and no one else’s.
Before they’d left, Jeffrey had said he would work with him on it, too. It would take some managing, but they were going to make sure that whoever prepared the food weren’t the type to be easily influenced to taint it.
Wilt seriously doubted the person making the threats actually had the means to affect the food and drinks they consumed, but he wasn’t going to brush it off lightly.
What concerned him was the physical threat to Indigo. There were many ways and opportunities for someone to cause injury to her.
“Why is this happening to me again? I’m a good person.” Indigo’s quiet plea pulled him out of his thoughts. Going against everything he’d lectured himself earlier about, he pulled Indigo up from where she sat on the couch and hugged her.
This was something she needed. The human contact, to know she wasn’t alone in this situation. That she had him at her back, and he would watch it as diligently as he watched his teammate’s backs.
She tucked her arms around him and buried her face in his chest. Her body melting against his.
This shouldn’t feel so comfortable, so natural, but it did.
“I’ve got you. It’s going to be okay. I’ll put a plan in place to ensure we have every base covered. Every contingency I can think of, I’ll have a plan for.”
